Formal Recognition Type

Registered Heritage Structure

Heritage Value

The Hudson’s Bay Company New Dwelling House was designated a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2021 due to its historic and aesthetic value.

From 1770 to 1786, British merchant George Cartwright established business premises along the stretch of Labrador coastline between Cape Charles and Hamilton Inlet, trading with the local indigenous population and hiring British, Irish, and Inuit servants to pursue his fishing and furring enterprise. In 1775 he set up premises in Sandwich Bay, close to the community which now bears his name. After going bankrupt in 1784, Cartwright eventually returned to England in 1786. The firm of Noble & Pinson, followed by the firm of Hunt and Henley, operated at Sandwich Bay after Cartwright. The firm A.B. Hunt and Company eventually sold the Sandwich Bay post to the HBC in 1873, who operated from the site until 1987. The Hudson’s Bay Company New Dwelling House in Cartwright belongs to this long history of colonization, resource extraction, trade, and settlement.

The Cartwright HBC post journal for Friday, August 20, 1926 notes the arrival of foreman Samuel Canning and carpenter Thomas Coombs, who “arrived back from Davis Inlet to erect new dwelling House.”The building was constructed under the supervision of Post Manager Stephen Hayward Parsons, who became Sub-District Manager for Labrador in June of 1928 and left Cartwright in November of that year. The New Dwelling House is a vernacular interpretation of a Craftsman-style bungalow. A journal entry from August 24, 1926 records that “SH Parsons and H Andrews [were] drawing new plan for house.” Similarly styled buildings were popular in HBC posts across Canada, often featuring a square footprint, symmetrical facades, hipped roof with dormers on all four sides, a typical one-and-a-half storey massing, and a colour palette of white with green trim and red roof. Similar buildings were constructed in Rigolet and Davis Inlet, a staff house had already been constructed in Cartwright using this style, and in the 1930s the HBC store in Cartwright would be replaced with a new building that was also an interpretation of the Craftsman’s style.

Cartwright’s HBC post journal follows the construction and finishing of the New Dwelling House from August 20, 1926 to November 23, 1927. On September 29, 1926, a little over a month after the arrival of Canning and Coombs, the journal records that “Usual hands working on ‘House’ which is practically completed on the outside.” These “hands” included a number of men who were hired on as full-time or seasonal servants of HBC. Some were residents of Cartwright, while others lived in Cartwright part of the year and in nearby communities the rest of the year. Thomas Coombs is recorded as “finished work for the season” on September 30, 1926 and as departing with his family for the settlement of Longstretch on October 2, 1926. Samuel Canning departed on the Meigle on November 7, 1926. Other than carrying beaver board to the house on November 8 and 9, 1926, no mention is made of the “New Dwelling House” until April 7, 1927.

Thomas Coombs returns in May of 1927 but no further mention is made of Samuel Canning. Many journal posts record Thomas Coombs and John Bird working together on the house, in addition to various other HBC employees. Tasks recorded in the journals include finishing dormer windows, felting the roof, painting the exterior, installing beaver board on the interior, making stove pipes and flanges, erecting room partitions, putting up ceilings, painting the interior, making washstands, installing sinks, making tables and bedsteads, tarring the roof, boarding up sills, bringing furniture from the store to the house, building a platform outside the house, putting up storm windows, making a dining table, building a clothes closet, and laying floor canvas. The post journal entry from October 29, 1927 records that “R [Ronald] Bain & A [Andrew] Reid removed to New Staff House.” Bain and Reid, both from Scotland, were employed as clerks by HBC and were the first residents of the New Dwelling House.

It appears that the New Dwelling House was only used by HBC staff for a little over a decade. Verna Lethbridge Mesher Eastman recalled being employed there as a domestic servant the summer she turned 20 (Verna was born in 1917). She worked for the Newfoundland Ranger stationed in Cartwright and his wife. From July 1940 to July 1944 the Royal Canadian Air Force rented the staff house. In September of 1945, George Rendell bought the house and began leasing the land it sat on from HBC. Rod and Molly Roberts rented the house for a period before it was bought by Henry Mesher in 1953 (Henry’s first wife had died and he married Verna Lethbridge who had once been a domestic in the house). The house was passed on to Howard Mesher in 1969, who sold it in the 1990s, at which time it was moved from its original site to Base Road.

Source: Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador property file “Cartwright – Hudson’s Bay Company New Dwelling House – FPT NL-1752”

Character Defining Elements

All original features of the house which relate to the age and style including:
-square plan;
-one-and-a-half-storey height;
-mid-pitch hipped roof;
-wooden roof soffits;
-hipped roof dormers on each roof slope;
-narrow wooden clapboard;
-wooden corner boards and other wooden trims;
-wooden foundation skirting;
-size, style and location of original hipped roof porch on front façade with front facing 2/4 window and side door on right;
-original size, style, trim and placement of wooden 2/4 windows, including entablature style raincaps;
-original size, style, trim and placement of dormers;
-original size, style, trim and placement of exterior wooden doors;
-original HBC colour scheme of white clapboard, dark green trim, and red roof;
-dimension, location and orientation of building.

Community

Cartwright

Municipality

Town of Cartwright

Civic Address

34 Base Road

Construction (circa)

1926 - 1927

Builder

Samuel Canning, Thomas Coombs, John Bird

Style

Square