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Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Crant's Cove

First view of Crant's Cove

This was my first view of Crant's Cove from the seat of my kayak as I rounded the point coming from Anderson's Cove. There are no visible signs on the land that there were ever buildings here but the number of headstones made it look like this was a bustling community at one time. Not so.

Crant's Cove was settled by the families Crant and Stone. The Stones subsequently moved one cove over to the left and grew to be larger than Crant's Cove. The 1921 census of Newfoundland doesn't have a listing for Crant's Cove so it must have been inhabited by a very small number of people, maybe just the Crants themselves.

I had a quick look at the names on the headstones. They included Pope, Thornhill and Bond; all names that appear on the census for Anderson and Stone's Coves. I suspect that these communities used the land at Crant's Cove to bury their dead due to shortage of suitable land in their own communities.

If I get back here in the future I'll take more time to check more headstones.

Crant's Cove

Looking over the cove and the cemetary on the point. The cove is not very deep and doesn't offer much protection from the prevailing winds. This view is northeast.

Premium land in a rocky landscape

We had been to Anderson's Cove where it didn't look like there was much arable or flat land for raising of vegetables, yet in its day Anderson's Cove had a bigger population than Crant's Cove. After leaving this place we went to Stone's Cove where the terrain didn't look as good either. That made me wonder if protection from the sea was more important than usable land to people who settled in the area. Probably was.

Family Dominix

The name on the headstone was "Dominix"; sentinals looking southeast over the entrance to Crant's Cove. There are no names Dominix on the 1921 census for the communities in the area so they must have migrated to the area in more recent times.

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