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A surname of England and Ireland from the Old English personal name Wada from wadan - to go, or Old German Wado, or from the English place name Wade (Suffolk), or from Old English (ge) wxd - (dweller by the ford. Reaney comments: "The persistence of the personal name may be due, in part, to the tale of Wade, [a legendary hero], originally a sea-giant, dreaded and honoured by the coast tribes of the North Sea and Baltic." (Reaney, Cottle, MacLysaght). Traced by Guppy in Cheshire, Derbyshire, Durham, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Suffolk and Yorkshire, by Spiegelhalter in Devon, and by MacLysaght in all provinces since the thirteenth century.
| At Ferryland: |
A list of names of all Masters, Servants, and Dieters residing in the District of Ferryland for the Winter of 1799 & Spring of 1800: John Wade & James Wade (dieters) employed by John Carney. |
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Ferryland District Court Actions: March 8, 1803 - Meagher, ???: charged with assaulting: Wade, John. |
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Ferryland District Surrogate Court Records: November 30, 1818 - Carter, Samuel and Co. sued: Wade, William. |
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Ferryland Supreme Court Actions: November 3, 1830 - Slade (sic), William (and others): Charged with building a stage at Stone Island. |
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Ferryland Supreme Court Actions: October 14, 1831 - Morrison, James sued: Slade (sic), William. |
| At Caplin Bay: |
Voter's List for Caplin Bay: 1840, 1841, 1842, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, 1849 - William Wade; 1855, 1859 - John Wade. |
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Crown Land Registry: # 3119 - Wade, John: Stone Island, Caplin Bay - 1870 |
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Lovell's 1871 Directory: John Wade, farmer |
| Family History: |
Local oral tradition tends to identify the Wades as the first family to settle at Stone Island on the north-eastern headland of Caplin Bay. They settled on property located on the west side of Stone Island River (aka Wade's River), which flows into Calvert bay. The first Wade who lived there was William. He is mentioned in a case heard in Ferryland Surrogate Court on November 30, 1818. In that case, Samuel G. Carter &Co. sued William Wade for £4.4.0. Carter claimed that was the outstanding amount William owed him for the earlier rental of Jeffrey Malone's property at Ferryland. On November 3, 1830, in Ferryland Supreme Court, a William Slade (sic) was "charged with others in erecting a stage at Stone Island shooting place which interfered with other people's nets which have been set there for 40 years". This name, in all likelihood, should have been William Wade since the "others" charged with him were two settlers of Stone Island (Robert Swaine and Edward Kough) and Timothy Brien from the north side of Ferryland. The name was mentioned again as William Slade in 1831. I suspect that this name may have transcribed incorrectly because the old court records are hard to read. The charges were laid by Matthew Morry and Co. and Benjamin Sweetland and Co. These fishing merchants operated fishing enterprises at the head of Caplin Bay. |
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There are no surviving records that indicate William Wade's origin. In Newfoundland, the Wade surname generally appears to be of Irish descent, but it could also be of English origin. William may have been born in Newfoundland since there were Wades in the Conception Bay area as early as the 1770s. It is also possible that he was born in the Ferryland area, although the 1799/1800 List of Inhabitants does not show a resident Wade family in that area. However, other documents indicate that at Ferryland, in 1799/1800, John Carney was the master of John Wade and James Wade. John Wade was still in the area in 1803. |
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William Wade's name appeared in the Caplin Bay Voters List up to and including 1849. The reason for William's absence from the Voters Lists came to light many years later at St. John's, in the Voice of the Past section of The Daily News, August 7, 1928, page 4. It stated that William Wade died March 10, 1852, at Stone Island. In the 1855 and 1859 Voters Lists for Caplin Bay, John Wade's name appears at Stone Island in place of his father, William. Lovell's Directory of 1871 recorded John Wade as a farmer at Caplin Bay. Community lore concerning Johnny Wade tells of a man that most people considered eccentric. Local tales indicate that Johnny did not follow the traditional life of a fisherman. Instead, Johnny spent most of his time and effort clearing his family's land, known as Wade's Meadow. Fishermen related that on their way to the fishing grounds very early in the morning, they often saw Johnny Wade sitting on the cliff above the cove, with his legs dangling over the edge, obviously resting from a hard night's work. Of course, the local population regarded the fact that Johnny worked at night and slept during the day, rather strange indeed. In addition to this 'eccentricity,' people strongly doubted that one man alone was physically strong enough to move some of the large boulders that Johnny removed from his land. In an era when a strong belief in 'the fairies' was still very much a part of the local Irish culture, superstitious people speculated that Johnny just might have had some help from the 'little people.' |
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According to the St. John's newspapers, Johnny Wade died March 19, 1884 (aged 60 years). Johnny's wife, Martha, whose maiden name is unknown, was from Aquaforte, died in 1891. It seems Johnny and Martha had no sons, but they had two daughters, Mary and Catherine. Neither of them married. Mary Wade died in 1905, and her sister, Catherine (Kitty), died in 1934, the last of the Wade family and the last person to move away from the old Stone Island settlement. |
| Local Place Names: |
Wade's River & Wade's Cove. The small river from Stone Island Pond and the cove into which it flows on the Caplin Bay shoreline. |
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