Page Three

Very little written record of the earliest years of Lance Cove has survived but, luckily, a good deal of tradition has.  By fitting the available pieces together, one can obtain a reasonably accurate picture of life there in those olden days, of the pioneers, the kind of men and women they were, and the way in which they won their daily bread.

The first actual person whom tradition associates with Lance Cove is a man by the name of English who settled there around 1750 and remained until around 1762.  In that year the French fleet, under the command of admiral de Ternay; assisted by several hundred  soldiers, captured St. Johns.  Despite the fact that the occupants offered little resistance, the French treated them very harshly.  Only Roman Catholics were permitted to remain in the town and the Protestants  were driven into banishment.  The Rev'd Edward Longman, Church of England incumbent at the time, being too ill to join the unhappy exodus, was obliged to remain behind and witness the plundering of his home and church and confiscation of his property.⁸   English very likely heard about this event from the fleeing Protestants; being himself a member of that faith and fearing the consequences of being made a prisoner of war of the king of France, he "piled" his few belongings on board his sturdy little "shallop" and set sail for Bay de Verde.

The French occupancy of St. John's was of very brief duration.  Unable to resist the onslaught of the angered Newfoundlanders, now organized under the command of Captain Graves, they were put to flight and the dispersed Protestants returned once more to their homes.  English, for reasons which can never now be known, decided to remain at Bay de Verde.  He is an ancestor of Mr. Arthur English, a well known Newfoundlander, who used to be curator of the Newfoundland Museum.

Lance Cove was not to remain unclaimed for very long  and the next person to appear on the scene is another Englishman by the name of Greely,⁹ perhaps the same "Graley" whose name appears in the Portugal Cove census of 1794-95.  Greely, recognizing the  rich soil and the sheltered location of the spot, staked out a claim of one square mile, which is just about the full extent of the cove, and proceeded to establish a fruit farm.  Possibly many of the fruit trees which flourished there in every kitchen garden  in later years owed their origin to this man’s vision and industry.  James Pitts must have offered a goodly sum to obtain this claim, but that he did obtain it there is no doubt, for at this point we pass from the misty realm of tradition into the realm of recorded history.  The story of James Pitts and his adventurous exploits is by far the most interesting chapter in the early history of Lance Cove.  Many attempts have been made to link this man's ancestry back into the ranks of the British aristocracy but we can only be sure that he was a man of some means and considerable ability.

8.  History of the Church in Newfoundland.  F.M. Buffett. p.13 

9.  Daily News. Dec 12, 1921