‘The year without a summer’
(Reproduced from “Through Trackless Labrador”, 1911).
“The spring seal-fishery of 1817 was an unusual failure owing to the severity of the weather, the whole coast being shut up by fields of ice, stopping all navigation for nearly three months. The vessels fitted out for that fishery were prevented from putting out to sea at the proper season.”
Historian Charles Pedley, 1863, quoting from a report by Newfoundland Governor Pickmore to the Secretary of State in London.
In many of the history sources for the early years of the 19th century there are references to 1816 as “the year without a summer”. I have found a few without even trying. So, what happened? Contrary conditions like we experienced in eastern Newfoundland throughout July 2015? Well, in April of 1815 Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted. The extent of the blast was mind-numbing. Before the eruption the mountain was 14,000 feet in height. After the eruption, it was 8,930. More than 5,000 feet of mountain top (volcano rim) were blown to kingdom come!
That blast released into the planet’s atmosphere an encircling cloud that in places is said to have appeared to dim the sun’s power. It is known to have affected North America. As the eruption caused different environmental reactions it may well have been the cause of our failed seal fishery the ensuing year. And regrettably, those were times when the seal fishery was crucial player to our wellbeing.
Historian Daniel Prowse records that the winter commencing in late 1817 experienced a frost “that sealed up the whole coast” ... the unusual cold led to over-heating of homes and so the outbreak of house fires.
The spectre of famine raised its head as our most important mode of transportation was
badly interrupted. We could not bring in enough food to supply normal wants. In one instance, men aboard a ship stuck in ice offshore crawled in to Renews, lnear-starving and suffering from hypothermia. They could not avoid imposing themselves upon an already suffering community. Robbery, hijacking of stores (whether on ships or in commercial premises), piracy and vandalism descended upon us.
The fact that we persevered to continue the fight against our climate is surely a measure of the kind of DNA our forbears carried.
A sense of humour still intact
No one expected William (Bill) Neal, 101, to break into song on Monday, July 18th. as he offered snippets of memory from his school days here some 90 years ago.
Speaking before a small group of Old Feildians gathered for lunch at The Golden Phoenix last week, Neal spoke entirely from memory and at one point recalled the songs school boys were taught in the 1920s:
Did ye ken John Peel with his coat so grey? Did ye ken John Peel at the break o’ day? Did ye ken John peel when he’s far, far away
With his hounds and his horn in the mornin’?
— that infectious old tune took over. Neal’s voice was still strong as he sang a line or so to give his audience the idea.
William Neal was born in St. John’s in 1915. His family operated a grocery wholesaling business — a company where, once his schooling was done, he would make his career for some 60 years.
A ready sense of humour has accompanied him through life. It is an attribute he believes is as good as medicine.
“I intended to come here today to speak off the cuff” he told the old Feildians, and then checking the sleeves of his sweater he joked “but I think I’ve left my cuffs at home!”
His earliest education was at the Presbyterian College in St. John’s, an institution now long gone. With no notes to jog his memory (“an essential” for even younger speakers) Neal recounted five schools in total which he had attended. At age 14 he had been sent to St. Andrew’s in Ontario.
One of his schools in St. John’s was Feild Hall, the precursor to the Bishop Feild College on Bond Street today (construction of which was completed in 1928). As a young school boy he remembered Feild Hall as “dark and dingy” with the washrooms accessed by going outside and into another structure.
“Athletics”, Neal recalled, were limited to climbing and swinging on a rope behind Feild Hall, but they also “enjoyed steeplechase”. He recalled two headmasters, (Rev.) R.R. Wood “and George House” (he said, pointing to one of his audience, “the grandfather of Doug House, sitting there!”)
Despite the five different schools which he attended (including Bishop Spencer College which, in time became exclusively a girls’ school) and where he enjoyed being a member of the Scouts’ Wolf Cub Pack, he said he gained most of his education “in the school of hard knocks” — in business with its changing challenges from 1932 when he joined, to the early 1990s when the downtown property was sold.
Before winding up his brief address, Neal recalled another song which included the words, “I looked out over Jordan and what did I see? A band of angels coming after me!” And with typical humour, suggested to a thoroughly attentive group, that he was confident that soon there would be a band of angels “coming after me”!
“In one instance, men aboard a ship stuck in ice offshore crawled in to Renews, lnear-starving and suffering from hypothermia. They could not avoid imposing themselves upon an already suffering community.”