Early history (1500–1799) St. John's was used by fishermen setting up seasonal camps in the early 1500s.
Sebastian Cabot declared in a handwritten Latin text in his original 1545 map that St. John's earned its name when he and his father, the Venetian explorer
John Cabot, in the service of England, became the first Europeans to sail into the harbour, on the morning of 24 June 1494 (per British and
French historians, in 1497), the feast day of Saint
John the Baptist. A series of expeditions to St. John's by Portuguese from the Azores took place in the early 16th century, and by 1540, French, Spanish and Portuguese ships crossed the Atlantic annually to fish the waters off the
Avalon Peninsula. In the
Basque Country, it is a common belief the name of St. John's was given by Basque fishermen because the bay of St. John's is very similar to the Bay of
Pasaia in the Basque Country, where one of the fishing towns is called St. John (in Spanish, San Juan, and in
Basque, Donibane). On 5 August 1583, an English
Sea Dog, Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, claimed the area as England's first overseas colony under
Royal Charter of
Queen Elizabeth I. There was no permanent population, however, and Gilbert was lost at sea during his return voyage, thereby ending any immediate plans for settlement. In 1627, William Payne, called St. John's "the principal prime and chief lot in all the whole country". Sometime after 1630, the town of St. John's was established as a permanent community. Before this, English fishermen were expressly forbidden by the English government, at the urging of the West Country fishing industry, to establish permanent settlements along the English-controlled coast. The population grew slowly in the 17th century: St. John's was Newfoundland's largest settlement when English naval officers began to take censuses around 1675. In the late 1700s,
Fort Amherst and
Fort Waldegrave were built to defend the harbour entrance.
The oldest European settlement in Anglophone North America controversy There has been some controversy regarding which European settlement is the oldest in Anglophone North America. As mentioned above, while English fishermen had set up seasonal camps in St. John's in the 16th century, they were expressly forbidden by the English government, at the urging of the West Country fishing industry, to establish permanent settlements along the English-controlled coast. As a result, the town of St. John's was not established as a permanent community until after the 1630s. the
Cuper's Cove colony at
Cupids in Newfoundland (1610),
St. George's, Bermuda (1612), and the
Bristol's Hope colony at
Harbour Grace in Newfoundland (1618). Each of these English settlements were far later than other European settlements in North America, such as
St. Augustine, Florida established by Spain in 1565.
Modern history (1800–present) On 24 April 1800, the
"United Irish Uprising" occurred when 19 Irish soldiers who were part of the British garrison stationed in Newfoundland
mutinied. The mutineers, who were suspected to be members of the
Society of United Irishmen, fled to the countryside after the mutiny failed, and were apprehended in a matter of weeks and
court-martialled. Of the 17 mutineers captured, 8 were executed, 4 were let go while 5 were sentenced to
penal transportation. The 18th century saw major changes in Newfoundland: population growth, beginnings of government, establishment of churches, reinforcement of commercial ties with North America and development of the
seal,
salmon and
Grand Banks fisheries. St. John's population grew slowly. Although it was primarily a fishing station, it was also a
garrison, a centre of government and a commercial hub. St. John's served as a naval base during the
American Revolutionary War and the
War of 1812. In July 2005, the flight was duplicated by American aviator and adventurer
Steve Fossett in a replica Vickers Vimy aircraft, with
St. John's International Airport substituting for Lester's Field (now an urban and residential part of the city). During the
Second World War, the harbour supported
Royal Navy and
Royal Canadian Navy ships that were engaged in
anti-submarine warfare. It was the site of an
American Army Air Force base,
Fort Pepperrell, that was established as part of the "
Lend-Lease"
Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United Kingdom and United States. The base was transferred to Canadian control in 1960 and is now known as
CFS St. John's. The
Knights of Columbus Hostel fire in December 1942 saw 99 military and civilian lives lost. St. John's, and the province as a whole, was gravely affected in the 1990s by the
collapse of the northern
cod fishery, which had been the driving force of the provincial economy for hundreds of years. After a decade of high unemployment rates and depopulation, the city's proximity to the
Hibernia,
Terra Nova and
White Rose oil fields led to an
economic boom that spurred population growth and commercial development. As a result, the St. John's area now accounts for about half of the province's
economic output. As of 2012, St. John's contained 21
National Historic Sites of Canada.
Fires St. John's was destroyed by major fires in 1816, 1817, 1819, 1846 and 1892, when each time a large part of the city was destroyed. The most famous was the
Great Fire of 1892. On 12 February 1816: ...about eight o'clock, a fire broke out in a house in a part of the town in St. John's in Newfoundland known by the name of the King's Beach, and speedily communicated to the houses adjoining, and burnt with so much fury, that one hundred and twenty houses, the homes of about a thousand men, women, and children, were consumed before the conflagration was stayed. There were two citywide fires in 1817 "known jointly as 'The Great Fire of 1817'". Then in 1819 fire "destroyed 120 houses". There was
a further major fire in 1846, which started at the shop of a cabinetmaker named Hamlin, located on George Street off Queen Street, when a glue pot boiled over. The fire spread along Water and Duckworth Streets destroying all of the buildings in its path aided by the large quantities of seal oil that were stored in the merchants' premises. The fire was also aided by an attempt to blow up a house on Water Street which scattered burning embers across the city. The final major conflagration of the nineteenth century began on the afternoon of 8 July 1892 atop Carter's Hill on Freshwater Road. Initially, the fire did not cause any widespread panic; however, a series of catastrophic coincidences caused the fire to spread and devour virtually all of the east end of the city, including much of its major commercial area, before being extinguished. ==Geography==