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How Garnish Got its Name:  (by Travis Parsons, Grand Bank)   I am writing a screen play that is based on an actual attack of American privateers on communities in Fortune Bay during the American Revolutionary war. A group of Grand Bank men left the community in a shallop and overtook one of the privateer ships near Miquelon, and brought them back to the community as prisoners of war. The plan was to get the American POWs to Placentia (largest settlement nearby at the time), where they would be jailed. The following morning, the men were transported from Grand Bank to the community of "Cornish". There, they were brought 6 miles up a river (presumably Garnish River), and then had to walk around 20 miles to the community of "Morteer" (village of Mortier Bay, present day Marystown), where they were then shipped to Placentia.

Based on this account from Andrew Sherburne's memoirs (he was a young privateer amongst the group captured), he called the community "Cornish". All of the rest of his names and descriptions were accurate. Also, Cornish is a term used to refer to people from the county of Cornwall in southwest England. Almost all Newfoundlanders that are of English decent, originated from the west country of England, and Cornish was one region of that area. The community was probably settled originally by the French, but if they had a name on the community it may have been lost when the first English settlers showed up...and those English settlers were probably from Cornwall. The area then most likely started to be referred to as the place where the Cornish reside, and over time turned into "Cornish" and that morphed over the years to Garnish based on people being illiterate and their dialects. When the first people started to write the name of their community down, they probably said it as Garnish. Likely, Cornish turned into Carnish which then turned into Garnish. Surely there are some people in this province today who have a thick enough accent that even saying Cornish would sound like Garnish. In addition to this, many of the surnames now found in Garnish are also seen in Cornwall.