Cuper's Cove

The island was very familiar to fisherman and explorers, especially the bays and coves on the Avalon Peninsula where many would set up temporary shelters as they prosecuted the fishery.

Given the failure of Walter Raleigh to establish a colony at Roanoke Island in 1584 and the successful settlement at Jamestown in 1607 and on learning that Samuel de Champlain had sailed into the St. Lawrence to initiate the settlement of New France, pressure was mounting to lay claim to the resource rich New World.

In 1610 John Guy, his brother Phillip, his brother-in-law William Colston and 38 colonists had set sail from Bristol aboard three ships.

[3] In August 1610 they made landfall in the area Guy had visited two years earlier to set about building a settlement.

John Guy had landed at Cuper's Cove in August 1610 and is described in a letter from John Guy to Sir Percival Willoughby from Cuper's Cove,[4] 6 October 1610 where it states in part: The colonists all male were made up of masons, carpenters, blacksmiths and other apprentices to build fortifications and dwellings to prepare for the coming winter.

The colonists built, along with the dwellings and support structures, six fishing vessels and a twelve tonne bark, Endeavour.

[2] Fortifications were by means of a palisade wall of local cut poles sixteen feet long set upright all around the perimeter of the settlement.

The plantation continued development and by 8 September 1612 a dwelling for Henry Crout and his ward Thomas Willoughby had begun.

One reason for his construction of the bark Indeavour was to explore nearby Trinity Bay and to make contact with the Beothuk.

They had entered Mount Eagle Bay (Hopeall) on October 22 and two days later they found several Beothuk houses in a place they called Savage Harbour located at Dildo Arm.

John Guy and his party eventually did meet with the Beothuk at a Bull Arm, where they shared gifts and a meal.

The Beothuk had lit a fire to express their willingness to trade and they also produced a white flag made from a wolf skin.