Where You Will Go

Bonavista Peninsula

Mockbeggar, Bonavista

In the spring of 2006 CapeRace, with the assistance of the Bonavista Historical Society, aquired and restored the historic Thomas Mouland House located in the Mockbeggar neighbourhood of Bonavista.

The Mockbeggar Plantation in Bonavista is the birthplace of Confederation in Newfoundland. It is now a Provincial Historic Site and restored to represent the 1939 period, when it became the home of its most notable owner, Senator F. Gordon Bradley. Senator Bradley was a prominent politician in the government of Newfoundland during the years of responsible government when Newfoundland achieved Dominion status. He was the leader of the opposition in 1933 when the Alderdice government voted to rescind the constitution and turn over the governance of Newfoundland to a commission appointed by the British government.

At that time, he was one of the last voices to speak out for the retention of self-government and the very right to vote for which the people of Newfoundland had worked so hard, for so many years. More than a decade later, he led the movement for confederation when Newfoundlanders voted by a narrow margin to become a province of Canada, rather than return to responsible government and sovereignty. Senator Bradley was the latest chapter in the history of the Mockbeggar Plantation, which stretches back to the discovery of North America by John Cabot, back to the first European settlement when it was considered the "best room in Bonavista," and back to the French-English wars when the treaty of Utrecht divided Newfoundland between the two warring countries and put the English settlers of Bonavista behind enemy lines on the "French Shore."

At that time, a small fort was built at Mockbeggar for protection from French raiding parties, through the time of the West Country, when English merchants who exploited the Newfoundland fishery and built the economy of Britain as it became a great world power. The "Quaker miser," Joseph White, owned the Mockbeggar room and built the Big Store, which still stands on the Plantation grounds. It remained an important business concern in the early 19th century, during the rise of the St. John's merchant families and the Outport Merchants, who traded internationally from towns all along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Mockbeggar Plantation was an important part of the establishment of Methodism in Newfoundland. It played a part in Newfoundland's first move toward a confederation with Canada in 1869, when owner James Saint was an active confederate. Residents of the Mockbeggar Plantation were members of the Newfoundland government during the coming of self-rule and responsible government.

It stood through the Great War when young resident Frederick Roper paid the supreme sacrifice on the far shores of Gallipoli. It was there in the Great Depression during the fall of self-government for Newfoundlanders and the coming of the Bradleys . Almost every great event in our history has touched on the Mockbeggar Plantation. All this is a prelude to one of the greatest events in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador, when F. Gordon Bradley led the confederates to victory and union with Canada in 1949.