Ferryland

Small town in southeast Newfoundland, Canada; population (1991) 700. It is situated on the southeast of Avalon Peninsula, on the Atlantic Ocean, 63 km/39 mi south-southwest of St John's. It is a fishing and service centre.

Ferryland's protected harbour was used by the French in the early 1500s. In 1621 George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, made it the capital of his province of Avalon (Newfoundland); by 1629, however, difficult conditions here had driven him south to initiate the establishment of Maryland. There are no remains in the modern community of the 17th-century buildings. The town's name probably comes from the French forillon, for an isolated headland.