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Newfoundland Tourism Region : Central
Stoneville (formerly West Dog Bay): Located north of Gander and south of Port Albert, Stoneville was renamed in honor of one of the first setter family, the Stones (circa 1950).
The following comes from the ENL, and relates the story how it was not name Hodderville after another prominent family:
At various times the community has been known as Dog Bay West and Horwood North, Stoneville being a modern "post office name".
The site of Stoneville at the mouth of Dog Bay Brook, is said to have been frequented by the Beothuk and was also one of the first sites on the northeast coast to have been frequented by Europeans.
In the 1720s George Skeffington established a salmon fishery at Dog Bay Brook, and the site of Stoneville would appear to have been frequented for the salmon fishery by crews out of Fogo throughout the 1700s.
In about 1817 the Hodder family of Fogo purchased the fishery and built a home at the mouth of Dog Bay Brook in about 1820.
When the first Newfoundland Census was taken in 1836 there were seven people living at Dog Bay: the families of John and George
Hodder.
In 1994 Hodder was still by far the most common name at Stoneville. In the 1870s some families from Herring Neck, Fogo and Change Islands were wintering in Dog Bay and a family of Stones from Herring Neck eventually settled alongside the Hodders.
Although the family name Stone was no longer present in the community, it was this family name that was commemorated when a post office was established in the 1950s presumably because there was already a Hodderville (in Bonavista Bay).
At one point it was also referred to as "Horwood North" How it got that name is based on its close proximity to one of the several Horwood Mills in the area.
Also, from the ENL:
In 1902 the Horwood Lumber Co. built a substantial sawmill across the Bay.
Many of the men of Stoneville left the fishery to work as loggers or millworkers at Horwood, which also provided a ready market for surplus vegetables and other products.
Several families settled in Stoneville in the early 1900s in order to be close to the mill but beyond the paternalistic influence of the Company.
Used with permission from "Uncovering the Origin of 1001 Unique Place Names in Newfoundland and Labrador" 2021 Jennifer Leigh Hill
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