Mercantile Display
Miss Rebecca Greenland
Millinery & Elegant Attire
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Most people who visit the "Road to Yesterday" Museum, which was developed and is operated by the Bay Roberts Heritage Society, are amazed at the quality of the artifacts and the displays. Although the focus of the Museum is the turn of the century mercantile history of the town, the Museum also contains displays about the early history of the town.

Bay Roberts is at least 400 years old! French migratory fishermen from Brittany and Normandy in what is now France cured their fish on flat beach rocks and called the area Baie de Robert, the name which is found on early charts.

English Settlement

By the late 16th century, Bay Roberts had become part of the English Shore. Some French, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen still visited the area but they were out numbered by fishermen from the English West Country. In the 1675 census, Bay Roberts is called Bay of Roberts.

From that period, the museum contains a display of rare intact 17th century pottery artifacts which were found in shipwrecks in the Bay Roberts Harbour.

17th Century Display
Illustrations from "Baccalieu: Crossroads for Cultures"

Storage Pot	Storage Jar	Tall Pot / Butter Pot

Town Grew to Important Regional Centre

French’s Cove and Juggler's Cove, which are calm, sheltered places, were the first settled areas of the town. French raids by Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville in 1697 (who called the town Baye Robert) and Jacques Testard de Montigny in 1705 destroyed the communities; however, the English settlers quickly rebuilt. Over the next two centuries the town grew into a service centre for the region and an important base for the Labrador fishery and the seal hunt.

FOCUS OF MUSEUM - Turn of the Century Mercantile Centre

For questions about the Museum, Art Gallery and Archives,
please email the Bay Roberts Heritage Society:
shorelineheritagewalk@bayroberts.com