Witless Bay, first named Whittleless Bay after a Captain Whittle who settled there.
The firsh settlers were English fishermen, soon superceded by Irish in the 1700s. Roman Catholicism was outlawed in Newfoundland in the 18th C., priests disguised as fishermen ministered to the spiritual needs. In 1836, the first official census was 542, of whom 540 were Irish. In 1845 the first Catholic church opened.
The name changes to Whittle less and finally to Witless. People settled from Gallows Cove increased the population and Witless Bay was incorporated in 1986.

Lyr. Add: In Witless Cove
T. G. Roberts

In Witless Bay the little fields
Are dark above the sea-
The little sheep-cropt pastures
Where bridget walked with me.

The evening glow is fading
Where the west is clear and wide,
And the boys are climbing homeward
From the *flakes along the tide.

The geese are herded in the pen-'Twas Bridget called them in.
The red cow's lowing at the door
For milking to begin.

The darling lights are gleaming
In windows high and low:
In Father Keegan's study
You can mark a saintly glow.

In Witless Bay the little fields
Are dark above the sea;
And Bridget's calling, in her prayers,
To tear the heart of me:

And still the wind holds steady
Across the darkling blue.....
Then may the dear Christ shield us safe
And guide me home to you!

For oh! my heart is longing,
From half the world away,
To foot again the climbing path
Above the little bay!

".....the strongest of leather bottles springs a leak before the high quest is ended."

Theodore Goodridge Roberts, 1934, The Leather Bottle, The Ryerson Press, Toronto.

Newfoundlanders would be small farmers, fishermen, and sailors, all in the same generation, and often in the same person.
Sometimes it is difficult to separate Robert's poems into categories.
One about the farm may still have the smell of the strand and the sea.
*Flake- a platform on poles for bleaching and drying cod, after curing under salt.