How a WWI master gunner built a company that was a major Marystown employer for 6 decades

A19-year-oldJames W. Wiscombe, after serving in the Royal Navy during the First World War and advancing to the rank of master gunner, returned to his home in Mortier Bay on the Burin Peninsula, determined to start his own business.

He went to work with shipbuilders James Baird Ltd. and then G&ABuffett Ltd. before setting out on his own in 1921, after marrying Gladys Harding of Grand Bank, who was also employed at Baird's. They had five children:Alvin, William (Bill), Charlie, Sam and Ruby, who they lost to meningitis when she was only eleven years old.

According to his son Charlie (now deceased), Wiscombestarted in business under his mother's stairs, selling tinned products and other goods before going into the woods when he was 22 and cutting the timber to build a small shop on what became known as Wiscombe's Point.

In 1923 the firm of J.W. Wiscombe and Sons was establishedand during the next four decades owned and operated five schooners and a retail general store from their premises on Wiscombe's Point in Creston South (now part of Marystown) as well as some 27 branch stores in smaller communities in Placentia Bay as well as Garnish, St. Lawrence and Epworth.

Jim Wiscombe died in 1956 at age 56 of lung cancer, leaving the business to his four sons. Bill Wiscombe became managing director of the firm, a position he held until 1966, when he branched out on his own and started a general insurance firm.

The 1950s brought huge changes to the Burin Peninsula: modern fresh fish filleting plants had been or were being built in Burin, Fortune and Grand Bank; men who had braved the Atlantic in wooden schooners to get to the offshore fishing grounds were nowmanning the steel trawlers. A road connection in 1950 to the Avalon Peninsula now provided another means of transportation for people and freight, resulting in less demand for schooners.

It soon became obvious to the four Wiscombe boys that with the phasing-out of the saltfish fishery and the resettling of many of the smaller outports, the viability of their business model especially branch stores was no more. Two of the sons Alvin and Charlie sold their company shares to Bill and Sam and branched out in other businesses on their own.

In 1963 the company decided to move the salt-fish store from Wiscombe's Point to the main highway, renovate it and turn it into a supermarket; this was followed by moving the Crest Theatre from its original location and joining it to the supermarket for a dry-goods department.

AfterBillleft the business in 1966 it was taken over by the youngest of the Wiscombe boys, Samuel K., who continued with significant changes and consolidation by addingfresh meat andwomen'sclothing departments.In 1971 a hardware and building supplies department was added, whichdoubled the size of the building to12,000 square feet of floor space.

J.W. Wiscombe and Sons continued to be a major employer in the Marystown area for more than six decades,from 1923 until Samuel retired in 1984.

By the early 1960s the three remaining Wiscombe schooners were no longer involved in the fishery but were being used exclusively in the coastal freighting trade. Then disaster struck; they lost all three of the vessels in just three short years, between 1962and 1965.

In January1965, the last of the three the 90-ton wooden schooner J. W. Wiscombe ran ashore in a blinding blizzard near Point May on the Burin Peninsula on its last trip of the season.

Fortunately, no lives were lost in the shipwreck, as captain Bernard Whiffen and his four-man crew engineer Patrick Whiffen, cook James Mallay, mate Arch Ford and seaman James Norman managed to get into a dory and row to safety. The sternpostwas driven up through the ship's hold and the vessel was declared a total loss.

Just over two years earlier, in October 1962, the Ruby Wiscombe, en route to Nova Scotia with a full load of salt-bulk fish, caught fire and sank off the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon. Thevessel and cargo were a total loss.

Just two months later on Boxing Day, 1962 the schooner Mary Wiscombe was wrecked when she struck the rocks and cliffs of Cape Coupe, the most southern point of land on the French island of Little Miquelon, 20 miles off the "boot" of the Burin Peninsula.

All five members of the crew managed to make it to shore,but three of the men were too exhausted to make it across the windswept island to the lighthouse at Plate Point, 16 kilometres away, where the nearest inhabitants lived.

The vessel had left Fortune early on the day of the tragedy to go to Sydney, N.S. Later that same day the captain decidedto turn back due to a fast-approaching storm.

During the night, with the storm raging, the 90-ton schooner was approaching the channel between the islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon in a blinding blizzard when she crashed onto the rocks and was lost.

The captain of the ill-fated schooner, William Farrell of Little Bay, and the ship's engineer, Thomas Walsh of Little Bay, were able to reach safety but both were suffering from exposure.

The following day the bodies of the three seamen who had stayed behind Charles Scott of Burin, George Brushett of Creston South and Albert Hilliard of Little Bay were found. They had all perished in the freezing temperatures.

Albert, who was the oldest child of William and Agnes Hilliard, had reached his 20th birthday a scant six days before his untimely death.His sister Nora McCarthy (ne Hilliard) was only two years old, the youngest of Albert's five siblings.

"The loss of our brother took a great toll on my parents and older siblings,"Nora said.

"I can remember never having a Christmas tree in our home until I was probably twelve years old but we thought it was normal and didn't question it. Our parents still gave us gifts from Santa and made it special for us but I guess they didn't have the heart to actually put up a tree during those years.

Her mother wore black for a long time, she said.

"My sister would tell her friends it was her favourite colour."

Albert's father, William,originally from Placentia,married Agnes Power of Little Bay and that is where they lived and raised their family.

From what she was told, Nora said, her brother was a "wonderful, caring young man" who "acted like a second father" when William was away for work.

"If my dad had gone away on the coastal boats and Albert was about to leave to go away," she said, "he would check to make sure Mom was well stocked with food before he left.

"When he would come home he would bring dolls and other toys for myself and Regina. He had a lot of faith and would even wake my brother to make sure he had said his nightly prayers."

When the Hilliard family learned of the Mary Wiscombe's wreck, they weren't told who the survivors were. Shortly afterward, the parish priest, Father Alphonsus Penney, arrived at their door to break thenews.

Nora's brother Bill recalls their mother taking the news so badly that she passed out on the living room floor.

"Dad's way of coping was walking the road and spending a lot of time in the wood store," he said. "It was a devastating time."

Tragedy hit Wiscombe company hard

The family was told that when the schooner went into the rocks all five men had to hurriedly get off the doomed ship and climb to the top of a cliff. It was stormy and bitterly cold. The captain and the ship's engineer struck out on foot to try to get help.

"They walked for miles, almost dying themselves, before they reached shelter," said McCarthy.

Albert Hilliard had gotten very wet and seriously injured jumping from the boat to safety, and couldn't travel with the others. He died of exposure. The other two men apparently initially stayed behind but later also tried to reach safety. The bodies of all three were found the next day.

Albert's wakewas held in his parents' bedroom in an expensive casket provided by the Wiscombes, according to McCarthy.

"They cared deeply for their employees and treated them like family, so the news hit them very hard," she said.

Paddy Canning, the MHA for the area, created a scholarship fund at Marystown's high schoolin Albert's memory. Four of his siblings still live in the Marystown area while one sister resides in Ontario. Their dad diedin 1991 and their mom died in 1999.

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