Summerville: Located on the western shore of the next inlet, finding information about this small community was difficult.

However, on the Heritage NL website, in describing the Edward Humby Property, an Historic Residence, located in Summerville, a little light was shed on an important family who lived there in the late 1840s:

Located in an area of Bonavista Bay frequented by fishermen to obtain timber for ships, Summerville eventually became the home for one of the best groups of shipbuilders in the area, the Humbys.

Edward Humby built the Humby Premises in 1846. The house and property represent the traditional, self-sufficient Newfoundland fishing homestead.

The Humbys cut the wood to build their houses, sheds, flakes, stores and schooners. They also captained the ships they built and sailed to Labrador for the fishery. The family also kept animals for food, tended a garden and cut their own firewood for the winter.

While they were self-sufficient, they were also involved in building ships for other people. Among their regular customers were the Ryans in Bonavista, one of that community's more prominent families.

The premises are easily the oldest standing structures in the community. In 1874 a major fire destroyed most of the buildings in Summerville, leaving many of the community's 300 people homeless.

However, the fire left the Humby Premises untouched. The house remained with the Humby family until the 1980s, when it was sold to Heather MacLellan who maintains the premises as a private residence.

During the peak of the Humby family business, the Humby Premises included not only a house, but a barn, twine loft, wood shed and work stores. Only the house and two of the sheds currently remain.

Until recently, all were falling into a state of disrepair. The foundation was in such poor shape that the house was on the edge of collapse. However, MacLellan has since restored the dwelling.

The Humbly dwelling is one of the few remaining 1840s hipped-roof vertical studded homes of early outport construction in Newfoundland. The house was built with rectangular double-hung three-over-six and three-over-three windows.

Unfortunately, the original windows had to be removed when the house was renovated due to of their poor condition. The house has a wooden post and stone- pillar foundation.

Along with the removal of the windows, the house has also had other alterations over the years. The central chimney was removed and a new section of linhay was added to the house in the 1940s.

[According to information contained in Wikipedia, a linhay is type of farm building found particularly in Devon and Somerset, south-west England. It is characterised as a two-storeyed building with an open front, with tallet or hay-loft above and livestock housing below.]

The premises were recognised as a Registered Heritage Structure in May 1997.

Southern Bay and Princeton: Located on Southern Bay, which, according to the information presented in the ENL entry, was also known as "South'ard Bay", the community takes its name from the position of the inlet in Bonavista Bay.

The following comes from the Encyclopedia: In most early records the name refers to the nearby community of Charleston, while some early records for Southern Bay also include Princeton.

Southern Bay proper is a community spread along the old railway line and the Cabot Highway on the southeastern side of the Bay.

Southern Bay first appears in the Census in 1869, with a population of 109 (including both Charleston and Princeton), most of whom were engaged in the Labrador fishery and had moved into the Bay from older communities to the north, such as Tickle Cove and Red Cliff.

In Southern Bay proper there was also considerable subsistence farming, and by the early twentieth century there were lobster factories and two sawmills in the community. But after the railway was built through the community in 1911 lumbering became the major economic activity in the area.

Railway ties were cut for the local line, timber was sent to the Avalon Peninsula, pulpwood to Grand Falls and pit props exported through Musgravetown.

Today, for census purposes, the two communities of Southern Bay and Princeton are "grouped" together, although they are not formally amalgamated.

The 2016 Census reported the population of the two communities to be 310, down (15.5%) from the 367 reported 5-years earlier in 2011. Princeton was originally known as one of the many Seal Coves around the province.

According to material written in the ENL"... the first settler was Samuel Prince, who moved to Seal Cove from Tickle Cove in about 1840.

The area had likely been known to residents of Tickle Cove for some years as a "winterhouse", for cutting wood and trapping".

Used with permission from "Uncovering the Origin of 1001 Unique Place Names in Newfoundland and Labrador" 2021 Jennifer Leigh Hill

Address of this page: http://nl.ruralroutes.com/SummervillePrincetonSouth