Newfoundland's Grand Banks Message Board

I'm looking for information on my wife's paternal Grandmother, Sarah Jane Bradbury. According to the 1921 census she was born in Boat Harbour around 1877. She married James Leyden, who was born in Cape Charles and she died in Lewisporte in 1959. Their son Curtis Morley Leyden was my wife's father

The story goes that she was taken north on her father's fishing boat each season when he went to Labrador. He would drop her off in Cape Norman where she would stay with a family called Campbell who were lighthouse keepers, until he returned. Why she couldn't stay at home I do not know, maybe her mother had died.

One year he failed to return and she was brought up by the Campbells.

I wrote to the school at Cook's Harbour a few years ago to see if they had any attendance records but didn't even get an acknowledgement, far less a reply.

Can any one help me? or have any suggestions where I might look

George Smith

This is my second attempt to reply, hopefully will get it this time. The family of Joseph Woodward relocated to Boat Harbour in 1905 in pursuit of fishing rooms that had been abandoned by Bradbury and Butt families. They were informed of the opportunity by a daughter who had worked as a servant for the Bradbury family the previous year before returning to Bear Cove. There is one Bradbury buried in Cooks Harbour, there may be more, there are many unmarked graves in the old cemetery. It was assumed the Bradbury family moved to Labrador to be closer to their summer fishing grounds. The Campbells ran the Cape Norman lighthouse for many generations and were very close to residents of Boat Harbour and Cooks Harbour, they still reside in the area.

Many thanks for your reply, what is fact and what is fiction is very difficult to judge. What does surprise me is that the Bradbury family employed a servant. I have always assumed that the fishermen families in Newfoundland were dirt poor and perpetually in debt to the fish merchants.
Thanks once again - George Smith

Sara is also my great-great grandmother..I sent you an email telling you what I have...

I remember Uncle Curt in Lewisporte..My mothers father was his brother Wallace