The first settler, John Skerry, arrived in 1794 from
                            Blackwater, County Waterford, with his wife Alice and two
                            young daughters, Alice and Catherine.  The Skerrys'
                            two-story house was built on a level piece of land by a
                            stream.  Catherine later married James Brennan from
                            Fadown, Ireland, and raised eight daughters and three sons,
                            while Alice married Patrick Tobin from Wexford and raised
                            five daughters and three sons.  James Brennan's house was
                            by his sawmill along the river, and Patrick Tobin's house
                            was in the southeast corner of the community.

                            In 1874, Ship Cove had a population of twenty-three in two
                            families, including one from Ireland.  The nine fishermen
                            landed two hundred and sixty quintals of cod, and one
                            farmer produced nine hundred pounds of butter.
                            By 1891, seven families had just twenty-five members who
                            landed two hundred and fifty-one quintals of cod worth
                            $1,070, but the settlement's main period of prosperity
                            was just getting under way.

                            By 1900, the population had risen to fifty-two, and
                            McAlpine's Directory, 1904, lists Michael and James
                            Brennan, and two generations of the Tobin family as
                            residents.  None of the thirteen children were in school in
                            1891, but this situation had changed by 1911, when fifteen
                            of the nineteen children were in the school built by Father
                            Renouf in 1909.  Mary Lundrigan, who was the first
                            teacher, followed by Caroline Brennan, who had
                            been teaching at Point Lance at the age of 14.  She had
                            twenty-two children in the Ship Cove school, which was torn
                            down in 1976.  Her husband was a local fisherman.
 
                            Ship Cove was a thriving fishing community.  The fifty
                            residents owned a twenty-eight ton schooner and nine boats,
                            and landed eight hundred and eighty-four quintals of cod
                            worth $4,537. John Snares and Jesse Masters, from Nova
                            Scotia, operated a lobster canning factory in the early
                            1900s.  There were also two farmers.  By 1935, the
                            population had increased slightly to 66 in 12 families with
                            11 dories and four motorboats.  The 49 acres supported
                            10 horses and 30 cattle.
 
                            There were also two factories, and blueberries, partridge
                            berries and cranberries were collected on the barrens.
                            The first bridge  was built in 1937.
 
                            The community never had more than 60 or 70 people and
                            was largely abandoned in the late 1960's as people moved
                            to find work.  About half the 1961 population of 66
                            remained, but today just the Tobin family is resident.