A direct witness:
the dog he personally owned.
Reverend Lewis Amadeus Anspach was a magistrate and missionary at Conception Bay, Newfoundland, for many years. The dog he describes is his own, purchased from a breeder in the north of the island, raised in his house, observed for years. Not a theory, not a classification — a first-person account. The text was extracted directly from the original PDF via high-resolution OCR.
The dog of the "true breed"
brought from the north of the island.
"The Author had purchased a puppy of the true breed, which had been brought from the northward of the island to Harbour-Grace. This puppy grew up to the size of a small donkey, as strong and fit for hard work, he was tractable and gentle, even with the children of the family, of whom he seemed to be particularly fond."Rev. L.A. Anspach, A History of the Island of Newfoundland, 1827, p. 379
\"Of the true breed" — brought from the north of Newfoundland where the original breed had remained purer. Anspach uses this term deliberately: mixed dogs existed, and he had procured an authentic specimen.
The winter coat:
long glossy hairs that turn white.
"The natural colour of this dog was a perfect black, with the exception of very few white spots. As soon as winter approached, he acquired a coat which grew to the depth of about one inch, of close coarse wool deviating from the original colour only by an inclination to red; the long, thick, glossy hairs preserved the same colour up to the surface of the coat, and then turned generally to a perfect white."Rev. L.A. Anspach, A History of the Island of Newfoundland, 1827, pp. 381–382
Precise zoological description of the double coat: inner layer of short dense wool, outer layer of long glossy hairs. "Long, thick, glossy hairs" — long hairs. Not a short-haired dog: a dog with a winter double coat where the outer layer consists of long hairs. The coat of the proto-Labrador in its original configuration.
The English Newfoundland:
"only half bred."
"The well-known partiality of the Newfoundland dog for the water, in which, whether salt or fresh, he appears as if he were in his proper element, diving and keeping his head under the surface for a considerable time, as well as his being web-footed, seem to give him some connexion with the class of amphibious animals. The beautiful species generally known in England by that name is only half bred."Rev. L.A. Anspach, A History of the Island of Newfoundland, 1827, p. 387
The "beautiful species generally known in England" — the Newfoundland known in England — was "only half bred". It was not the authentic dog Anspach had at Conception Bay. It was already a cross. Selection towards short coat was already underway, and the dog circulating in England was no longer the original Newfoundland.