The background photo shows the waterfront area, around which much of the conflict centred. This view, desolate and at an odd angle, suggests destruction and aftermath of war.

The inset photos and graphics highlight elements of warfare and engagement at Ferryland.

Theme Text
English privateers fought a war with Spain and Portugal, c. 1580-1610, to establish an English Shore in Newfoundland. In 1629 Calvert hired ships to fight the French privateer de la Rade and naval warfare flared again during the English Civil War of the 1640s. Ferryland escaped damage in the 1665 Dutch war but waterfront destruction shows that the Pool area was burned in a later Dutch attack of 1673.

Britain and France fought two wars between 1688 and 1713. Captain William Holman organized a successful defense when the French attacked Ferryland in 1694 but a Franco-Canadian force returned late in 1696 to devastate the English Shore, starting with Ferryland. Although settlement was briefly extinguished, the "Constant Inhabitants of Ferryland" petitioned for help and settlement was quickly restored.

Star Artifact

Cannon Balls. These and dozens of others rained down on the Waterfront Premises at the Pool, during the Dutch raid of 1673 and the devastating French attack in 1696. In the spring of 1697 all of Ferryland lay in ruins while its inhabitants waited in exile to return home. (CgAf-2: 46757 49517 67531 87181, Waterfront, 1670-1700)

Display Case
See Artifact List.

French Normandy Coarse Stoneware Jug - CgAf-2: 47749 50530 51301, Waterfront, 1650-1700

Melted Ceramic Pot Sherd - CgAf-2: 38865 - Planter House, date uncertain

Lead Bird Shot - CgAf-2: 133118 - Smithy 1622-1650

J. Clappe and others, Petition, 1697 Great Britain, Public Record Office, CO 194/1 (6),14. In 1697 43 Newfoundland refugees, calling themselves "the Constant Inhabitants of Ferriland" petitioned King William III for help in returning home from their exile in Appledore, a tiny West Country fishing village, near Bideford in North Devon.

Drawer 1

Ballast Flint Core Used to Make Gunflints - CgAf-2: 146902, Waterfront, date uncertain

Weapons and Ammunition - 17th century weapons needed frequent repair, while soldiers (and hunters) needed gunflints and shot. Artifacts recovered from the Smithy suggest that in times of peace planters turned to the smith to repair jammed muskets and even to make gunflints, sometimes from the flint nodules that arrived as part of ships' ballast.
See Artifact List.

Drawer 2

Axe with Stone Concretions - CgAf-2: 61935 - Waterfront, 1670s

A French Presence - Burned artifacts from contexts dating to 1696 bear mute testimony to the destruction of Ferryland during that terrible time. French artifacts in these contexts probably relate to this attack. Material from other contexts may reflect earlier peaceful trade by the settlers of the English Shore and the French who fished in Placentia Bay.
See Appendix 1 for Artifact List

Drawer 3
Records of War

Captain William Holman, "An account of Captain William Holman's charge in Defending the Harbour of Ferryland in the Newfoundland against the French, the first of August 1694-,17 September, 1696. (Great Britain, Public Record Office, CO 194/1 (78ii), 145.) Transcribed by P.E. Pope.

Abbe Jean Baudoin, extracts from "Journal du voyage que j'ayfait aver M.D'Iberville...", 10 November, 1696 to 19 November, 1696. (France, Archives des Colonies, AC Clld, vol. 3,f. 170.) Transcribed by Alan F. Williams, Father Baudoin's War (St. John's, 1987), translated by P.E. Pope.

© 1999, Colony of Avalon Foundation.

Revised March 2002.