St. John's, Newfoundland & Labrador
Site#YYC-7607
DescriptionReferred to as "North America's Oldest City", St. John's is the oldest settlement in North America to hold city status, with year-round settlement beginning sometime before 1620. It is not, however, the oldest surviving English settlement in North America or Canada, as is often wrongly believed, with Cupids (originally called Cuper's Cover), founded in 1610, Bristol's Hope, founded in 1618, and possibly Harbour Grace ion declares that the city earned its name when explorer John Cabot became the first European to sail into the harbour, on June 24, 1497 — the feast day of Saint John the Baptist.[9] However, the exact locations of Cabot's landfalls are disputed. A series of expeditions to St. John's by the Portuguese in the Azores followed in the early 16th century, and by 1540 French, Spanish and Portuguese ships crossed the Atlantic annually to fish the waters off the Avalon Peninsula. In the Basque Country, it is a common belief that the name of St. John's was given by Basque fishermen because the bay of St. John's is very similar to the Bay of Pasaia in the Basque Country, where one of the fishing towns is also called St. John (in Spanish, San Juan).Plaque commemorating Gilbert's founding of the British EmpireThe earliest record of the location appears as São João on a Portuguese map by Pedro Reinel in 1519. When John Rut visited St. John's in 1527 he found Norman, Breton and Portuguese ships in the harbour. On August 3, 1527, Rut wrote a letter to King Henry on the findings of his voyage to North America; this was the first known letter sent from North America. St. Jehan is shown on Nicholas Desliens' world map of 1541 and San Joham is found in João Freire's Atlas of 1546. It was during this time that Water Street was first developed, making it the oldest street in North America.
On August 5, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed the area as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. At the time, he found 16 English ships with 20 French and Portuguese vessels using the harbour; at the time, settlement had developed on the north side of the harbour. There was no permanent English settler population, however, and Gilbert was lost at sea during his return voyage, thereby ending any immediate plans for settlement. The Newfoundland National War Memorial is located on the waterfront in St. John's, at the purported site of Gilbert's landing and proclamation.
By 1620, the fishermen of England's West Country had excluded other nations from most of the east coast. In 1627, St. John's was "the principal prime and chief lot in all the whole country". The resident population grew slowly in the 17th century, but St. John's was by far the largest settlement in Newfoundland when English naval officers began to take censuses around 1675. Every summer the population swelled with the arrival of migratory fishermen. In 1680, fishing ships (mostly from South Devon) set up fishing rooms at St. John's, bringing hundreds of Irish men into the port to operate inshore fishing boats.
The town's first significant defenses were probably erected due to commercial interests, following the temporary seizure of St. John's by the Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter in June 1665. Regardless of the identity of those who built the defenses, the inhabitants were able to fend off a second Dutch attack in 1673. The British government began to plan fortifications around 1689, and these were constructed following the retaking of St. John's after the French admiral Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captured and destroyed the town late in 1696. The French attacked St. John's again in 1705 and captured it in 1708, and devastated civilian structures with fire before withdrawing.
Water Street, St. John's (2005)The harbour remained fortified through most of the 18th and 19th century. The final battle of the Seven Years' War in North America (the French and Indian War) was fought in 1762 in St. John's. Following a surprise capture of the town by the French early in the year, the British responded, and at the Battle of Signal Hill, the French surrendered St. John's to British forces under the command of Colonel William Amherst.
The eighteenth century saw major changes in Newfoundland: population growth, beginnings of government, establishment of churches, reinforcement of commercial ties with North America and development of the seal, salmon and Grand Banks fisheries. St. John's grew slowly, and although it was still primarily a fishing station, it was also a garrison, a centre of government and, increasingly, a commercial hub. St. John's served as a naval base during both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
Shanawdithit, the last known individual of Newfoundland's indigenous Beothuk people, died in a St. John's hospital of tuberculosis in 1829.
The core of the city was destroyed by fire several times, the most famous of which was the Great Fire of 1892.
Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in St. John's on December 1901 from his wireless station in Poldhu, Cornwall.
U.S. Army troops on guard in St. John's in 1942St. John's was the starting point for the first non-stop transatlantic aircraft flight, by Alcock and Brown in a modified Vickers Vimy IV bomber, in June 1919, departing from Lester's Field in St. John's and ending in a bog near Clifden, Connemara, Ireland.] In July 2005, the flight was duplicated by American aviator and adventurer Steve Fossett in a replica Vickers Vimy aircraft, with St. John's International Airport substituting for Lester's Field (now an urban and residential part of the city).
During the Second World War, the harbour supported Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy ships that were engaged in anti-submarine warfare. It was also the site of a American Army Air Force base that was established as part of the "Lend-Lease" agreement between the UK and USA. The base was transferred to Canadian control in 1960 and is now known as CFS St. John's.