Catalina

Robert Slade expanded his business from Trinity to Catalina in 1813.

James Lannigan managed the property from 1813-1821. He was sentenced in 1822 to jail and deportation for larceny of funds from his employer, Slade and Kelson.

Lannigan’s successor was Alexander Bremner, 1821-1861, a Scotsman who came out from his native Nairn to Newfoundland in 1811 and soon afterwards entered the Slade employ at Trinity where he married Ann White (or Lander), later removing  to Catalina, where he was the last Slade agent. All of their children were born at Catalina, the eldest son being William and another Alexander Warren.

At the 1861 Slade insolvency, Alexander, and his younger sons, John and Dugald, bought the Catalina premises and conducted their own business for a few years until they sold out. Alexander Warren bought the Trinity business where he formed a partnership with Walter Grieve (1809 – 1887) who had his own firm in St. John’s, Walter Grieve and Company and the Trinity operation became known as Grieve & Bremner. In 1869 they also leased the Garland premises which made them the major mercantile firm in Trinity at that time. During the operation Walter Grieve lived primarily in Scotland while Alexander W. Bremner managed the firm at Trinity. The firm engaged in all aspects of the trade and maintained a huge inventory of goods at Trinity. Sealing was an important aspect of the firms business and each year vessels were sent to the ice, under such well known Captains as Richard Ash. The firm maintained close ties with Walter Grieve and Company in St. John’s and Walter Grieve of Greenock, who shipped many of the supplies sold at Grieve and Bremner’s shop and store. Alexander Bremner died in 1886, followed by Walter Grieve in 1887, bringing an end to the business.

Bremner bequeathed his Catalina premises and property to his sons, Robert S. and Alexander Hugh. With his father’s share of the Trinity estate,  Robert Sweetland Bremner purchased the Grieve and Bremner premises at Trinity from Grieve’s trustees and continued to operate the business until becoming insolvent in 1900.

Some correspondence between the Trinity and Catalina firms exists in the Trinity Historical Society Archives.