The "Heart Trilogy": Located on Trinity Bay, west-northwest of Carbonear, no book tracing place names of Newfoundland would be complete if the towns of Heart's Content, Heart's Delight, and Heart's Desire, were left out. Heart's Content (the most "northerly" of the three) was the first to be named.

John Guy, an English politician and adventurer, lead a group of colonists into Trinity Bay with the purpose of establishing a fur trade with the local Beothuks, in the fall of 1612. According to information presented the ENL, in Guy's Journal of a "voiadge of discoverie" from Conception Bay to Trinity Bay he recorded the town as Hartes Content.

It has been suggested that it was Guy himself who imposed the name, in the same manner that Paradise was chosen, simply to give a good "first impression". Others have suggested that it was named after a ship of the same name.

As early as 1692, Heart's Content was a major settlement who inhabitants took part in the lucrative cod-fishery. Many years later the town was chosen to the western terminus of the first successful transatlantic submarine telegraph cable. On July 27, 1866 the cable was landed on the shores of the bay with a great jubilation; that cable, and several more permitted a direct connection between the Old World and the New, and permanently put the community of Heart's Content in the annals of history of the world.

According to the 2016 census, the population of Heart's Content was 340, a 9.3% decrease from the 375 recorded previously in 2011.

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/HeartsContent