Birth Place and Birth Date

As we have seen The Encyclopedia of Newfoundland cast some doubt on his birthplace and time of birth. "Mitchell, Matthew (c. 1850 - 1921) Woodsman; prospector. born Halls bay or Norris Point..."

The 1921 Newfoundland census recently became available on the WWW at Project 21 http://www.huronweb.com/genweb/p21/main.htm. It shows

Corner Brook 1921 Census Bay of Islands

Name	Sex	Rel.	Status	Birth D.	Age	Birth Place
WEBB; Charlie	M	Head	M	1883,Jan	38	St George's
WEBB; Alice	F	wife	M	1893,Mar	28	Bonnie? Bay
WEBB; Ronald	M	son	S	1912,Aug	9	Corner Brook
WEBB; John	M	son	S	1914,Apr	7	" "
WEBB; Pius	M	son	S	1918,July	3	" "
WEBB; Ignatius	M	son	S	1919,Nov	2	" "
WEBB; Bridget	F	dau	S	1916,June	5	" "
MITCHELL; Matchew	M	F-I-L	W	1846,June	75	Halle? Bay, NF

The Halle? Bay is a typo and should be Halls Bay, one of the two places suggested by The Encyclopedia of Newfoundland.

As to his birth date, the date of June 1846 is interesting and could be correct but then either the census taker or the Curling Church Death register made a typo in that the latter shows 1921 as death year at age 77 which would make the birth year 1844. I saw the Curling Death register in 1997 and it definitely showed the age at death as 77.

The 1921 census also shows him as a W (widower) staying with Charlie and Alice Webb and was their F-I-L (father-in-law). This is incorrect, Charlie was a younger brother of Mattie's late wife Marie Anne Webb. Again this may be a typo by either the census taker in 1921 or the transcriber in 1999 and shows F-I-L instead of B-I-L.

To sum up I think we can safely conclude that Mattie was born in Halls Bay in either 1844 or 1846.