Topsail

We picked up our rental car (booked 5 minutes after booking our flight to ensure we got a rare and precious vehicle for the duration) and hit the road in sunshine.

Some claim to live in Paradise, but we claim to have passed it on the road, although the sign indicates Paradise is all around us, in every direction.

Even Paradise is sponsored and commercialized though...

With that little roadside philosophy in our minds, we went 5 minutes further to a seaside summer holiday town of Topsail.

And why to this little spot barely out of St. John's? Well, if I said it had something to do with my family research would you be completely surprised? 

At some point in the mid- or late-1800s, my Butler family moved from Port de Grave to Topsail. For generations there were Butlers who spent half the year Topsail where their gardens and livestock were kept, after the other half spent fishing from their homes in Port de Grave, across Conception Bay. Easy if you have a boat, and my family were always ships' captains and fishers. 

It seems my particular Butler family moved to Topsail more fully, and for many years. Perhaps to spend more time with other Butler cousins? Perhaps because the matriarch of the generation,, Priscilla passed away? I have no idea, as I could find nothing at all about my great-great-great grandmother Priscilla except her name on a couple of birth certificates in 1834 and 1836.

Poor women. Rarely mentioned in documents, never in censuses. In the early days the cattle were mentioned first! And yet they were the ones keeping the family generations going, often dying in the birthing process. So I have a soft spot for Priscilla Butler - birthdate unknown, marriage date unknown, deathdate unknown. Maybe she just doesn't want to be found.

But I did find the grave of Priscilla's husband, my great-great-great grandfather Charles Butler, 1796-1888, born in Port de Grave and died in Topsail, buried in what was the Methodist Churchyard. 

There is documentation to support the Butler family gave land for the first Methodist church there built in 1837. The original church was rebuilt in 1871, and then again in 1977 when it became the United Church. 

The imprint of the original Methodist church is still evident as a grassy patch, around which the oldest graves are located, including "my" Charles. 

Martin standing on the footprint of the original Methodist church in Topsail

Reverend Kathy Brett was there to greet me and show me the burial record. I showed her a letter one of her predecessors wrote in 1891, expressing, in rather purple prose, the extreme loss to the community invoked by my family's upcoming move to BC. I think maybe Minister Samuel Snowdon might have been laying it on a bit thick, as it was a four page epic of regretful good-byes. I hope he got over it.   

the tireless Rev. Kathy Brett of Topsail United Church

In the Anglican churchyard across the street I found the first husband of my own great-grandmother, Emma Winsor Butler Gibbeson (and later McCoskrie). His name was John Gibbeson, born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, who somehow made his way to Newfoundland, where he died aged 32 in 1885, here in Topsail, only a few months after his infant son John died. I found both their graves, the tall one of the father and the tiny one for the son. 

Infant John on the left, adult John next to him 

But can you imagine a more delightful spot to have ones bones laid to rest? On top of a hill overlooking a sweep of ocean crackling rhythmically over the pebbly beach.  

We finished our visit with a lovely country walk, passing ancient stone walls, 

a little less ancient old barn, 

and a characteristic old house with an unusual roof. 

I looked to see if there was any sign of my family's old 19th century home, of which I only have a photo of a front porch and doorway. 

Nope, long since gone. Just like the family itself.

Time to hit the road.