Town of Burlington

The People

In 1855 when Mr. Joseph Green went to Shoe Cover from St. John’s, there was one family living in North West Arm (later renamed to Burlington) -this was the family of Mr. White. There is no record to who Mr. White was, where he came from nor where he went to after he left. When Mr. Green took his family to North West Arm the following year, there was a month before Mrs. Green saw another woman, so it had seemed that Mr. White and his family had left. The next family who arrived to this growing town was the Mills family from Tizzard’s Harbour. Shortly after the Mills’, the Perry family came from Indian Islands. The Dwyer family moved in from Hillview, Trinity Bay and the Robbins family came from Bonavista.

The first Government Land Grant was issued to Mr. George Marsh in 1872. This land was located in Winter House Cove (pictured to the left -what is now called Perry’s Cove) on the south side of the Arm. Mr. Frederick Martin’s grant was dated 1874, as is that of James Young. Subsequent grants were issued until the final one in 1924. In total there were 45 grants of land which covered about 199 acres.

From the Census Returns dating back as far as 1874, we find that the people cultivated the land, kept animals, and followed the inshore fishery as well as the Labrador Fishery. They cut and sawed lumber, built houses, schools and churches. They cut firewood and sold it to people living in places such as Twillingate, where firewood was scarce even in those days.

The original last names have changed greatly since the beginning of
this town. Original names include:

• Marsh
• Hudson
• Pike
• Higgins
• House
• Milley
• Green
• Jennings
• Robbins

Many of these names are not found in Burlington any longer and have been replaced with such names as Foster, Moores, Goudie, Kelly, Elliot, Saunders, Lush, Burton and Mitchell. There was a George Moores on the original list of land grantees but there is no connection with the present Moores families now living in Burlington.

There is very little information available about the White Family – the first family to settle in North West Arm. It seems that this family had left around 1856 but must have been living there for some years previous to this date. He told Mr. Green that when he first arrived, the forest was burnt wood. When Mr. Green moved to the area, he recorded that there was ‘plenty of green, growing timber’. Using the simple logic of it takes 50 years for a tree to become large enough to be considered timber, this places the first around 1800 with Mr. White and his family moving in the area shortly after.

In old marriage records at Nipper’s Harbour, it shows there was a marriage between Azarilla Mills and Mary Ann White and is dated October 31st 1883. F. White is listed as a witness to the marriage. Past residents thought that these were some relation to the first White family that settled in North West Arm.

In 1884, James Albert Rideout came to North West Arm. He was the son of Joseph Rideout. James married Elizabeth Bartlett of Tilt Cove, daughter of William Bartlett and Martha Mills. Martha Mills was the sister of Abraham Mills who pioneered schooner building in North West Arm. He and his four brothers, George, Ambrose, Joseph and Nathaniel had come to Burlington just after the Green family. Sadly, Abraham and Joseph drowned in December of 1882, along with William Mills, William Young, William Milley and William Gosse. The schooner building industry was taken over by Abraham’s son Eliezer and in turn by his son Abraham-who is recorded to have died in 1971.

Today, the eldest person living in Burlington is Mrs. Levina Rideout who was born May 19th 1914, followed by Mr. Claude Lush who was born on November 11th 1918.