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NOTE: In 2005 the Agricultural History Society of Newfoundland and Labrador created the “Century Farm Award” to honour farm families across the province who had farmed their land continuously for one hundred years or more and were still actively farming. Heritage NL agreed to post these listings on our website. Please note that these farms are NOT designated by Heritage NL. The listings are commemorative only. All content and images © Agricultural History Society of Newfoundland and Labrador and used with the permission of award recipients. Information current as of 2006-2007.
The Rose Farm
A circle of trees is all that is left to mark the Rose farm. Located on a height of land overlooking the city of St John’s, the farm was expropriated by the government in 1956 to make way for the new Confederation Building. The Rose family had worked this farm for more than 70 years.
At the time when their farm was handed over to the province, the Rose dairy farm had about 25 head of cattle, and the Rose family was making a good living selling milk and vegetables door to door in St. John’s. “They didn’t think much of the government at the time,” says Gary Rose, sipping tea at his kitchen table. A fourth generation farmer, he says, “There were not good feelings over it.” Today, opposite the Confederation Building, facing it on the Prince Philip Parkway, is a statue of the Portuguese explorer, Gaspar Corte Real. Where that statue stands, was where the Rose farm house stood, at the top of Gooseberry Lane. The circle of trees which surrounded the farm house is still there. The Confederation Building and the College of the North Atlantic stand on what was the Rose farm.
Faced with expropriation, the Rose family did not give up farming. They moved their farm to Cadigan’s Road in Logy Bay and have continued farming ever since, through two more generations. And they received a Century Farm Award in 2007 to acknowledge their family’s determination to continue farming across five generations.
William Rose, age 25, arrived in St. John’s from Scotland in 1883. He purchased a parcel of land on Mahon’s Lane (Gooseberry Lane today), off Portugal Cove Road, on the outskirts of the city. There, he kept cattle and grew vegetables. He made a living selling milk and vegetables door to door in St. John’s. Throughout the generations, William’s son Leo joined the farm, as did his son in turn, R. Paul Rose. For five years, the three generations of Rose men worked the farm together, until William’s death in 1948. Eight years later, in 1956, when R. Paul had a young family himself, the Rose dairy farm on Gooseberry Lane came to an end through expropriation.
In the 1950s, the Rose families became aware of possible expropriation. Looking to the future, they began buying land in Logy Bay near St. John’s. Two years before they were required to leave their farm on Gooseberry Lane, the Rose’s had already acquired enough land to relocate their enterprise.
The Rose’s 80-acre farm on Cadigan’s Road in Logy Bay is a prosperous business. The dairy herd has grown to 150 head of cattle. The Rose’s still sell their milk in St. John’s – no longer door to door by the bottle – but to a large processor.
Gary and his twenty-three year old son Matthew now work the farm together and Gary’s two daughters help out with the milking every second weekend as well. His wife Marjorie helps keep the books, outside her own full-time job. These are the fourth and fifth generations on the farm.
The Rose farm is truly a family farm, blessed with perseverance to keep a farm in operation even in the face of expropriation. Gary Rose was only a baby when his family moved to Logy Bay, but he knows why the Roses continued farming, when other families perhaps would not have done so. “I suppose it was in their blood,” he says. “It was their livelihood, it was what they were used to.”
