The Town of Heart’s Content has much to be proud of. With its deep sheltered harbor nestled into the south shore of Trinity Bay, it leaves no wonder where the Community got its name. When John Guy visited in 1615, he described the place as picturesque and the same word applies today. The community was chosen for the successful landing of the first Trans Atlantic Cable in 1866. This has made the Town renowned all over the world. The industry and economy expanded in the late 1800’s with adequate docking facilities for shipbuilding and the trans-shipment point of newsprint from the province’s paper mills. While all the activities that brought the Town to prominence has faded into history, the population of 495 still remains a main center on the Trinity Shore. This includes the drug store, banking services, Government offices, including the Department of Forestry and Wildlife, and the Department of Works Services and Transportation. Thousands of tourists visit the cable museum each summer, which is now a Provincial Historic Site.
The Town was incorporated in 1967 with it’s first volunteer Fire Department. In the same year the Town’s first recreation commission was also formed. The first elected Council took office in 1974 and improvements have continued over the years, with paved roads, street lighting, animal control, fully serviced water and sewer system and a 20 Member Volunteer Fire Department which is fully equipped with a 625 pumper truck purchased in 1992. The Town has a seven-member council with Mayor Don Blundon, who has been in that position for the past 28 years.
The town has recreational facilities including a ball field and a playground, and also has a good commercial tax base with a garage, restaurant, motel and two fairly large convenience stores and Liquor Agency.
This church is what was located across the street from us, but was burned down in the 30's. In the house we found a piece of the church that was all melted because it was rescued from the fire. We donated that to the Cable Station Museum. The graveyard still remains across the street from us.
237 Main Rd in Heart's Content belonged to one of the cable workers and his name was William Mallam. We are not certain how long William's family lived at this residence, but we believe it was from about 1880/1890 until it was sold to us by Mrs. Moore's son when she passed away (Mrs. Moore was a Mallam married into the Moore family).
William Mallam in the 20's
William was a very important part of the cable station. He was a telegraph operator. He worked there in the prime of the cable station and then in the 30's as the cable station began to decline he took early retirement. He eventually left the house and moved to St. John's and we believe it was left for his children, but he also had rental property in Heart's Content. We are not certain if he rented 237 or if he had purchased another home in the community. He also owned a store in the town at one point, which we believe we have a picture of.
Starting in the attic today, we found loads of papers that belonged to the Mallam family. Most of the papers are from 1917-1924. These papers were pay stubs, life assurance papers, sunday school bookets and grocery bills. There were piles of these papers. We have rescued as many as we could as there was a broken window in the attic and some of the papers got fairly wet.
A lot of the papers that we found are at the Cable Station Museum so they can see some of the things from the town. Because of the papers in the attic the Cable Station now has information about a store that they never knew existed in the town of Heart's Content, which is awesome that we were able to share that information and unlock a piece of history. I am including in this blog some of the papers that I have scanned and some pictures of the house as it stood in the early 20's.
This was a wedding, for who we are not sure, but it shows the house just after all the renovations were done on it in the early 20's.
Here are just a couple of the pictures that were found in the house. The child we believed lived in the house. There were leg braces for a child in the attic and we believe they belonged to this child as every picture this child has tights or legs covered. The little girls were just so darn cute and those bears they are holding are spectacular!
These are some of the receipts and papers that were found in the attic. A lot of them are from 1921 and 1924. The Mallom's added the back of the house on top of the kitchen in 1921 and the Cable Station was thriving at that point in time. We actually have most of the receipts for all the work they did when renovating the house. They added the slate mantels, the bay windows and the second story addition.
This is a letter letting the Mallam's know they order would be in a crate
Wm Mallon's eye glasses
one shilling credit never cashed
$2.70 for a month of electricity
Rules on the back of the electrical bill
This is a two page grocery bill from the Cable Store in Heart's Content. This is a rather hefty one, they ordered just about everything from there. $147.92 for a grocery bill in 1921. That is basically what I spend nowadays!
The Mallam's often shopped at the Cable Store as we have stacks of bills from there. They ordered everything from eggs to women's gloves there
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These are the sunday school papers, we have weekly reports from 1917-1924. These are amazing to read and to read some of the things the children wrote in them.
Wm Mallam was big on Life Assurance. This is one of the many receipts.
This is one of Wm Mallam's pay stubs from the cable station
This is a postcard from the cable station showing time period of 1886 I believe it said
Along with all these papers and photographs we found bottles. Bottles upon bottles upon bottles! My goodness! There were some really nifty ones in there, but a lot of them we are still looking to sell off to people as we definitely cannot house this many bottles. There were some framed pictures, chamber pots, a bird cage that my mother in law just adores and cleaned with ketchup like crazy and still more things left to discover!
So I hope you enjoyed everything on here. It is a tad scattered as I am writting this with two small children running around and demanding things from me, but I am sure you get the idea so far. Please, if there are any question put them in the comment field and I will do my best to answer them. Hopefully later on today or tomorrrow I can start on the second story of the house and tell you information that we have on that so far and we will just keep going down from there.
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