Toll of the Sea: Stories from the Forgotten Coast

Creative Publishers: St. John's, 1995

Excerpt from "Toll of the Sea" Chapter 25

Rencontre West and the Story of Effie May Often localized and intense, the lashing tails of fall hurricanes devastated areas within a hundred miles or so; yet occasionally their effects were felt all over Newfoundland. The 1927 Gale selected its victims from along the South Coast.

By 1927, the town of Rencontre West was one of the oldest and most prestigious communities west of Harbour Breton. Its name, French in origin, literally meant a 'meeting place' for the early French fishermen and settlers who had frequented the area prior to the mid-1700s. The earliest English reference to Rencontre West comes from the diary of William Epps Cormack, a Scottish explorer who walked across Newfoundland from east to west in 1822. On his return journey to St. John's by schooner, he stopped in Rencontre West and noted there were 4 families.

People lived there to fish the quiet waters of Rencontre Bay, an inlet like many on the South Coast that runs deep -- over 100 fathoms in some places. The inshore fishing areas were once prolific and the residents of Rencontre West had the best of two grounds at their doorstep with the shoal grounds fifteen miles out to sea and the waters of Rencontre Bay close at hand.

The community had a population of over 200 by the turn of the century and had become a frequent stop for American vessels looking for squid bait. From the 1890s William Webb and Sons was the chief merchant. Webb bought fish from other settlements and from his Rencontre base established a few branch businesses elsewhere on the coast. Older established families in Rencontre West included: Durnford, Ball, Buffett, Marsden, Goodridge, Stone, Simms, Cox, Parsons, Green and Spencer. Some family names indicate their Jersey Island origins: Durnford, Ball, Beauchamp, DeGruchy and Courtney.

Thomas Durnford, according to family tradition, was a planter or land owner who had moved to Rencontre West from the Jersey Islands sometime after 1850. He owned the small fishing schooner Effie May, but due to his advanced age, had given command of the schooner to his son Arthur. In August 1927, some days before the intense gale swept along the South Coast, Effie May had been to St. Pierre on dock for repair. Because of its proximity to the South Coast, the St. Pierre dock saw many local vessels needing keel replacement, bottom planking or other major repairs. As an added bonus, crews like Durnford's could pick up food and supplies at St. Pierre for good prices.

When repairs were completed, Durnford's schooner left for Rencontre West on August 24. Somewhere in the fifty miles separating the French islands from her home port, Effie May disappeared. After anxious days of waiting and wondering, the families of Rencontre West realized Arthur Durnford and the five people aboard his schooner would never be seen again.

Making the trip with Arthur Durnford, married and aged 34, were his two brothers, George and John. John's two sons went to St. Pierre for the trip: Garfield, age 12 and Frank, age 16. The Durnfords had another man from Rencontre West with them, but his name is not recorded. In time the traditional occupation associated with schooners, dory and trawl fishing of Rencontre West offered no attraction to young people and many moved away to work for regular, higher wages. Peak population of 248 was reached around 1935, but dropped steadily from that point on. By the early 1960s many people and homes were relocated and by 1969 Rencontre West was virtually abandoned. Most people -- not only from Rencontre, but also those of nearby Richard's Harbour, Parsons Harbour, Cul de Sac East, Muddy Hole and Mosquito -- resettled in Francois, Burgeo, Fortune, Marystown or Port aux Basques.

So it was that a little more than 40 years after Effie May and the other little schooners of the South Coast were swallowed by an all-too-frequent coastal storm, the schooner fishery that had its inception just prior to the 1890s, came to an end.

Today when ancestors go back to visit the old home sites, they search for locations of family dwellings, gardens and other familiar haunts. Only the eldest will envision, in the sheltered waters of Rencontre Bay, schooners like Effie May that once spread their white wings to catch the wind. The names of stalwart seamen who manned them are now written on marble stones in lonely seaside graveyards.