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1.5.1 Jams Yongt's Journal
16
For the purposes of this thesis, pmaps the mas impnant figure in the history of
Renews ww Imer Yonge. a 16 year old surgeon on boyd the lWton Plymouth fishing
vessel the Reformation that spa five months in Renews in 1663. When he was n~
administenng to the health of the fishermen there and in the neighbowing hubour of
Fermeuse. Yonge kept a jwnal in which he recorded many of his observations on life in
the hdubwr. Allhwgh brief (representing jut several months in a journal that covered
over half accnmry), his Renews enuier rre an infarnative accwnt of ordinary
occurrences thill generally -ape the pages of fonnal histories. Yonge commented upon
such seemingly mundane aecumncer as the pmcasing of Ash typs of bait used Jnd
some of the wlnter anlvities of the planters. Because of his detuled accwnct of the early
fishery and everyday life, Yonp's journal is perhaps one of the most impatant
documents for this priod of Newfwndlandk history. He also gives the only record of
the eonstrucrion technique for miptory fishermen's buses in Newfwndland dunng the
seventeenth century.
James Yonp illustrated hirjaumzl with rkHcks of the pl- he visited and the things
he saw. These sketcher included the harbours of Rensws (Figure 6). Fermew. Ferryland
and Caplin Bay (Calven). He also drew a fuhing stage. flmked by a cook mom, flakes
and a four-manned fishing bat (Figwe 7). Yonge'r sketch of Renews contains
landmarks that cam k med today: rbalr. bwches, coves and n pint of land on Ihe