Jerseyside

From the first official census in 1836, residents were enumerated with those of North East Arm. The community of Jerseyside first appeared separately in the 1901 census, with a population of 143. Surnames associated with the area as early as the 1700's included Bruce, Blanche, Collins, Murphy, Power, and Whelan, while Mulrooney, O'Keefe, and Ryan families were also present by the early 1900's.

A railway line, completed in 1888, had provided some jobs other than the fishery, but it was not until the opening of the Argentia Base in 1941 that the large-scale abandonment of the fishery (which had been in decline since the Depression) occurred. With the Argentia Base a large employer, by 1955 there was only one fisherman in a community of 544 people. For Jerseyside residents, 1968 was also an important year as the completion of the Argentia access road, the institution of the Argentia-North Sydney ferry service and the opening of the ERCO plant at Long Harbour provided employment. But in the 1960s and early 1970s when the Base began a phase-down of their operations and the Argentia railway line shut down, many residents left to work in larger centres, the population dropping from its peak of 1,061 in 1971 to 641 a decade later. Although fishing facilities had been neglected, some people now returned to the fishery. Through the combined efforts of a special task force and the Placentia Area Development Association, Jerseyside received a community stage and feeder plant employing 24 people in 1972. Four years later the facility was upgraded to a multi-species, multi-purpose fish plant, which had 150 permanent employees by 1980. Although by 1986 a small recovery in the population to 764 had occurred, employment was lost when the Long Harbour plant closed soon after.The fish plant burned in 1997.