Let's cleanse the landscape of the name of a Beothuk killer
It’s not just Portuguese statues that need attention. Think mountains
This column is an opinion by Roger Bill, a retired journalist and a documentary maker. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.
In 1820 the name of the towering Blue Mountain Tolt in central Newfoundland was changed to honour a celebrated Beothuk killer. Two centuries later, isn't it about time to change the name of Mount Peyton?
In the Geological Survey of Newfoundland published in 1881, Alexander Murray and James Howley describe the scene from the summit of Mount Peyton as "indescribably grand," and offering the "finest panorama of the island." In a later publication of his reminiscences, Howley described the mountain as "looking quite blue in the early morning light."
Along with their geological observations Murray and Howley note Governor John Hamilton (1818-1823) named the mountain "in honour of John Peyton, Esq., JP., as overlooking the scene of many of his youthful adventures during the days of the now extinct Beothics or Red Indians of Newfoundland."
In March 1819, one of John Peyton's "youthful adventures" took the form of killing a Beothuk man, Nonosabasut, and kidnapping his wife Demasduit.
The young woman was taken by her captors to St. John's, where a jury found the youthful adventurer John Peyton Jr. not guilty of murder. Though Peyton and a group of white men carrying firearms chased a group of Beothuk across the frozen ice of Red Indian Lake, the St. John's jury said Peyton acted in self-defence.
The depiction of the killing in Ken Pittman's 1988 film Finding Mary March has always seemed true to written descriptions of the pursuit, and it looks like what most people would call murder.
The tragedy of Demasduit
The young woman Demasduit was called Mary March. It is her portrait that greets visitors at the soon-to-be-renamed Mary March Museum in Grand Falls-Windsor. It was painted by Sir John Hamilton's wife, Henrietta, and the original is part of the Library and Archives Canada collection.
In 1820, the governor ordered that Demasduit be returned to her people and her infant son from whom she was separated. She never made it. Demasduit died on the ship carrying her back to Red Indian Lake.
Her body was eventually returned to the burial hut containing the body of her husband Nonosabasut.
Later, trappers encountered three starving Beothuk women, a mother and her two daughters. One daughter survived and she lived in John Peyton's Exploits Island home for several years.
By this time Peyton, a magistrate, was likely one of the most prosperous merchants in Notre Dame Bay. The Beothuk woman worked in Peyton's home as a nanny and a servant.
Her name was Shawnadithit. She was called Nancy and when she died in 1829 it is believed that she was the last of the Beothuk.
John Peyton Jr. is buried on Exploits Island in the same grave as his father, John Peyton Sr., who was also celebrated as a Beothuk killer. In fact, John Jr. is buried on top of his father and their headstone lies flat on the ground on top of their grave.
'We all breathe the same breath'
The late Gerry Squires, the acclaimed Newfoundland artist who created the bronze statue of a Beothuk woman that stands on the grounds of the Boyd's Cove Beothuk Interpretation Centre, showed me the Peytons' grave site.
I was on Exploits Island with Gerry Squires during the making of a documentary about the creation of the Spirit of the Beothuk statue. Squires spent part of his childhood on Exploits Island and he recalled being told as a child the reason the Peytons' headstone was laid flat on top of their grave was because they feared the Beothuk would dig up their bodies and desecrate them.
Squires told me when he returned to Exploits Island in the summer months to work he often felt like he was walking on the same pathways Shanawdithit had walked on. On one journey to the island he believed he saw the spirit of Shanawdithit.
That vision propelled him and sculptor Luben Boykov on a journey that culminated in the creation of a bronze statue that will last a thousand years. Gerry Squires told me he understood he was making a monument that would become part of the telling of the Beothuk's story, but he also wanted to make a statement about our shared humanity, or as he put it, "We all breathe the same breath."
In 1827, William Cormack led an expedition to central Newfoundland to try and make contact with the Beothuk. He returned to Red Indian Lake. Everyone was gone.
What he did find, however, was the burial hut with Nonosabasut's and Demasduit's remains. Cormack turned grave robber and took some of the artifacts from the grave site and Nonosabasut's skull.
He sent the skull to a friend at the University of Edinburgh from which it has finally and only recently been returned.
Nonosabasut's skull is the source of the tooth thatis the source of the DNA that has proved DNA from the Beothuk still circulates among the living on the island of Newfoundland today.
Depending on atmospheric conditions, from a distance the mountain bearing John Peyton's name can appear blue.
Up close the solid granite tolt is not blue, but seen from Gander Lake or the Bay of Exploits — like Howley saw it one day in the early morning light — it can appear to be blue.
It makes sense why it was called Blue Mountain Tolt.
What doesn't make sense two centuries later is why it is still called Mount Peyton.
It is time to honour the history of the Beothuk and cleanse the landscape of John Peyton's name.
Toponymy, a branch of a branch of linguistics, is the study of place names, and the starting point for geographers who specialize in it is that every name has a story to tell.
The question for us is this: when our children and grandchildren and their children for the next two centuries look at the towering blue mountain in central Newfoundland, what story do we want it to tell them?
Who Will Sing For Me?, Roger Bill's documentary about the making of the Spirit of the Beothuk statue, is a work-in-progress.
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