Archeologists in Cupids, Newfoundland, have unearthed the remains of a stone wall that may have housed cannons to defend Canada's first English settlement, established on the shore of Conception Bay in 1610. The newly discovered remains suggest the wall might have housed seaward-facing cannons to ward off attackers in the early 1600s, an era when rival fishermen from France, Spain and Portugal -- as well as the notorious English pirate Peter Easton -- sometimes menaced the fledgling coastal community.
Like the traces of earliest French settlements at St. Croix Island off New Brunswick's southern coast (1604) and at Quebec City (1608), the archeological finds at Cupids represent the beginnings of a permanent European presence in the northern half of the New World.
Like the traces of earliest French settlements at St. Croix Island off New Brunswick's southern coast (1604) and at Quebec City (1608), the archeological finds at Cupids represent the beginnings of a permanent European presence in the northern half of the New World.
You can read more at the National Post web site at http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2253536.
My thanks to Peter D. Stuebing for telling me about this story.
