“The
Firs”
River and
Ocean Front Property
Approximately 150
acres
(162 acres
less what was expropriated for the construction of the Viking Trail)
Located
on
Big East
River
Hawkes
Bay
Notes on the
historic provenance of this property to follow
Photo c. 1925
showing “The Firs” which was operated by WW I flying ace and pioneer aviator in
Newfoundland, Sidney Cotton
Located close to the town of Hawke's Bay on the Great Northern Peninsula,
Newfoundland
The
Town of Hawke's Bay is situated at the mouth of the Torrent River, nestled at
the end of beautiful inland Ingornachoix Bay.
Combined with the towns of Port Saunders and Hawkes Bay the Ingornachoix
Region is a major service centre for the central area of the Great Northern
Peninsula. The town is is centrally located on the
Viking Trail between Gros Morne National
Park and L'anse aux Meadows National Historic Site,
and just three hours from Red Bay National
Historic Site, in southern Labrador.
There are 7 salmon rivers within 120 km
stretch of highway. They are Portland Creek, River of Ponds, Little Brook Pond,
Torrent River, Big East, Castor River and St. Genevieve
Hawke's Bay was named in1766 by Captain James
Cook to honour British Admiral Edward Hawke and his great navel victory over
the French Fleet at Quiberon Bay in 1759. With two
major rivers, The Torrent and Big East, and excellent sports fishing, Hawke's
Bay became a favored enclave for tall ships from both the British and French
navies during the struggle for control of North America.
The first known permanent settler was Michael Walsh in the early 1900's. There
was no resident population until then due to the proximity of the coast for
fishing purposes. In addition the area was considered remote. A whaling factory
was established in 1903 on the north side of the bay, but due to decline in
whale oil it closed the following year.
Hawke's Bay played a part in early aviation
circles as one of the stops on the "First Round the World Flight" by
US Army Services in 1924. The first Air Mail service in Newfoundland was run
from Hawke's Bay by Major Sydney Cotton who operated a seaplane base as well as
a small hotel on the Big East River catering to American and British sportsmen.
More on Cotton later in this article.
This 162 acre parcel (reduced somewhat by
expropriation when the road was build to connect communities on the Great
Northern Peninsula)
was originally granted to John Teele
Pratt, of Brooklyn and Long Island, New York
in 1900
He was the son of Charles Pratt who managed Standard Oil.
John Teele Pratt was an American Corporate attorney,
executive at Standard Oil,
philanthropist, and financier. James Winter ended his tem as
prime Minister on March 5, 1900. Maybe Pratt rubbed shoulders with Winter and arranged the land grant. This was a time when the
government was interested in attracting investors now that the railway was
built.
Around the
turn-of-the-last-century, scores of wealthy Americans seeking a retreat from
urban industrial life built grand country estates for themselves. These
magnificent mansions were surrounded by acres of landscaped grounds. Often
modeled after English country houses, many of these properties were the work of
America's foremost architects and landscape designers. The North
Shore of Long Island was a popular location for the country estates of wealthy
New Yorkers, which became an important part of Long Island's architectural
history.
Few of these estates
remain today but one that still stands is The Manor, now called Glen Cove
Mansion, built on 55 acres in 1910 by John Teele and
Ruth Baker Pratt. It was considered by Country Life
Magazine as one of the best twelve country houses in America.
Designed by the noted architect Charles Adams Platt (1861-1933), the brick
Georgian mansion set in pastoral surroundings was an integral part of the many
glamorous estates, which once comprised Long Island's Gold Coast.
At the time that
Pratt was building this property, he was into his 10th year of
ownership of the land on Big East River in Hawkes Bay which was granted to
Pratt in 1900
At the present time there is nothing known
about Pratt’s ownership and use of the land in Hawke’s Bay. And readers of this
article should feel free to contact Chris O’Dea at cod@warp.nfld.net if they can
offer any additional information about the Pratt period of ownership. Pratt sold the
property to James Giles, (fisherman from Nipper’s harbour) in 1915. Giles sold
it to James Dodds Henry in 1919
Henry was a British geologist and journalist
and worked on matters in the oil business in Baku, Azerbaijan, an enclave on
the Southern Frontier of the Russian Empire, and said “if Oil is King, Baku is its throne” in
his book he wrote in 1905 “Baku: an eventful history”. He also wrote “Oil Fuel
and The Empire” in 1908 which contains reference to Newfoundland Apparently he
came to Newfoundland to check out the oil
opportunity at Parsons Pond, named after a Mr. Parsons who is claimed to have
eased his rheumatism with oil that seeped from the rocks around the pond. A
visiting Nova Scotian, John Silver, heard the tale
and became intrigued and he returned in 1867 and used one of the first steam
powered drills in the world to sink a well on the North side of the pond. His
activities apparently annoyed the French Navy and he left Parsons Pond in 1868
to set up a sawmill in Western Newfoundland.
Here is James Dodds
Henry with his two daughters, Ruth and Joan Henry at Parson’s Pond
And here are to five photos of activity at
Parson’s Pond, the first showing the construction of the oil derrick, the second showing the completed
derrick and the third showing the sawmill, the fourth showing the sawmill and
other premises and the fifth showing Ruth and Kathleen Knowles on top of an oil storage barrel
The Parsons Pond oil rights were owned by a
group of Newfoundlanders , who acquired the rights in
1894 under the name of The Newfoundland Oil Company. After poor results the
company was re-organized with the name Newfoundland Petroleum Company Ltd and drilling
, under management by a person by the last name of Powell was moderately
successful and this moved the company to hire American oil experts in 1905 to
assess the value of constructing a refinery. The American expert advised
against it. Newfoundland Petroleum ltd was dissolved in 1907. It was three
years later that it was taken over by Newfoundland Oilfields Company Ltd of
England with support from the Newfoundland government with the passing of “An
Act to Confirm an agreement between the Government of Newfoundland and the
Newfoundland Oilfields Company”. The Newfoundland Oilfields Company abandoned
the site in 1914. Between 1919 and 1926, referred to as the oilfields most
useful period, when General Oilfields, another English firm With a photo later
in this document showing James Dodds Henry’s two
daughters in Newfoundland in 1917, it is assumed that Henry would have been
working for General Oilfields firm, doing preliminary work prior to 1919..
Another shows Joan Cotton skiing in Hawkes bay in 1923. The General Oilfields operated
three wells and a refinery on the site until they left Parsons Pond in 1926.
One would think that James Dodds Henry would have rubbed shoulders with John Teele Pratt and Charles Pratt as they were all involved in
the rapid development of the global oil business at that time and one may muse
that John Teele Pratt may have has some connection
with the visit by Henry and he possibly put Henry on to Giles who was the owner
of the land when Henry visited Newfoundland.
James Dodds Henry
sold the property to Sidney Cotton in 1925.
James Dodds Henry’s
daughter was Millicent Joan Henry, and at 18 years of age, she married Sidney Cotton
in 1926. They divorced in 1944. Millicent Joan later remarried and became
Millicent Joan Hopkins and when in Lanark Ontario at the time of the sale, she
was Joan Millicent Hopkinson. In 1927 Sidney Cotton conveyed the 162 acres to
Millicent Joan Cotton in consideration of “natural love and affection”
Photo caption needs editing as she
was Joan Henry in 1923
The author spoke to Sam Hoddinott
and elderly gentleman in Hawkes Bay In Oct 2013. He said that there was an
expensive alpine style hotel on the site. He remembers going there when the
hotel was standing and cutting hay that they hauled out in winter by dog sleds
and horse and cart. He said that Cotton
put the hotel there to cater to salmon fishermen from England (he referenced the
name Bristol) and from the US. He said that the river was prolific with grilse,
while the adjacent river, the Torrent, had large salmon and in fact he said
that the Torrent set the record for the largest salmon ever caught , weighing
in at 38 pounds and caught in 1915
Tom patey sent me the following of photos of the River, the Cottons and the Hotel.
Louise Downer , who
lives in the Isle of Wight, is a grand daughter of Thomas Knowles Breakell and Ellen Fanny Breakell
(nee Henry). She was Joan Cotton’s aunt. Her grandfather was a flying ace, as
was Cotton and they flew over Newfoundland and landed. They subsequently met
James Doods Henry and his family with the end result
that Thomas Knowles Breakell married Henry’s older
daughter Kathleen and Sidney Cotton married younger daughter Joan>
The following photos were sent to Chris O’Dea
by Louise Downer
Sidney Cotton was aviator born in Bowen (is
that also Grandchester), North Queensland, Australia
in 1894. He fought in WW1 with the Royal Naval Air Service. In 1916 he invented
the “sidcot” flying suit and the suits were used
extensively but he did not want to be paid for his invention. In 1920, Cotton
came to NL with fellow pilotThomas Knowles Breakell in the hope of getting a contact to
spot for seals for the local sealing firms.
Thomas Knowles Breakell
married the older sister Kathleen while Cotton married James daughter ,
Millicent Joan Henry in 1926 She was 18 at the time. They divorced in 1944. He
later married a lady by the first name of Bunty. They
met in Malta and had two children, Sally-Anne and Charles .
Bunty and Sidney remained together until his death in
1969
His headstone in the Tallegella
cemetery references
three marriages and the assumption is that he was once married before he came
to Newfoundland .
While in NL, he was the first to deliver mail
to communities isolated by winter. He also surveyed forests by air for the
paper mill in grand falls. He was the first in NL to use aerial photos to make
aerial maps. He broke the winter isolation in Labrador by flying mail to
Cartwright.
He was also very innovative. He invented a
cover to keep engines warm. He used catalytic lamps under engine crankcases to
prevent freezing and equipped aircraft with winter survival gear
In Sept 1938, he left NL to undertake secret
aerial photos for intelligence departments in Paris and London
An article by Jessica Howard references Cotton as a master of aerial reconnaissance ,
an inventor of gadgets and possibly the world’s first triple agent, and was
friends with Winston Churchill, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Hermann
Goering. One of his more fateful friends was Ian Fleming as Fleming worked with
British Naval Intelligence during WW11. The two bonded over their interest in
weapons and gadgets. Cotton’s daughter, Sally-Anne Cotton, is convinced that
her father was the inspiration for the development of the James Bond character
by Ian Fleming. Scholars believe that Cotton’s love of gadgetry became the
basis of Fleming’s character “Q”
Grant to John Teele
Pratt
Asking price for this unique acreage is $169,000
For further information on the opportunity to purchase this
property, please call Chris O’Dea at 709-685-6559 or email cod@warp.nfld.net