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(pop. 1961, 92). A resettled fishing community, Piccaire was located in Hermitage Bay on the east side of Piccaire Harbour, a narrow steep-sided inlet just west of Gaultois qv. The name of the harbour is likely of French origin (possibly after the French province of Piccardy) and was noted by Captain James Cook in 1764, at which time it was not occupied. A well-protected harbour for small boats, Piccaire was likely used by migratory fishermen for some years prior to settlement, and evidence has also been uncovered that the harbour was used by the prehistoric Dorset people.
The history of Piccaire (locally ``Pickaree'') is closely tied with that of Gaultois. It is likely that most early residents originally came to Newfoundland with the firm of Newman and Company, an English firm trading out of Gaultois Harbour. The community appears in the first Newfoundland Census in 1836 with a population of 35. In 1839 Methodist missionary William Marshall walked to ``Picard'' from Gaultois (over a ``most shocking bad'' three-mile path) and visited the chief planter of the place, one Thomas Engram. Other residents recorded in the 1830s were fishermen John Nash and Edward Coombs. It is likely that these were the three families recorded there in 1857 (pop. 30). Through the remainder of the nineteenth century the population remained 30-40 people in four or five families. Although for some years there was a Church of England school/chapel at Piccaire, most residents attended church at Gaultois (the path between the two communities being upgraded in 1872), where fishermen also sold their catches to the Newman firm, then to Newmans' successors, T. Garland & Co.
By 1911 the population of Piccaire had increased to 54 and by 1921 to 73. In addition to Coombs and Engram, family names in the 1920s and 1930s included Matchim and Simms. By the 1930s many residents of Piccaire were working away from the community, as seamen and labourers or in the Bank fishery. The population declined to 59 by 1945 and to 28 by 1951, but the next year the opening of a fish plant at Gaultois led some people to return and by 1963 there were about 100 people. Soon thereafter, however, the community was resettled, with most moving either to Gaultois or Hermitage.
John Dollimount (1969),
E.R. Seary (1977),
Census (1836-1961),
List of Electors (1962),
Lovell's Newfoundland Directory (1871),
Archives (A-7-2),
United Church Archives (``The Journal of William Marshall'').
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