Many Newfoundlanders were married in Massachusetts.
Sadie Brinston and Charles Reynolds, both from Sound Island, Newfoundland, were married in Somerville, Massachusetts on 6 November 1926. Just 5 days before, the groom had filed his Declaration of Intention to seek American citizenship. Charles, a carpenter, had arrived in Boston in November 1923. Sadie, a 24 year old telegraph operator, had arrived on 24 June 1926 aboard the ship Newfoundland.
Sadie was given in marriage by her brother (technically half brother) Cyrus Eddy, who had immigrated to the area in 1900 and was also a carpenter. Both the groom and the best man had Brinston grandmothers although I have not yet figured out just how they were related. By the time they filed their Citizenship Petitions in 1933, Sadie and Charles had two American-born sons.
Another Massachusetts marriage occurred 7 April 1907 in Boston when Charles Downes Brinston from Sound Island married Mary Ellen (Nellie) Dinn from Witless Bay, south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Their first child, Sylvester, was born in Boston in 1908 and sometime after that the family returned to Newfoundland and settled in Nellie’s hometown. Charles was a fisherman and continued to travel to New England to sell fish.
These were not isolated cases of emigration from Newfoundland. In the late 20th century and early 21st century many Newfoundlanders worked in Alberta’s oil and gas industries, either moving to that province or commuting by air to remote work camps. In fact among the first Brinstons to provide data for this study was a family in Fort MacMurray, Alberta.
Large scale out migration from Newfoundland has occurred at several other times. During the period 1846-1859 nearly 3000 Newfoundlanders arrived in Boston due to economic hardship at home and opportunities in the growing industries of Massachusetts (Chafe, 1982). Early in the 20th century more Newfoundlanders moved to what was known as the Boston States. In 1914 over 500 of them gathered in Boston to share their grief at the loss of 78 lives in the SS Newfoundland seal hunting disaster and donate money to the Newfoundland families directly affected (Dohey, 2014). By 1925 The Newfoundland Weekly estimated that 40,000 Newfoundlanders lived in and around Boston (cited by Chafe, 1982). The Brinstons and their kin who moved to Boston, some temporarily and others permanently, were part of a larger social and economic movement.
The story of one Newfoundland wedding in Massachusetts.
References
Ancestry. Immigration documents. Ancestry.ca
Brinston, Donald. Genealogy data base of Sound Island and related families.
Brinston-Reynolds. Clipping from Newfoundland Weekly, 20 November 1926. Supplied by Sheldon O'Neill.
Chafe, Edward-Vincent. (1982). A new life on Uncle Sam's farm : Newfoundlanders in Massachusetts, 1846-1859. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Dohey, Larry. (2014). Exiles in Boston join in the sorrow of thousands of Newfoundlanders. Archival Moments. Selections from the archives, live from St. John's, NL. This entry was posted in Archival Moments and tagged Boston, sealers, sealing on April 11, 2014 by Larry Dohey. http://archivalmoments.ca/2014/04/11/exiles-in-boston-join-in-the-sorrow-of-thousands-of-newfoundlanders/
Family Search. Massachusetts marriage records. https://www.familysearch.org/en/
Witless Bay, Newfoundland Genealogy Project. Private Facebook group.