Books

Term Paper by Bob Ryan following Interviews with Bill and Pat Morry and Based on Dad Morry's WWI Memoirs

In 1994, Bob Ryan, a student in Dr. Facey-Crowther's History 3807 class at Memorial University, prepared a paper that drew heavily upon Dad Morry's 1957 diary recounting his memories of WWI. He entitled his paper: "The Great War: A Southern Shore Soldier's Tale". It is obvious that this memoir touched him deeply and he hoped that others reading his paper would also be deeply affected by it. I have digitised a copy of the original paper using OCR software and reproduce it here as close to the original format as possible. Note that spelling, including that of people and places, is as found in the original paper and may be in error in some instances.

Forget-Me-Not Fallen Boy Soldiers Royal Newfoundland Regiment World War One - Gary F. Browne

In April of 2010 I was approached by Gary Browne to provide information with which to inform the theme of his latest book then in preparation, on the boy soldiers who fought and died as a part of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in WWI. He had read Dad Morry’s memoirs on my website and saw that several of the passages in those memoirs would be useful in accentuating certain points that he wished to make in his examination of this sad, but at the same time strangely uplifting tale of these gallant, brave, foolhardy and at times terrified young boys who were cast into the midst of the dirtiest war of all time.

I did not hesitate to offer the use of this material on behalf of the family and I felt sure that Dad Morry would have been proud to support this decision. Although he was open to telling the story of his experiences in WWI, sometimes in graphic detail, unlike many of his fellow soldiers in arms, who only wished to put these awful memories behind them, Dad Morry told his story as a cautionary tale – lest we forget. He did not glorify warfare; far from it. Dad Morry’s story is at times hard to read because it is too real and too horrible.

When I finally got my hands on a copy of Gary’s book after it was published late in 2010, I knew that my decision to share this material with him was justified. He too has told a cautionary tale, with none of the awful truth glossed over. But it was a story that had to be told and it is in fact a wonder that it took almost 90 years for it to be told.

The excerpts represent Gary’s acknowledgement of the source material taken from Dad Morry’s memoirs in the context of the story of the boy soldiers that fought and, in far too many cases, died alongside of him.

As Gary Browne indicated in his reference to Dad Morry’s time at the front, it wasn’t many months after this that he himself fell victim to the health conditions in the trenches that killed more men than enemy bullets and shells. He was invalided out to England and never returned to the front. There is some mercy and justice in this world.

Sheriff James Carter of Ferryland was somewhat of a world traveller in his later years and recorded his observations on his travels in a number of books which were published and enjoyed sufficient public interest to be reprinted at least once. In his book, In the Wake of the Setting Sun, he recorded a 'round the world trip from Newfoundland to the far east, to England and back when he was 77. Toward the end of his journey he visited places in Devon near the end of his journey that had great significance to him personally and to the Carter family. A brief excerpt of that account is included below.

This collection of some 56 stories, mostly a page or two in length, was published in 1961 by Maple Leaf Mills Limited and edited by local historian L. W. Janes. That being said, the stories are far from historically precise. In most cases, they were prepared by local people whose grasp of the facts was varied and who, for the most part, were not even credited with the chapters that they submitted so that the veracity of their submission might be judged. An annex lists scores of contributors, only some of whom were actually the authors of the stories that were eventually published in the anthology. One brief account - Chapter 40 entitled "Ferryland" - is reproduced below verbatim, partially because the subject is relevant and partially because it references Dad Morry as a source of some of the information that it contains. Suffice it to say, however, that not all the facts cited are accurate or historically correct. For example, it is implied that the Holdsworth house was formerly the home of the Calverts (Lord Baltimore). This is not so. As is now well known, Lord Baltimore's house was on the Pool across the harbour on the south side of Ferryland. Let the reader beware. The book itself was a present to me from Dad Morry for Christmas in 1963.

Click on the image of the book below to read Michael Harrington's story about the wreck of the Sigrid off Ferryland in 1903 and the bravery of the Ferryland men who risked their lives to retrieve the bodies of the crew in order to give them a decent burial. Among those mentioned in the story are William Costello, the lightkeeper who discovered first evidence of the ship wreck and his son John William Costello who, along with James Keefe (or O'Keefe) and James Keough, led the first mission to recover the body of the captain, N. Petersen from Denmark, and later other crew members.

Subsequent recoveries of bodies were made through the heroic efforts of Thomas Sullivan, Daniel and Robert Keefe, James Kavanagh, James Reid, Peter Barnable, Robert Shannahan and William Carter. Most of these valiant men were related to the Morrys directly or by marriage. Many people who visit the old Non-Denominational Cemetery that overlooks Ferryland Harbour wonder about the story behind the well maintained grave of a Danish sea captain named N. Petersen. To my knowledge this stirring story has never been published anywhere else and we owe a debt of gratitude of Michael Harrington for having done so. A side note - the book was given to me as a Christmas present in 1962 by my cousin, Dr. Peter Morry.

From: Sea Stories from Newfoundland, by Michael Harrington, Chapter 12, Pages 106-114. Published by The Ryerson Press, Toronto. 1958.

Click on the image below to read Harold Horwood's observations on Ferryland and Aquaforte in his 1969 book Newfoundland. Harold employs his legendary imagination and freedom to modify the truth or ignore it all together when it gets in the way of a good yarn. But his accounts of stories about the Morrys and Carters in Ferryland based on what he was told by Bill and Howard Morry are as accurate as their own telling of these stories. The version presented here is reflective of Dad Morry's own memoirs on these subjects. Harold also mentions briefly the Windsors of Aquaforte, especially Peppery Pete, though for some reason he misses the opportunity to mention his colourful nickname.

From: Newfoundland, by Harold Horwood, Chapters 15-16, Pages 116-122. Published by Macmillan of Canada, 70 Bond St., Toronto, ON M5B 1X3. ISBN 0-7705-1614-9. 1969.

Thomas Graham Morry III (Private No. 714) joined the Provisional Battalion of Infantry (PBI) of the Active Militia of Canada in Montréal on November 12, 1872. What compelled him to do so was not a sense of adventure so much as the practical possibility of acquiring a land warrant for 160 acres of prime Canadian farmland as his reward for service. As it turns out, he was done out of his rightful reward by an already stultified and uncaring federal bureaucracy. But then, if it hadn't worked out that way he may never have returned to Newfoundland to raise his family and none of us would be Newfoundlanders!

TGM III recorded the story of the trip from Montréal to Fort Garry in a book he auto-published in 1874 in Fort Garry before returning home. Click here to view the story.

The Battle of Quidi Vidi - the Final Battle with the French for Possession of Newfoundland

Surprisingly little is published on one of the most decisive battles in the history of the struggle between France and England for control of the New World. In 1762, the French took St. John's. This was nothing new - many parts of Newfoundland had traded hands between the English and French repeatedly over the years. But as it turned out, the relatively bloodless battle that ensued to recapture St. John's was to be the final gambit in this game. After this battle, ownership of all territories in the New World was decided in the Treaty of Paris in 1763 more or less spelled the end of this chapter in history. Though there were some skirmishes over the years subsequently, St. John's was never retaken by the French.

Two accounts of the so-called Battle of Quidi Vidi (named thus because the British forces approached St. John's from Torbay, via Quidi Vidi), were recorded by the commanding officers responsible, General William Amherst and Alexander Lord Colville. Their meticulous notes and dispatches were gathered together and published in edited version respectively by John Clarence Webster (self published in 1928) and C. H. Little (in an occasional paper of the Maritime Museum of Canada). Transcripts are provided below. These documents are not copyrighted but, if referenced, should be credited to the authors nonetheless.

What, you may be asking, does all of this have to do with the Morry's? Precisely nothing! I carried out this research in an effort to determine if there was any historical evidence to support a long-held belief in the Wheeler family that an ancestor of theirs led the British troops from Torbay to Quidi Vidi. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to this effect in either account. I am publishing the two documents here solely for the sake of interest and because there is so little published on this important milestone in Newfoundland history.

Here is an interesting account of how Matthew Morry obtained his land grant in Caplin Bay (Calvert). It was written by Gerald L. Pocius and published in his book "A Place to Belong - Community Order and Everyday Space in Calvert, Newfoundland". Though an academic treatise, this book makes an excellent read for anyone interested in the early settlement of Newfoundland. NOTE: This excerpt is copied here with the author's permission. Please do not copy it without referencing the original source.

Ken Peacock was a folklorist who made it his life's work to collect the little known folk songs of Canada, and especially Newfoundland, before they disappeared forever. In 1984 he published a collection of the songs he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s in Newfoundland and in the liner notes praised Dad Morry for the assistance and inspiration he had offered him.

One which was sung by my father, Tom Morry (The Sealers' Ball), he picked up on salmon and trout fishing trips on the West Coast.

The second song (The Loss of the Eliza) was sung for Ken by Pat Rossiter of Ferryland. It too concerned sealing, though in the harsh light of reality, as opposed to the comic verse of the Sealer's Ball.

Here is how Farley Mowat described his meeting with Dad Morry, Uncle Bill, Aunt Pat, Peter and Paula in The New Founde Land , Chapter - Come From Away, pages 330-331

Here is how Stuart McLean described his encounter with Bill and Pat Morry in Welcome Home: Travels in Smalltown Canada, pages 436-445. In addition to reminiscences by Bill and Pat, he quotes from Dad Morry's memoirs as well.

Joan Wheeler, a first cousin on the Wheeler side of the family, undertook to interview Dad Morry in 1970 while completing her B.A. at Memorial University of Newfoundland. The three articles which follow are: an explanatory not by Joan on how the interviews were conducted; a paper on the reminiscences of times gone by in Ferryland; and an account of the shipwrecks that had taken place over the years in the vicinity of Ferryland.

Term Paper by William Brian Fanning and Leo Joseph Buckle following Interviews with Bill and Pat Morry

In 1976, two Memorial University students, William Brian Fanning and Leo Joseph Buckle, submitted a term paper in the Folklore 3420 course given by L. G. Small. The title of the paper was "Mr. Howard Morry: Acknowledged as one of the greatest storytellers of Ferryland; the southeast coast of the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland." I became aware of the existence of this paper while searching the holdings of the Folklore and Language Archive at MUN. I was then assisted by Ms. Patricia Fulton, archivist, who managed to track down one of the authors (Leo Buckle) and secure from him permission to reproduce this article. The paper was largely based on interviews with Bill and Pat Morry and recordings of CBC radio programmes that had featured Dad Morry. Although the subject matter is therefore not new, it is interesting to see the interpretation placed upon these stories by younger people who had not grown up in the kind of place and times where these events took place. The paper has been transcribed and is offered here in PDF form (95 kb). Regrettably the tape recording that was meant to accompany the text has been lost or destroyed.