Population: 622 (1996)
667 (1991)

Incorporated: 1964

One of the first sites on the northeast coast of Newfoundland to be settled by English fisherman was Winterton. In early records it appeared as "Scilly Cove", however, it 1912 it was renamed in honour of former Prime Minister, Sir James S. Winter. Silly Cove was a well established fishing community by at least 1675 when it appears in the first Newfoundland Census.

Winterton was tied economically and socially to the larger fishing and mercantile centre of Trinity from about 1700. In turn, trade was dominated by the Dorset port of Poole.

In the 1700s, the number of permanent settlers increased. The Poole-Trinity firm of Jeffery Street were operating a branch at Winterton and appeared to have brought many of the pioneer settlers of the community there from the Dorset neighborhood of Poole.

In the early eighteen hundreds fishermen from Winterton, were doing business with Slade & Kelson at Heart's Content and Job Brothers at Hant's Harbour after the decline of the Poole-Trinity firms.

The shore fishery (largely conducted to the north and east of Winterton or at Baccalieu Island) was supplemented by some involvement in the Labrador fishery. While the harbour was neither deep nor large enough to accommodate a large schooner fishery, Winterton obtained a reputation as a boat building community.

In the following decades emigration to the United States and Canada caused the population to decline and it eventually evened out at about 700 people.