HISTORY OF MONROE

(This is a school report done by my brother Kirby Kenneth Stone and submitted to his teacher, Miss Stanford for Language 2101 class on Jan 21, 1983)

Monroe was a thriving and prosperous community that employed many people around 1933 – 1943.  According to the census of 1945, there were one hundred people living in Monroe, whereas now, there is about fifty and no source of employment.

Monroe employed people on three main areas in the 1930s and 1940s.  The people at that time made their living by fishing, logging or working for Captain Henry Stone’s Shipyard as well as doing a bit of farming on the side.

Most of the fishing done by the men and boys of Monroe occurred off the coast of Labrador.  The men would be allotted to a certain schooner which they then would “rig out”[1].  In the spring, around May or June, the boys would leave school to fish off Labrador with their fathers and other men.  While in Labrador, the fishermen would put their cod fish in pickle[2] until they arrived home in late August or September.  Now they had the task of drying their fish.  First of all, they would wash-out[3] their fish before placing it on their flakes.  If there was a great deal of fish, then the fishermen would pay everyone they could get a little bit of money to help them dry their fish.  This was practical in order to dry the fish as soon as possible to sell it in St. John’s for a good price.

Many of those fishermen in the winter would become loggers.  They would leave home on horse to their own private camps where they would stay for weeks on end to log.  Back then, there was no such thing as power saws so the logs were cut down with axes and bucksaws.  This was long and tiresome work.  They would have a break a couple times a day where they would “mug-up” or boil the kettle for a cup of tea and a slice of bread.  When the day’s work was done, they went to bed and got up at dawn the next morning for another day of logging.  When they accumulated enough logs, they would haul them out with the horse to their saw mills powered by steam or water-mill.  When they sawed their logs into timber, they would ship it to St. John’s by schooner where it would be sold, thus providing another source of income for the residents of Monroe.

As well as being fishermen and loggers, the men of Monroe were farmers, but in a private sense.  According to the census of 1945, there was thirty-one acres of land used for crops.  From this, there was fifteen acres set aside for hay, eight acres for potatoes and eight acres for pasture.  In 1944, the census tells us that Monroe produced five hundred fifty bushels of potatoes, six bushels of turnips and twenty-two tuns of hay as well as sixty-eight pounds of wool, thirteen hundred gallons of milk, two hundred fifty pounds of butter and two hundred sixty dozen eggs.  Almost everyone owned animals of some sort.  The 1945 census tells us that there were thirteen horses, five pigs, twenty-six sheep, one goat, seven cows, two bulls and one hundred eighty-two hens in Monroe at that time.  Thus the people grew their own vegetables and kept some livestock.

The shipyard, owned by Captain Henry Stone, was always a big source of employment for the people of Monroe.  Within the shipyard, there were four sources of employment.  The shipyard employed men to cut logs for timber for the ships.  As well, there were those who were employed in the gigantic steam saw mill located in the shipyard to saw the timber into planks.  This shipyard also employed men to build wooden boxes and wooden barrels used to ship biscuits and other things.  The most important job at the shipyard was the shipbuilders.  The Stone’s Shipyard was known as being a fine shipyard that produced ships of high quality at a fast rate.  In one day, there were four minesweepers launched for WW2.  Among the schooners built at the shipyard was the famed “Norma and Gladys” built in 1945.  She is presently owned by the Provincial Government and transformed into a floating museum.  But, the shipyard was to be closed down after January, 1951.  The owner, Captain Henry Stone got sick and died leaving no one capable to run the shipyard.  Many jobs were lost when it closed down and Monroe still hasn’t recovered from the close-down.  Thus to put it the way a resident of Monroe, Jack Reid, puts it “When Hen went, Monroe went” (referring to Henry Stone).

The transportation methods of those times were inefficient.  It was too rough and too time consuming to be efficient.  Motor boats were used for transportation but were very slow and rough in most weather conditions.  Rowboats or Rodneys were even less efficient than motorboats since one got tired from rowing it and since the Rodneys travel at a very slow speed.  The best means of transportation in the 30’s and 40’s was the horse and sled, even though it too was slow and the roads were long and narrow.  The very first car in Monroe was bought by Capt. Henry Stone in 1941.  This became the most efficient method of transportation in Monroe.

In the 1930’s and 1940’s there was no such thing as electricity or indoor plumbing.  For lighting in the night-time, people used kerosene lamps because of the cheapness of it and the light it produced.  The source of heat for the houses and the means for cooking was the woodstove which the boys had to keep full of wood.  For drinking water, the boys had to bring water from the well in buckets to the house.  The out-house was their means of disposing of their wastes.  This was only a shed built over a large pit.  At night, they carried a chamber pot to the bedroom in case nature called when they were sleeping.  Electricity reached Monroe in 1964 thus eliminating the kerosene lamps.  But some people in Monroe had electricity before that.  This was produced by Delco engines and or windchargers or windmills.  Thus the conveniences of electricity that we take for granted was unthinkable back then.

The school in Monroe was a one room school that housed grades kindergarden to grade eleven.  Back in the 1930’s and 1940’s school was very demanding of the students.  Each student had to bring his or her junk of wood to school each day to heat the school   Each of the boys took turns lighting the fire (after each week they would switch).  On Friday afternoons, two girls had to stay behind to sweep the school and once a month the parents would scrub the school.  If you were bad in school, you would have to write one hundred to five hundred lines of “I’ll behave in School”, as well as sometimes getting the strap.  Thus to quote Ivy Stone, “School was cruel”.

The local doctor for this district in the 1930’s and 1940’s was stationed in Clarenville.  If one wanted to be on the doctor’s calling list, they had to pay $5.00  a year fee.  If the doctor had to make a house call, it would cost the person up to $40.00 per visit.  If someone was really sick, they had to put that person on a horse sled and bring them twenty miles to Clarenville.  If he or she needed to go to the hospital, they had to wait to go out to St. John’s on the train.  Thus people could be sick for days without seeing a doctor.

The store here in Monroe, owned by Ralph Stone, operated the same as many stores through-out the province did at that time.  The people would be on credit and receive whatever they wanted but had to pay the merchant in the spring when they sold their logs and in the fall when they sold their fish.  Thus it was a good system for all, since the residents could receive goods when they had no money at all.

Back in the 30’s and 40’s there wasn’t that much entertainment because the people worked so hard.  But there were some forms of entertainment.  The people used to put off concerts, plays and had square dances as well as what is known as “the time”.  The people used to visit other people’s houses and play cards and go mummering at Christmas time.  Therefore, according to the older people, people had a better time back then than now.  The children made their own fun by sliding on barrel staves[4].  The boys also used to trout, make fish and help their fathers out in the woods.  Thus, back then there was more emphasis put on work than entertainment.

Monroe has changed drastically for the worst in the last forty or fifty years.  There were one hundred people here in 1945 as compared to about fifty people here now.  Back then, most people were employed in Monroe, today, no one is employed in the community, but outside it.  When asked if Monroe had changed within the last forty or fifty years, Ivy Stone said, “Definitely!! Back then we had schools and post offices and now we have neither”.  Back forty or fifty years ago, many people had jobs at the Stone’s Shipyard but when it closed, there was no place for the people to get work so some moved away.  Thus, Monroe has taken a turn for the worst in the last forty or fifty years.

Even though Monroe is a beautiful place to live, it has deteriorated in the last forty or fifty years.  There are now twelve permentally occupied houses in Monroe, only fifty people and now, not even a store!