Early Vancouver

Volume Six

By: Major J.S. Matthews, V.D.

2011 Edition (Originally Published 1945)

Narrative of Pioneers of Vancouver, BC Collected During 1940-1945.

Supplemental to volumes one, two, three, four and five collected in 1931, 1932, 1934, 1939 and 1944.

About the 2011 Edition

The 2011 edition is a transcription of the original work collected and published by Major Matthews. Handwritten marginalia and corrections Matthews made to his text over the years have been incorporated and some typographical errors have been corrected, but no other editorial work has been undertaken. The edition and its online presentation was produced by the City of Vancouver Archives to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the City's founding. The project was made possible by funding from the Vancouver Historical Society.

Copyright Statement

© 2011 City of Vancouver. Any or all of Early Vancouver may be used without restriction as to the nature or purpose of the use, even if that use is for commercial purposes. You may copy, distribute, adapt and transmit the work. It is required that a link or attribution be made to the City of Vancouver.

Reproductions

High resolution versions of any graphic items in Early Vancouver are available. A fee may apply.

Citing Information

When referencing the 2011 edition of Early Vancouver, please cite the page number that appears at the bottom of the page in the PDF version only, not the page number indicated by your PDF reader. Here are samples of how to cite this source:

Footnote or Endnote Reference:
Major James Skitt Matthews, Early Vancouver, Vol. 6 (Vancouver: City of Vancouver, 2011), 33.

Bibliographic Entry:
Matthews, Major James Skitt. Early Vancouver, Vol. 6. Vancouver: City of Vancouver, 2011.

Contact Information

City of Vancouver Archives

1150 Chestnut Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 3J9

604.736.8561

archives@vancouver.ca

vancouver.ca/archives

Item # EarlyVan_v6_001

Early Vancouver

Volume Six

1945

During 1940-1945

Narratives of Pioneers

of

Vancouver, B.C.

Collected during 1940-1945

Supplemental to volumes one, two, three, four and five

collected in 1931, 1932, 1934, 1939 and 1944

Compiled by

Major J.S. Matthews, V.D.

Vancouver, Canada.

1945

Index by

Miss Dorothy Andrew

Memo of conversation with Mr. William Knight Mellis, 3228 Vanness Avenue, Vancouver, former driver of daily stage, Vancouver-Terra Nova, son of James and Isabella Mellis, who drove before he did; 2 July 1940.

Stages. Steveston. North Arm Road. Big trees.

Mr. Mellis said: “It was” (23 December 1895) “that the tree fell which killed ‘Billy’ Steves” (Walter Herbert Steves; his widow survives, 1940), “the Steveston stage driver on the North Arm Road, now Granville Street South. There was a big wind storm from the west, and the tree fell from that direction; it was not a big tree, but it was big enough to kill him. It did not injure horses nor passengers, I don’t think it even broke a wheel; it fell right across the driver’s seat.

“When the accident happened, William Cuckow, Lulu Island farmer, was following in his buggy, I was driving my stage to Terra Nova next after him” (note: Mrs. Willoughby Howell, née Errington, was third; see her narrative), “so that I saw all, and hurried on to get help by telephone.”

Shannon. Shannon’s Farm. 57th Avenue West.

On my way to Shannon’s Farm—‘Shannon’ at 57th Avenue West now, on Granville Street—I had to cross seventeen trees fallen across the road; that is, I had to drive over, or go around, seventeen trees before I could get from where the accident happened—right on the top of the hill at 37th Avenue, on the very crest, by the gravel pit—before I could get to the telephone at Shannon’s. And it was dark, about 4:30 p.m., and a big wind from the west.

“The stage was an ordinary express wagon, two horses. A low, not a high, driver’s seat in front, and backing on to it, on the same level, another seat; the passengers on that seat faced the rear. Then there were three more seats on the stage, and, at the back, a drop board; they tied such things as a trunk, or anything else. The stage had a canopy supported on iron rods, and side flaps of tarpaulin material for use in bad weather. And, on the top of the canopy, all around, was a low iron railing so that trunks would not fall off. There were about nine passengers, mostly Japanese.”

Thirty-seventh Avenue. Gravel pit.

“Right on top of the hill, on the summit, was a sort of clearing on both sides of the road; and they had been taking gravel from pits on both sides of the road, and that had undermined that tree, weakened it.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_002

[photo annotation:]

North Arm Road, 1895, now Granville Street South. Looking south. The crest of “Summit Hill,” now 37th Ave, Shaughnessy. The horses & stage are at (approx) 36th Ave. On the dark and stormy night, 23 Dec. 1895, a stage, driven by “Billy” Steves, of Steveston, and conveying about nine passengers, mostly Japanese; several buggies with returning Christmas shoppers followed. The westerly gale uprooted a small tree, and, falling across road, killed stage driver. Horses, stage & passengers uninjured. Published, “WORLD,” 20 June 1896, souvenir edition, under title “On the Road to Lulu Island.” The gravel pit was on summit, exactly 37th Av. City Archives J.S.M.

The tree probably stood at No. 5349 Granville St. South, Lot 4, Block 3 & 4, D.L. 526. Another pit was across road, remains visible, 1940, on vacant lot, No. 2 block 911. The fallen tree shown here was not the one which killed Walter Herbert Steves. (Billy.)

Item # EarlyVan_v6_003

[photo annotation:]

“The Summit,” (37th Ave.), Lulu Island farmers, mail stage, and load of hay on their way to Vancouver. Telephone poles east side road.

Steves family.

“It killed Walter Steves; never touched the horses or passengers; and cost South Vancouver Municipality a lot of money” (for damages.) “Walter Steves had a brother, Freeman Steves, but neither were any blood relation to J.M. Steves, but Walter Steves married J.M. Steves’ sister. A Steves married a Steves; at least, that’s as I understand it. At the inquest, Wm. Cuckow said that when the tree fell across the stage, the Japanese started to run, and added, ‘I thought they would never stop running.’ Walter Steves is buried in Mountain View. I am under the impression that this team here” (photo P. Str. 97, N. Str. 67) “is the team ‘Billy’ Steves was driving at the time he was killed.”

(Note: in July 1940, Lot 2, Block 911, D.L. 526, vacant land numbered 5338, shows the remains of a gravel pit overgrown with small trees six inches thick, a little grove; across the street, also vacant land, no signs of gravel show now. This property is Lot 4, Block 3 and 4, D.L. 526, and is numbered 5349. On Lot 3, being the west corner adjoining, is a fine residence, No. 5315, Robert McNair; on the east corner, being No. 5312, on Lot 1, Block 911, a home is being erected by builders, J.L. Northey Co. Ltd.)

King Edward Avenue. 25th Avenue West.

“Mud? There was lots of it. I have pulled a horse out of it with another horse up where Twenty-fifth Avenue is now. You see, if a horse gets bogged, why, some people put a rope around him, and when the strain goes on it tightens around his heart and kills him. The proper way to pull a mired horse out is put the rope around his throat; then when you pull—with another horse—it chokes him, he struggles, and out he comes.”

Post office. Terra Nova.

“My brother was killed by being thrown off, and over the side, on the Granville Street bridge; he drowned, the day the post office contract for the mail was signed, 22nd November 1893, for Terra Nova on the northwest corner of Lulu Island, but the Alliance, Terra Nova and Labrador salmon canneries were not there then; they came about 1895.”

Hugh Magee. Stages racing.

“Funny thing happened, I must tell you. Old man Magee lived down 49th Avenue, old Magee Road, and he used to race the stage. One day three or four of us were driving into Vancouver about Sixtieth Avenue, and we started to race. Just when we got to about 49th Avenue” (Magee Road) “old man Magee was coming out, and he saw us coming.

“He was as deaf as a post, and the old man started to run; everyone else started too. Generally, we used to quit after a while, but this day we didn’t; nobody quit. Then, when we hit the Granville Street bridge across False Creek, Freeman Steves, that’s brother to Billy Steves, who was dead at that time, he backed out of the race, but when we all got to the draw” (swing bridge) “in the middle, Chief” (of Police) “McLaren was there, and he pinched every one of us. He did not stop us; he knew us all, but the next day we got a summons.

“Now, this is the funny part. I forget who the judge was, but when Magee went into the box in court he said: ‘You know, your Honour, I’m deaf, so I’ll just tell my story. I was coming out of my road, and you know I have to look around to see what coming, I can’t hear, and I saw the stage and others coming, and I thought one of them was running away, so I just put the butt’” (of the whip) “‘to my horse, and “started going.”’

“We all got fined, two fifty each, but he” (Magee) “got off. And it was him who started it.”

Comment by Miss M.E. McCleery: “That was the Irish in him.”

Granville Street South. North Arm Road. Lynn Brown, Kitsilano Times.

“When the North Arm Road was finished, the contractors felled a cedar tree across it down near Eburne” (Marpole) “to stop the stage using it until the road had been taken over. Lynn Brown, he owns the Kitsilano Times now, went up at night, and sawed the cedar tree away so that, in the morning, the stage could take a bunch of fellows up to Vancouver to go over to Lynn Creek for target shooting. The road ran as straight as an arrow; not a curve nor a bend in it.”

Approved by Mr. Mellis, 19 July 1940.

Memo of conversation with John Elliott, pioneer of Fairview, whose sister was the first baby born in Fairview, now of Appeal Board, Town Planning Commission, 11 July 1940.

First Fairview school. Eighth Avenue West. Fairview.

Mr. Elliott said: “I was the barefoot boy; just me, who took a petition around to all the scattered houses of Fairview right from Cambie Street west to the limit of civilisation—and that wasn’t much west of Granville Street either—asking that a school be established in Fairview.

“The first little school was about 25’ x 50’, two-storey, stove and cordwood, of course, on the lane corner of Eighth Avenue, west of Granville Street a few yards” (see Goad’s Map, folio 50, Lt. 25, Blk. 331, D.L. 526, 1901) “and was built by a man named Matheson. The principal, he was the sole teacher, too, for a couple of terms, was G.W. McRae; then Miss Ethel LePage came; relation of LePage, the glue man; I think her name is Mrs. Wheeler now; not sure.

“It was also the first Sunday school, Rev. E.D. McLaren started it; it was a mission of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, and the Sunday school superintendent was Mr. McCuaig, the auctioneer. Afterwards it was a carpenter’s shop; torn down now, long ago.”

Edmonds. Fraser River. Weather zero. Sleighing.

“The coldest weather Vancouver ever had was in February 1893, about the 18th I think; it was six below in Vancouver, at twelve below at the water tower at the power station on the Westminster-Vancouver interurban, just by the Municipal Hall, Edmonds, now.

“And all that month of February 1893, there was sleighing for teams on the Fraser River at Westminster; I saw it.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_004

Memo of conversation with Mrs. James Cottrell, of St. Dennis Street, Lynmour, North Vancouver (Mr. James Cottrell is Traffic Superintendent, B.C. Electric Railway Company), who very kindly called at the City Archives, 12 July 1940.

Moodyville. Mechanics Institute. Moodyville Library.

Mrs. Cottrell said, handing me two books, The Sublime in Nature, 1872, and Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1871, with book plates, printed “No. 86, THE LIBRARY OF THE MECHANIC’S INSTITUTE, Burrard Inlet, purchased October 1874, Keep Clean” and “No. 103,” labelled in same manner, purchased 1874.

“I spoke to Mother” (Mrs. W.A. Harris, 342 17th East, North Vancouver) “about the books, and she said that they were about to be burned sometime about 1907 or near that date; I presume when they were clearing away the old mill at Moodyville, but do not know exactly; anyway, Mr. Nicholson, he is an Irish peer now, told Mother to help herself to all she wanted of the books which, as far as I know, were down at the old Institute. Some years ago, Mother gave them to me. And as I felt that the people of Vancouver would like to have them as relics of one of their first two libraries on Burrard Inlet, I spoke to Mother, and she joins with me in presenting them for safekeeping.”

Memo of conversation with Miss Margaret Elliott, 1636 West Eighth Avenue, sister of John Elliott of the Appeal Board, Town Planning Commission, and of Mrs. J.F. Richmond, first baby born in Fairview; 12 July 1940.

First Fairview school. Chalmers (United) Church. Presbyterian Church, Fairview.

Mrs. Richmond called to the phone her sister, Miss Elliott, who said: “The first school was on the lane corner, Eighth Avenue. We crossed Granville Street, macadam road and mud, then went down the three-plank sidewalk, south side Eighth Avenue, about forty yards to the lane corner across the lane” (Lot 26, Block 331, D.L. 526), “turned in, and up some steps, five or six, to platform, and entered the school. The whole of the first floor was one room, with the teacher, and a stove—cordwood and airtight heater—at one end; then there was a staircase, and the whole of the upstairs was another room. The building was painted a sort of orange red. Geo. W. McRae was the sole teacher and principal, and then, after about a year, maybe more, Miss Ethel LePage—not of the LePage glue family, but a cousin of that family; she had two brothers, one is in Victoria yet, I think—she came.

“The boys, my brothers; John was the one who started it; he went around with a petition, and gathered enough signatures asking for a school; he went all around Fairview as far as Cambie Street; there were no houses south of Ninth Avenue so he did not go there, and only a few west of Granville Street; and that was how the Fairview School started; there were all grades in the first school; I was in the lowest.

“Then we moved to the big school on the corner” (southwest corner of Granville and Ninth Avenue) “and at first that was a small school. But we started to drill; Sergeant Major Bundy was instructor, and when King George V was here, the Duke of Cornwall and York then, September 1901, we won the flag for drilling; there was a march past of school children, at Brockton Point, and we won the flag.

“In the first school we had slates and blackboards; no lights, but there must have been lights; lamps, I suppose; perhaps electric light.”

Chalmers Church. Presbyterian Church.

“The first Presbyterian Church in Fairview was held in that school room; they held their prayers there; it’s now Chalmers United Church; that’s where they started, although there was a split, and there is a Presbyterian Church over in Kitsilano who claim they were the people who started there. The children who went to that first school included Barney Oldfield, a director of the race track now, and old Mr. Sumner’s children; he’s still there; two or three of his boys, and the Darien family; they are relatives of the DeBou family, and Capt. Robertson’s children; he was a pilot, and H.J. Painter, City assessor, his children, and of course my family, the Elliotts.”

Note: Goad’s map, 1912, plate 25, shows the old building, but Mr. A. Quartermaine, present owner, 1940, says “It has not been there for twenty-seven years” (so it must have been pulled down in 1913); “it has always been vacant, 27 years.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_005

Memo of conversation with August Jack Khahtsahlano, who kindly called at the City Archives, 16 July 1940.

Chinalset. “Jericho Charlie.” Birth of August Jack Khahtsahlano.

Major Matthews, reading from a slip of paper photostatted with three others, all birth certificates: August, what does this mean? (reading)

Auguste, fils de Shinaotset et de Menatlot, Squamishs, baptise à l’âge d’environ 16 mois le 12 fevrier, 1879.

N. Gregone,

O.M.I.

August: “That’s me: when I was a little boy, they call me Menatlot. My mother marry Chinalset” (“Jericho Charlie”) “when I was little. I was born the same day my father died. But the priest, he’s got it all mixed up. My father was Khay-tulk” (or Supplejack) “and my mother Qwhy-wat. Menatlot was Chinalset’s first wife, and my mother was Chinalset’s second wife, and he was her second husband. The proper way to pronounce it, if it is a girl, then it is Menatel-lot, and if it is a boy, Menahtia.”

Khay-tulk. Supplejack.

(If August was 16 months old on 12 February 1879, and was born the day his father died, then Khaytulk or “Supplejack” must have died about October 1877.)

Chief Khahtsahlanough. Peter Plant.

“My grandfather, Chief Khahtsahlanough, have sons, Khay-tulk, Khar-luk, Keeolst, all brothers, and Khah-my, their sister; Khay-tulk, my father; Khah-my, my aunt, marry white man; her half-breed daughter marry Peter Plant.”

Brockton Point.

(Looking at photo No. P. St. 124, N. St. 25, being “53 looking north from Brockton Point, 1885,” photo by L.A. Hamilton; huge boulder on shore in foreground.)

“Oooooh, yes. Just west of Brockton Point; gone now. Don’t think it has an Indian legend to it, but we used to catch lots of devil fish under it” (octopus); “nine legs; lots; pretty nearly every day we go back catch more.”

Octopus. Indian food.

Major Matthews: What for?

August Jack: “Cook ‘um; boil; the part you eat is the legs. But you got to wash ‘um good” (well.) “Don’t know why they wash, but they do it, after he’s boiled. If you don’t do it” (wash them) “they’s tickle” (tingle) “your mouth like needles; just like when your foot ‘goes to sleep,’ you get ‘needles.’ Don’t do you no harm; he’s just ‘strong,’ that’s all, but you gets ‘needles’ in your mouth if you don’t wash him after he’s boiled.”

Chants. Shaalsh. Siwash Rock.

(Siwash Rock’s kitchen.) “Chants? It’s a kind of flat sandstone on the beach; holes in it; all shape holes; on the beach it’s covered with water when the tide’s in.” (See Early Vancouver, Vol. 2, page 20.)

(Looking at very close up photo of Siwash Rock, marked “Siwash Rock,” “Devine,” “Vancouver” and two men concealed on left hand side of rock, part way up.)

Chief Lahwa. “Navvy Jack.”

“That cottage on far shore is” (left of rock) “‘Navvy Jack’s,’ and this one” (right of rock) “is Lahwa’s. He lived on the west bank of Capilano Creek; there is little creek there runs into big one, and he lived on the point. Then, after he’s father” (Old Chief Ki-ap-a-la-no) “died, he moved over to the east bank at Homulcheson.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_006

[photo annotation:]

First C.P.R. general offices and first bank in Vancouver, 1886-7, north side Cordova St. Prov. Archives, Victoria.

Opening the first bank. the Bank of British Columbia. Bankers never make mistakes.

On 19 July 1940, George Frederick Upham, pioneer, who arrived at Granville, Burrard Inlet, now Vancouver, New Year’s Day, 1886, who fled the “Great Fire” of Vancouver, 13 June 1886, in a wagon, etc., sauntered into the City Archives, City Hall, and sat down before the City Archivist’s desk. (Major J.S. Matthews, V.D.) After preliminary chatter, he said:

Bank of British Columbia opening. First deposit. First bank in Vancouver. Dan McGillivray.

Mr. Upham: “I must tell you. The first bank to be opened in Vancouver was the Bank of British Columbia; Dan McGillivray made the first deposit; I know; I saw him do it. And I made the first withdrawal. I’ll tell you something funny about bankers.”

First withdrawal. First check cashed. J.C. Keith, manager. — Harvey, bank clerk.

“I got a money order for one hundred dollars, and went to Jonathan Miller at the Post Office to cash it, but he couldn’t do it, so Miller wrote a note to Mr. J.C. Keith, manager of the Bank of British Columbia which had just opened down in the C.P.R. Offices on Cordova Street, asking him to cash the money order, and he pinned the note to the order, and gave both to me. So I went to the new bank and walked in.

“Harvey, afterwards Loewen and Harvey, was clerk, and Mr. Keith, he was manager; both were behind the counter. I don’t know why, perhaps because they were just starting, anyway, Mr. Keith, not Harvey the cashier, reached across, took the money order with the note pinned to it from my hand, and Mr. Keith handed me in return some bills. I counted them; eleven ten dollar bills.

“I said, looking up from the counting, ‘I think you have made a mistake.’

“Mr. Keith didn’t seem pleased, and said quite abruptly, ‘Bankers don’t make mistakes,’ emphasising the word don’t.

“So I moved a bit; counted the ten dollar notes again—there was eleven all right—and then went back to the counter, and said to Mr. Keith, ‘I think you’ve made a mistake.’ After I said that he was even less pleased. I forget what he said; doesn’t matter anyway. There was nothing for me to do but go out in the street. So I went out on Cordova Street, looked up and down wondering what to do, and then sat down on the edge of the wooden sidewalk with my feet on the earth—there wasn’t any other place to sit—and counted the bank notes again: eleven all right.

“Presently, I got up and went back in the bank, and walked up to Mr. Keith, who was behind the counter, and said, ‘I think you’ve made a mistake.’

“By this time he was fuming; he was ‘boiling.’ I listened to what he had to say, and it was quite interesting, and then cleared out; it was no place for me to stay.

“That night, Harvey came down to where I was staying, and came up to me, and said, ‘You were at the bank today; what was the mistake?’

“I gave him a pompous sort of look, and replied, ‘You go right back to the bank, and find out.’ And that was the end of it for a time.

“Well, about four months afterwards, I was up at the bank again, and there was Mr. Keith again. He came over to me, and said, ‘You were in here before, weren’t you,’ quite politely. And then he apologised for what he had said.

“So I replied, cheery like, ‘Oh, that’s all right.’ Then I added slyly, ‘I don’t suppose you expect me to give you back that ten dollars after all this long time?’

“‘I should say not,’ ejaculated Mr. Keith, with a smile. ‘Would not accept it if you did. Come on across the street; let’s have a drink.’”

BANKERS DON’T MAKE MISTAKES.

Further conversation, 19 July 1940, with Mr. William Knight Mellis, 3228 Vanness Avenue, Vancouver, when he approved of corrected draft of his conversation of 2 July 1940.

The “Lemon Squash.” Granville Street South. North Arm Road: first house.

Mr. Mellis said: “The first house on the North Arm Road, now Granville Street South, was on a bit of clearing about Sixty-seventh Avenue, and on the west side of the North Arm Road; we called it the ‘Lemon Squash’ because you could get a glass of beer there; officially the beer was lemon squash; it was a ‘boot-legging joint,’ about two hundred feet west of the North Arm Road. That was about 1889. I never was in it. There was not much forest down there; not much timber the other side of Fifty-seventh Avenue; Shannon. No heavy timber down there; kind of swampy; mostly cedar, some scattered ones; just the same as anywhere else; it depends upon the soil.

“They moved the ‘Lemon Squash’; it is still standing; two-storey; I think it is now on Sixty-fifth, 1500 block, west side of Granville Street, north side of Sixty-fifth, and on the west corner of the lane behind Granville Street; it is a dwelling house.” (No. 1511 West 65th Avenue.) “About half a block west of Granville Street.”

Salmon.

(Looking at an early photograph of salmon lying deep on cannery floor) “I’ll tell you what I have done. I’ve gone out in the river with my boat puller, thrown half the net out, started to pull it in again, and before we could get it in, had a load of salmon. Then, go back to the cannery, and the ‘limit’ would be perhaps two hundred and fifty; the cannery would take the 250, and we threw the rest into the sea. Millions of salmon have been thrown in the Fraser River that way.”

Granville Street South. “The Summit.” Summit Hill. Steep Hill.

“I was driving stage one day out the North Arm Road” (Granville Street) “when I made a remark that if they had put the road three or four blocks west they would have saved the ‘Steep Hill’” (16th Avenue) “and the ‘Summit’” (37th Avenue), “and saved the horses a lot of pulling, and the passengers a lot of time. There was a stranger on my stage, and he answered, ‘You’re right. I was on that survey, and made that very suggestion to the surveyors, but they would not listen; they said the government wanted the road to go straight, so they put it straight, hills and all.’”

Memo of conversation with Mrs. M.M. Burwell, 1058 Nelson, widow of Herbert M. Burwell, C.E. (Burwell Lake, etc.), where she lives with her sister, Mrs. (ex-Alderman) Connon, who, in response to my invitation, very graciously called at the City Archives and remained an hour or more.

Before leaving I escorted her over the City Hall, from top to bottom, showing her the mace, and introduced the Mayor, Dr. Telford, to her.

Herbert M. Burwell, C.E. Dr. A.W.S. Black. Mrs. (Alderman) Connon.

Mrs. Burwell: “Yes, Dr. Black was my father; yes, that’s right, he was killed by being thrown from his horse on the Douglas Road; he was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, Scotland; he was thirty-eight when he was killed, and Mother was twenty-six, and was left with five children, the youngest of whom was not born for some months after my father’s death. Mrs. Alderman Connon is my sister; she lived with me; we live together. All three of us” (Dr. Black’s daughters) “were married at St. James’ Church by the Rev. Father Clinton. I was born in New Westminster.”

H.M. Burwell. Little Mountain Reservoir, 1911.

“Here are a lot of my husband’s papers and his photograph; you may have them. As you know, he did a great deal of engineering work about Vancouver, but ‘Little Mountain’ reservoir was the work in which he was very interested; conceived it, designed it, and built it. He was proud of Little Mountain reservoir. He had a lot of difficulty to contend with; some did not think it necessary, and all that sort of thing, but he said ‘You will need it some day.’ Some did not think so, but you see how it has turned out; he was right.

“Mr. Burwell was a great fisherman; he has some of his writings in Rod and Gun. He was a modest man; did not push himself; he was consulting engineer to the City of Vancouver for some years, but he could not get on with some of the aldermen, and gave it up.” (The old story, meddling aldermen.)

“Romance of Vancouver.”

“Morley, that man who is writing about the ‘Romance of Vancouver’ in the Sun newspaper; oh, pooh, it didn’t happen” (as he writes of it) “that way at all.”

Note: I did not ask Mrs. Burwell what she was referring to; there has been so much criticism of Morley’s “romance” that the question was not necessary.

Memo of conversation with Mr. Thomas A. Holland, 2618 Columbia Street, Vancouver, B.C., a representative of the International Typographical Union, and at present on the staff of the Vancouver Daily Province, who very kindly telephoned that he was bringing up to me a relic of Silver Creek, Hope, B.C., 26 July 1940.

Dewdney Trail. Hope-Princeton Trail. Silver Creek. Dan McGillivray.

Mr. Holland (on arrival) said: “This piece of wood” (a piece of cedar, about eighteen inches long by six inches wide by one inch thick, partly decayed), “you can have; I give it to the citizens of Vancouver; you see, the carving on it is ‘D. McGillivray July 6 1881.’ This is the story.

“My wife, Mary A. Holland, daughter of Mr. M.G. Duquette, who lives with us, went on a vacation in the summer of 1938 to Silver Creek, three miles west of Hope, and our camp was, approximately, one quarter of a mile up Silver Creek, from the main Cariboo Highway; the largest tree thereabouts is an old cedar, and is situated in line with the ore chute of the present working mine, and directly in front of the present barn. I am not sure whether my father-in-law or my wife found the carving, but anyway, Dad” (Mr. Duquette) “cut it out of the cedar tree, out of the big cedar.

“I don’t know what it means; perhaps you do. I presume as an old railway construction man myself, I know that in leisure hours folks so employed have a desire to always come back and see the results of their handiwork, and so they like to leave marks, and I suppose that Mr. McGillivray was motivated by exactly the same impulse. That’s all I know about it.”

Memo of conversation over the ‘phone with Mr. W.C. Ditmars, formerly of Armstrong and Morrison, now (his office) 744 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, 2 August 1940.

Dan McGillivray.

Major Matthews (City Archivist): Mr. Ditmars, a Mr. T.A. Holland of 2618 Columbia Street called me on the ‘phone the other day, and told me he had a piece of cedar wood which had been cut out of a cedar tree in 1938 by his father-in-law, Mr. M.C. Duquette, also of 2618 Columbia Street, and asked me if I wanted it.

I said “Yes,” and he brought it up. It has letters carved on it with a penknife, “D. McGillivray, July 6th, 1881”; it was cut out of a huge cedar tree at Silver Creek, near Hope; I think that is on the Dewdney Trail. Do you know if Mr. McGillivray left any relatives; our files are very “weak” on that point?

Mr. Ditmars: “Oh, yes, why, Mrs. General J.A. Clark, and Mrs. Hobbs Fernie of the Jericho Country Club, and Mrs. Colonel R.M. Blair, and I think he had a son; he must have carved his name on that tree during C.P.R. construction.”

New Westminster Water Works. First pneumatic hammers. First hydraulic riveting machine. “King of Contractors.”

“When I first came to Vancouver, J.C. McLagan, editor and owner of the old World newspaper, used to call Dan McGillivray the ‘King of Contractors.’ He built the Mission Bridge, C.P.R., the one over the Fraser at Mission.”

Note: photographs C.V.P. Out. 250, also C.V.P. Out. 178, and C.N. 505, taken 8 February 1891 were taken at the opening; one shows a large group of workmen; another a large group of officials, including Mr. Abbott, Mr. Cambie, Mr. Armstrong, Mayor Oppenheimer, etc., etc., etc., and singularly, three ladies.

Mr. Ditmars: (continuing) “Mr. McGillivray built the New Westminster Water Works, and the plates for the pipes were brought out from Scotland, and fabricated at his shops on Lulu Island. W.H. Armstrong was this superintendent; Mr. Morrison was the foreman of his shops. It was in those shops that were used the first pneumatic hammers in British Columbia, and the first hydraulic riveting machine.”

Bituminous rock. Asphalt, Vancouver streets.

“In 1891, Mr. McGillivray had a contract for paving certain streets in Vancouver with bituminous rock; it came from California; they called it bituminous rock in those days; we call it asphalt now.”

Conversation with T.W. Boyd, 1203 West Broadway, partner, Boyd and Clandennning, 9 February 1938.

“Then after we had the clearing contract, clearing and slashing the forest off the C.P.R. Townsite, that is, D.L. 541, we had the contract for clearing Cordova, Hastings, Pender from Carrall to Burrard; all between Pender and Cordova, right down to the C.P.R. station, and also clearing Granville Street—everything off Granville Street right down to False Creek. McGillivray planked Hastings Street, but we had the sidewalks.”

Memo of conversation with Mrs. Samuel Blair, 1333 Richards, where she has been living for thirty-six years in the same house, who kindly called at the City Archives accompanied by two or three of her granddaughters, 26 July 1940.

Samuel Blair.

Mrs. Blair said: “Mr. Blair worked for the city for thirty-five years, and we have lived in our home, which we built ourselves, at 1333 Richards Street, for thirty-six years, perhaps it is thirty-seven.”

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. First wedding.

“We were married in the little school room on Georgia Street which served as the St. Andrew’s Church before St. Andrew’s was built, on the 9th April 1889; ours was the first marriage in the congregation of St. Andrew’s—Rev. E.D. McLaren had just come to Vancouver, and he, fine man, married us. He started Chalmers United Church.”

Water from wells.

“When we went to St. Andrew’s church, we had to take a lantern with us. We lived in the 1200 block when we were first married, and there was two planks about that wide; when we went to church and we had to keep on those planks; if you did not keep on the planks you went down, bang, in the ditch.

“And we got our water from a well in the back yard; dragged it up with a rope; the well was quite deep, too, and of course if you wanted a Saturday night bath in a tub, why, you had to go and haul the water up first.”

Richards Street. Blackberries.

“When we went to live on Richards Street, I used to go out and pick blackberries right of the back of our lot, and off Pacific Street too; we used to take the child on one arm, and the pail on the other, and pick berries right on Pacific Street and on Richards Street.

“We have five children, two boys and three girls; all are living in Vancouver, and all have their own homes, and they have six children. Our eldest child was:

Francis Blair, married to Miss Edwards; they have a son and a daughter.

Thomas Blair, married Miss Thompson, and they have one son.

Mrs. Coulter, my daughter Ruby, now Mrs. W.R. Coulter; they have a son and a daughter.

Miss Kathleen Blair; she stays at home with me.

And the youngest is Eileen, Mrs. D.L. Heaspit; they have one daughter.

“When Mr. Blair died, on the 10th or 11th November 1936, he had one of the largest funerals ever held in the city.”

Note: see page 150, Obituary Book.

[Letter from Geo. Bartley.]

3636 West Third Avenue,

Vancouver, B.C.

August 13, 1940.

Major J.S. Matthews, V.D.,

City Archivist.

Dear Major: Your kind letter of August 6 received, for which please accept my sincere thanks—for I am now on your honored list in the City Archives.

Concerning the News-Advertiser, of which we had a brief chat on Monday (Aug. 5), I will add a few further notes.

The Morning Advertiser (daily), five-column and four page paper, was started by Wm. (Billy) Macdougall. It first appeared on May 8, 1886. He used a Washington hand-press (now being used as a proof press in the Vancouver Sun Job Office.)

On June 1, 1886, the Daily News was initiated by R. Harkness (editor) and James Ross, proprietors. After the great fire—The News (No. 12) on June 17 and for several weeks, was printed at the Columbian office, New Westminster, and brought over to Vancouver by horse and rig. Harkness left for California shortly before the printing of the News was resumed in Vancouver.

The late Hon. F.L. Carter-Cotton arrived in Victoria via Port Moody about a month after the Great Fire. In the fall of 1886 he purchased the Advertiser and became its managing-editor.

Early in 1887, I believe Messrs. Gordon and Cotton purchased the News, after which the News and the Advertiser were consolidated and became the News-Advertiser, being issued from the building on Cambie Street, corner of the lane, in the rear of where the present Dominion building is now situated.

An Illustrated Christmas Number of the News-Advertiser on which I worked, was sent to press in the building at the corner of Cambie and Pender Streets. The type was set in the lane office. There was no heat in the new building at the time, and Geo. Pound, Sr., veteran pressman, did the press work on it by putting coal oil lamps under the press for heat. This Christmas Number was supposed to be out about the middle of December, 1889, to catch the Old Country mail, but did not appear till February, 1890. Mr. Cotton never issued another special number. In the Fall of 1897, the Millar & Richards wharfdale press was sold by the News-Advertiser to a paper in Revelstoke. This was the press the Illustrated Christmas News-Advertiser was printed on.

In 1896, the News-Advertiser set up another wharfdale press, similar to the one on which was printed the Christmas number. This machine had been used by the Vancouver Morning Telegram. Mr. R.G. Gallagher, manager of that paper when it failed, took the press to Nanaimo, where he printed a weekly for a few months. Postmaster Jonathan Miller on a foreclosure of mortgage sold the press for $100 to the News-Advertiser. Afterwards it was sold to Geo. Bartley of the North Vancouver Express for $700 (now the North Shore Press.)

On April 4, 1910, Mr. Sam Matson, of Victoria, bought the News-Advertiser, but not the building.

Mr. Leslie E. Dennison, now of Boston, wrote a series of articles on local newspapers and the printing business, which appeared in the News-Advertiser, commencing June 29, 1913. They are of historical value and well worth the time of reading.

Files of the Advertiser, the News and the News-Advertiser are now at the University of British Columbia library.

Thanking you for courtesies extended,

I remain, yours truly,

[signed] Geo. Bartley.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. Alice Crakanthorp, 1406 Davie Street, who invited me to afternoon tea; Miss Muriel, her daughter, joined us; 22 August 1940.

Capt. Murray Thain. Mrs. Murray Thain. Rev. Harry Edwardes.

Mrs. Crakanthorp said: “This book, Letters from Crete, by Charles Edwardes” (Bentley, 1887) “was, as you see by the writing here on this front page, was given to Murray Thain by the Rev. Harry Edwardes of St. James’ Church, in February 1888. Mrs. Thain taught me at school, Moodyville School, and privately also. She gave the book to me when I was Miss Alice Patterson; now I give it to you for your archives. Murray Thain came here in 1872.”

Lake Beautiful.

“I forget when it was, but it was long before ‘The Fire’; Mrs. Thain organised a picnic; she was chaperone; we went up the inlet to the North Arm on a little paddle wheel steamer—it may have been the Maud—and we climbed up to Lake Beautiful. There was Mr. McPhadden, and Miss Kirkland, the school teacher, and Lida Bell” (Mrs. Austin) “and her sister, Nettie Bell” (Mrs. [blank] Connor, sic) “and Mr. Duncan Bell-Irving, C.D. Rand, W.R. Lord, Mr. Teschner, the second engineer at Moodyville, and Mrs. Thain’s brother, Oliver Harbell, and two ship apprentices, and, of course, myself” (Miss Alice Patterson), “and we camped at Lake Beautiful for three days, and Mrs. Thain composed a poem about it; no, I have not got the poem; it was long before ‘The Fire,’ though.”

Major Matthews: Mrs. Jonathan Rogers says a party of young ladies made the name “Beautiful” by taking an initial from each of their names, and that the lake received its name in that way.

(Note: Mrs. Jonathan Rogers was married in England, and came out to Vancouver in 1902 for the first time.)

Mrs. Crakanthorp: “Yes, I’ve heard that story, too, but we called it Lake Beautiful long years before Mrs. Rogers came; we never called it anything else. Mrs. Thain’s brother cut a fungus from a tree, and wrote our names on it, and a bit about each of us, such as, ‘Miss Patterson likes to dance,’ and we kept it in the house for many years, but it’s gone now.”

Memo of conversation with Mrs. (Alderman) Henry E. Connon, who, accompanied by her sister, Mrs. Herbert M. Burwell, both of 1058 Nelson Street, Vancouver, very graciously paid a visit to the City Archives this afternoon, 23 August 1940.

Alderman Henry E. Connon.

Mrs. Connon said: “Mr.” (Alderman) “Connon was the son of a very clever man, Dr. Charles Connon, who, after being examiner for the British Navy at Greenwich, England, came out as a professor to the Upper Canada College, Toronto. He was, I think, LL.D. My husband was the only one of his ten children born in Toronto. All the other children are dead, and none left descendants. Dr. Connon had a brother, now deceased, of course, who had a son who served in the first Great War, who returned to Canada, but where he is I do not know. Dr. Connon died in Toronto.

“Mr. Connon” (Alderman Connon) “was in charge of the first C.P.R. wharf. He was freight agent. He came west on the first train to Port Moody; later they moved down to Vancouver. He was an alderman of the City Council in 1892, and was the first freemason initiated into freemasonry in Vancouver, Cascade Lodge, No. 12, in 1888; you will find an account of the initiation in the printed History of Cascade Lodge, page 18, and also an illustration—the only photograph we had. He died suddenly, cancer of the throat, 5th July 1920, and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery.”

First wedding in Vancouver. Granville Street.

“I married Mr. Connon at St. James Church, 25th June 1886—twelve days after the ‘Fire.’ Rev. Mr. Clinton was the clergyman; he was not called Father Clinton then. Our wedding was the first ‘white wedding’ in Vancouver. The whole of Granville Street was decorated with flags and they had twenty-one ‘torpedoes’ on the C.P.R. tracks which went off when the train ran over them. I was Miss Black, daughter of A.W.S. Black, of Cariboo and New Westminster, one of the early doctors of Burrard Inlet.” (Note: “The whole” of Granville Street; i.e., a figure of speech, as it was open, but not planked, and not a building on it. Perhaps she means Cordova Street, or what there was of it twelve days after “The Fire.”)

Genealogy.

“We had five children.

The eldest, Charles Arthur, with the 6th Field Co., Canadian Engineers, North Vancouver, was listed as “missing” at La Bassée, France, July 1915. He built the huts at Salisbury Plains. He was unmarried.

The next, Ruth Alice Beatrice, is now Mrs. A.H. Douglas, of Robertson, A.H. Douglas & Sims, barristers. They have two sons, one serving in the Royal Canadian Navy, and the other in Royal Canadian Engineers.

The next two were twins. Stanley Alfred, who served with the 29th Vancouver Battalion, was taken prisoner at St. Eloi by the Germans, and died unmarried in New York;

and Patience, now Mrs. W.A. Goldsmith of Long Beach, California. No children.

The youngest is Mary Kathleen, is Mrs. Roderick Morgan, now in San Francisco.

Dr. A.W.S. Black.

“This photograph which my sister” (Mrs. H.M. Burwell) “has just given you is of our father, Dr. Arthur Walter Shaw Black, F.R.C.P.” (Fellow, Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh.) “He served in the Crimean War in Florence Nightingale’s Hospital. He was killed in an accident on the Douglas Road whilst returning from Burrard Inlet to New Westminster. A man had cut his throat in Moodyville; Father had been over there, and was returning; he was on horseback; there was deep snow on the ground. Somewhere near Burnaby Lake, at the foot of the hill, both horse and rider were killed by a fall into a deep ditch; Father was crushed. Father was dead when found; he was 38 years old. The horse was still alive when help arrived.”

Approved by Mrs. Connon, 29 August 1940 – J.S.M.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. Jonathan Rogers, née Hughes, 2050 Nelson Street, Vancouver, who very kindly called at the City Archives today, 27 August 1940, bringing with her a souvenir programme of the Royal Visit, 30 September 1901, and a group photograph of Lord Strathcona’s visit to the Vancouver General Hospital, 31 August 1909.

Y.M.C.A. Mrs. Jonathan Rogers.

Mrs. Rogers said: “I was married in England, and came to Vancouver in 1902.” (Note: this clarifies the “Lake Beautiful” naming matter; Mrs. Rogers arrived in 1902.)

“Mr. Rogers is very feeble; it is terrible to see him lying there. I must tell him what you tell me of the story of the three thousand dollars” (and she smiled.)

“It was the same with the Y.M.C.A. You know, they started a Y.M.C.A. down on Hastings Street” (Astoria Hotel) “and they gave a note, and the note came due, and there were a number of backers, but the only one worth anything was Mr. Rogers. So when the blue papers began to come to our house, I said to Mr. Rogers that the only thing to do was to pay it; I told him it was interfering with his peace of mind, and that even if the others would not do their share, it was worth something to have peace of mind, and the only thing to do was to pay it; so he paid it.

“I told him to get those who backed the note together, ask how much each could put up, even if it was only two dollars, and to pay the balance himself. He had a meeting; some put up $10, others $25, and then he went to the mortgagors—I think it was McPhillips, the lawyer—and made the best bargain he could. He did that, and they were very reasonable, and he paid the money. I forget the amount, but it was quite a lot.”

Mussolini.

I remarked, as Mrs. Rogers looked at a framed picture of herself on the wall, inscribed that she had been decorated by Italy, and, asked if (in view of the war) she were now proud of her decoration. Mrs. Rogers replied:

“I visited Mussolini in his office. It was a great big room fifty feet long; I entered at one end; he was seated at the other end at his desk. I walked stiffly across the carpet towards him; he looked at me, and I looked at him—we glared at each other like a couple of animals—I understand that is the way he receives, the way he sizes you up.”

Major Matthews: What did you think of him?

Mrs. Rogers: “He has the most charming smile of any man I ever met; he has not that great big jaw you see in the pictures; he only puts that on when he is addressing a host of people; he is a little man; not as big as you are.” (180 lbs is my weight, 5’ 8½”.) “He could not speak English, so we spoke in French. And that evening I had a seat with him in his box at the theatre. He was surrounded by six detectives, two on each side of him, and one in front and behind. Even at the marriage of his daughter to Count Ciano, there were no women. And they kept the place of the marriage secret to the last moment; no one knew what church the wedding was to be in. Life like that is not worth it.”

Rogers Building.

I asked how they were doing about the Rogers Building, corner [of] Granville and Pender Street, now that Mr. Rogers was so ill. “Oh,” said Mrs. Rogers, “Macaulay, Nicolls and Maitland are looking after it for me; it is my building, not Mr. Rogers’; Mr. Bennett is manager, and Mr. Nicolls looks after things for me.”

I escorted this charming, brilliantly clever lady to her waiting limousine.

Memo of conversation over the phone with Mr. J.M. Prentice, 4433 West 4th Avenue, who very kindly called in response to our request for information.

Mr. Prentice has owned property in that district since 1907, went to live there in 1910, and has lived there continuously since.

Simpson Avenue. Ash Street.

Mr. Prentice said: “Simpson Avenue, as I understand it, was named after the Simpsons who had the boat house at English Bay at the foot of Denman Street, on the beach; they rented boats; there are lots of photographs of their old place; they had the first gasoline launch, the Sea Foam, for hire there. One of the Simpson family built out at Point Grey about 1908 or 1909, right down on the beach; the house is there yet, between Trimble and Sasamat; it is the tallest building there. But it is not the original cottage; moved to 4422 Queens Avenue.”

Note: it stands on Lot [blank], Block [blank], D.L. [blank], 4459 Queens Avenue. Mr. Simpson died some years ago, his widow remarried; then she died, and the property was sold.

Hadden Avenue. Queen Avenue. Marine Drive.

“Hadden Avenue, which, properly, should be spelt Haddon Avenue, was named after Harry Haddon, of Nottingham, England. He invested in Vancouver real estate in very early days; then he had that ‘Haddon Hall’ in West Vancouver, now British Pacific Properties, and part of the Capilano View Cemetery; and he owned the lot the Royal Bank is on, the northeast corner, Hastings and Granville, and he presented the city, about 1929, with Haddon Park on Ogden Street. Kitsilano Beach; that cost him $50,000. So to honour him, there was no street in Kitsilano called Haddon; they named that one Hadden Avenue. I don’t think he had any property out there.

“You see, it used to be Queen Avenue; Queen Avenue was a continuation of Marine Drive, but there was no name to that part of it going through Locarno Park, so they named it Hadden Avenue.”

Locarno Park. Alderman Dr. R.N. Fraser. Trimble Street. Imperial Street. Chas. T. Dunbar.

“The original Locarno Park was between Imperial and Trimble streets, where all those firs and cedars are. Chas. T. Dunbar, after whom Dunbar Street and Dunbar Heights are named, owned all that property down there; that is, the old Locarno Park. The Inmans of the Inman Line of steamships, with offices in Liverpool, England, owned a mortgage, and when Dunbar died, and the estate was insolvent, the Inman people wanted to sell.

“We had an awful time getting the Municipal Council of Point Grey to buy the property, but finally we succeeded in persuading them to do so for use as a park. Then there was a prize offered for the best name for it, and Councillor Dr. R.N. Fraser” (he was afterwards an alderman of the greater city following amalgamation in 1929) “he suggested Locarno, as it was just about the time that the ‘Locarno Pact’ was signed, in connection with the League of Nations at Locarno, Switzerland. Locarno Park, as we know it today, is not the original park; it has been extended; originally it was the Dunbar property only, between Trimble and Imperial.

“You will notice the Point Grey by-law of 1916 refers to eight acres; the other two acres were made up, more or less, by the Simpson” (Simpson Avenue) “lots.”

Approved by Mr. J.M. Prentice, his letter, 27 August 1940.

Memorandum of conversation with Mrs. J.J. Hatch, 597 East 23rd Avenue, who very kindly called at the City Archives in response to my request concerning a photo of a cedar shake cabin in the forest, 9 September 1940.

James Henry Hatch. North Arm Road (Fraser Avenue.) Wilson Road (41st Avenue East.)

Mrs. Hatch said: “This photograph, which Mrs. Hadfield has given.” (Photo No. C.V.P. Dist. 49. N. 34.) “You see, here I have a duplicate; it was away up the North Arm Road, now Fraser Avenue, on the left hand side going south; James Henry Hatch had ten or fifteen acres of land out there, and my husband, J.J. Hatch, and his brother R.W. Hatch, undertook to do the clearing; it was ‘away’ beyond the cemetery. This is their shack on the property; D.L. 738, 49th Avenue; old Ferris Road.” (Assessment Roll, South Vancouver, 1894, page 12. “James H. Hatch, D.L. 738, 14-7/20 acres, value per acre $80.00. Value of Improvements $100.00. Total $1248.00.”) “My husband J.J., and R.W., his brother, built the shed. Many a time I have been out there for picnics; there were no street cars in those days; of course, there were horses and rigs, but you could not always get them. We used to take them out a basket of lunch; ‘grub,’ we called it; there were lots of creeks and springs for water. After it was cleared up, my brother-in-law sold it. The two brothers made a road to it from the North Arm Road, and we used to pick berries; we knew where the good patches were, of course, the roads out there were only trails. I think the shack was about 300 yards east of the North Arm Road.”

Bears. Wild animals. Ox-shoes. Oxen. Walter Leek. Leek & Co. Plumbers. James H. Hatch.

“There were lots of black bears, too; they used to wander around the shack, and there was always a couple of guns stacked by the door to ‘pop’ the bears off.

“You will notice there are a couple of ox-shoes nailed to the sort of door, and what look like three guns and a rifle; for grouse, and for deer and bear, I think. The men in the picture are, from left to right:

“The man with the whiskers is ‘Young’ Mr. Leek, son of the fourth man, who is Mr. Leek, senior, who had a steam fitting shop and plumbing plant.” (Note: “Young” Walter Leek, later in 1938, president, Vancouver Exhibition.)

“I don’t know who the second man is, but I think he worked for E.S. Scoullar of Scoullar & Co. hardware. The third man, in the middle with the dog, is my brother-in-law, James H. Hatch; the fourth is Mr. Leek, senior of Leek & Co., wholesale plumbers, and the end young man is Mr. Brown, brother of W.A. Brown, and of Mrs. Hadfield who gave you this photo; he also worked for Mr. Scoullar.”

Butter pats or moulds. North Arm Road. Twenty-third Avenue East.

“These two butter pats, moulds for butter, many a hundred pounds of butter they have shaped. You see, we had a farm out there. We brought the butter pats with us from Toronto when we came here in 1888 or 1889; we knew we were going to B.C. to some farm, and we had a big farm on what is now Twenty-third Avenue East, at Carolina Street; no person knew we were there; we were a block off the North Arm Road, and no one could see us for the trees.”

Mr. James Hudson. Mr. [blank] Preston. Mr. [blank] Rosenburg.

“There was one neighbour, Mr. James Hudson, corner Twenty-third and North Arm Road; a first class plasterer, did fine work; and there was another, Mrs.” [blank] “Preston; she died about two years ago; she lived a block below Hudson’s on Twenty-third; he was a milkman. We were not the first in that neighbourhood, but I think those two were all the neighbours we had, and Rosenburg, he lived in what would now be Twenty-second Avenue East—he was a ship’s carpenter—but you must remember there were no streets then.

“The man who sold us that property said it was ‘bone dry’; it cost us thirteen hundred dollars, but when the rain came it was a regular river. We had just a shack with a tar paper roof, and all our pictures and things we brought with us from Toronto got damaged with the wet. The men used to say that if they could only catch the man who sold us that property they would shoot him We went there in 1889. But the city took it all for non-payment of taxes, took our life savings; our life savings gone; the city got it. All we have left is our home, one lot, and the house, 597 East Twenty-third, in which we have lived for fifty-three years.”

Mrs. [blank] Winskill.

“Mrs. Winskill is still my neighbour, but she did not come until ten years after we went there.”

Trout. Bears. Cougars. Wild animals. Wild ducks.

“It was a pretty place, and below our place there was a running creek and all kinds of trout in it, and the wild flowers were so pretty, pink and blue bells, and blue, yellow and white violets; oh, it was really beautiful, and there was a long log, and the bears would walk along it and scratch for ants for their cubs; you know all about that log and the cushion and the bear story, I’ve told you before; she had three cubs up a tree above the log, and three days after it was shot, and I remember how shocked they were because it was shot on a Sunday.”

Water from wells. Tame ducks.

“And then, another time, I remember, I was getting water from the well, and a great big cougar leapt right over, one great big curving bound in the air, and took a duck; we had been missing our ducks and did not know where they could be going; in about a month that cougar was shot about five blocks up North Arm Road; we used to be scared to go down the North Arm Road—I was, at any rate; I have run and run up that road for fear of meeting those bears.”

Genealogy.

“My father was David McKinstry; he was a stone cutter in Toronto, and I was the eldest of his six children, and married Mr. J” [blank] “J” [blank] “Hatch, at St. Ann’s Church” (Church of England), “Toronto, October 30th 188—; it really used to be called the old Dundas Road. I was born at Brantford, Ontario, a few miles out of Toronto, seventy-five years ago, on 15th December next 1940, and my husband has been an invalid for six years; he suffers with his hands, and I have to wash and bathe him, and do it all myself.

“We had three children,” (in order):

Cecilia Mary Hatch, born on Stafford Street, Toronto, 26th August 1884; she is now Mrs. Fred Slater, and has one son, Frederick Cecil Archer Slater; Archer after his great-grandmother, but Mickey was born on St. Patrick’s Day, and they have always called him “Mickey”; his father was a naval man in the last war.

Joseph John Hatch, born in Toronto, 6th August 1887; Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee Year. He married Miss Elizabeth Cruikshank; home wedding but Presbyterian Church; he was two and a half when we came to Vancouver in 1889. He has two daughters, Irene, married now, and Doris; he lives on 24th Avenue East.

James David Hatch; named after his uncle Jimmy, and my father David; he was born in Vancouver, 2nd April 1890, and married Miss Galbraith; Christ Church; there were no children, and his wife died about June 1938, and he has been poorly; he has a housekeeper; works at the Restmore Manufacturing Co., where he started as a boy.

Hatch family.

“Grandfather A.H. Hatch came to Vancouver; he had five boys; there was J.H., J.J., R.W., Amos and Ed.; all dead now save my husband, and they thought he would go first; they were the pioneer roofers in Vancouver; they did a lot of work for Mr. Scoullar; he was a pioneer contractor.”

A.H. Hatch & Co. Broadway and Main. Northern Crown Bank.

“Grandfather A.H. Hatch had a hardware store and sheet metal works on the southwest corner of Westminster Avenue and Ninth Avenue; it was pulled down, and they built a bank, and now the bank has been pulled down and there are stores. Here is a photograph of it, ‘A.H. HATCH & CO.’ From left to right they are: the first two I don’t know, but the third is ‘Old Man’ Foster, and the man in front of the door was one of the two men nicknamed ‘Scots Greys’; the fifth, in dark waistcoat and shirt sleeves is Amos Hatch; I don’t know the sixth.

“This other photo is later; horse-drawn bread wagon across the sidewalk; Amos Hatch is third from the left; Grandfather Hatch next, in front of the door; another of the ‘Scots Greys,’ and a street car conductor; I don’t know the other two.

“The first photo was taken about 1897, and the second about 1898.”

Memo of conversation with August Jack Khahtsahlano, of Homulcheson, Capilano, 13 September 1940.

Pigeons. Great Fire. Birds.

Major Matthews, City Archivist: August, Fitzgerald McCleery, the first white man to settle on the site of Vancouver, down on the Marine Golf Course, North Arm, Fraser River, says in his diary—March 1865, I think—that he “shot pigeons”; that’s all; just “shot pigeons”; what did he mean?

August: “I don’t know. I don’t think any pigeons here before white man came; I never heard old people talk about them; lots duck, goose, but no pigeons.

“The first pigeons I can remember was after the ‘Big Fire’” (13 June 1886.) “There was a big flock of them flying about. I don’t know; maybe somebody turn them loose. Then they get more every year. I see some over Capilano Creek last April, on the Capilano Indian Reserve, just wild. Suppose they’s just somebody’s pigeons got loose some time. No pigeons here before white man come.

“There’s lots of pigeons up at Squamish, just flying around wild. Got loose, I suppose. No pigeons I ever hear of up there before white man come.”

Memo of conversation with Mrs. J.J. Hatch, 597 East 23rd Avenue, who very kindly called at the City Archives this morning, carrying with her a large parcel containing a wooden shoulder yoke for carrying water buckets, 19 September 1940.

Water from wells. Brewery Creek. Tea Swamp. North Arm Road.

Mrs. Hatch said: “This yoke was made by the children; that is, J.J. and R.W., children of Grandfather Hatch; they made it out of a cedar log; first one would work at it, then when he got tired the other would do a bit. I give it to you for the City Archives. We used it to carry water from the creek for washing our clothes and milk cans; you see, we had twenty cows.

“We saved the water from the well for our home, and we kept it in reserve in case of a bush fire; our place at the corner of what is now Twenty-third Avenue East and Caroline, but in those days there were no streets or anything. We used to tell people that we lived a ‘block off the North Arm Road’” (Fraser Avenue) “but you could not see our place from the road on account of the trees.

“At home, this morning they looked at me when I started to carry this down to you, and said, ‘You’re not going to take that’” (the yoke) “‘down to the City Hall, are you?’ I said, ‘Yes, I was; it was only a pioneer who would bother to carry it down; others would probably throw it away.’”

Milk ranch.

“We used to hang two five-gallon coal oil tins on it, one at each end, and many a time I have carried water from the creek, but I used a smaller tin than five gallons. The creek from which we got the water ran through our milk ranch; it was just about half a block from our barn.”

Tea Swamp. Wild ducks.

“My son, James David, used to go down to the swamp before going to school, and would come back with a dozen or twenty teal, and we used the old fashioned granite milk tins, and made teal pie; there would be a duck for each member of the family.”

Forest fires.

“You see, we emptied our well, filling five-gallon cans of water to put on top of the roof of our house in case of fire; many times it caught fire, and we would put the children in packing cases up at the end of the trail near the North Arm Road. You see, the trees were all on fire, and we had to sleep overnight; we did not have any sleep; we had to be up watching the fire, but the children sat up in the packing cases.”

Caroline Street. D.L. 301. 23rd Avenue East. H.V. Edmonds.

“We brought the big packing cases from Toronto with our furniture in them, and the men carried them up to the end of the trail for the children to get into. You see, there were no fire reels in those days; you had to fight the” (forest) “fire yourself, and then we would use the water up so quickly, we ran out of water, and after that we had to do the best we could, try and save the house, and let the rest go. Oh, we have had some awful fires.

“We were in D.L. 301 in those days, and Edmonds owned that ground. There were no sidewalks or anything there, nothing, and then D.L. 301 was taken into the city, and then our taxes began to go up, and finally the city took the property, our life’s work, from us for taxes.”

Memo of conversation with W.C. Ditmars, Esq., one of the original Trustees, City Archives, former Grandmaster of Grand Lodge of Freemasons, British Columbia, whose office is now 744 West Hastings Street, (over the phone), 3 October 1940.

Vancouver Public Library. Vancouver Granite Co., North Arm. G.W. Grant, Architect. Masonic Temple, McKinnon Block.

Mr. Ditmars said: “Yes, I was at the ceremony of laying the corner stone of the Carnegie Library. We” (the Grand Lodge, A.F. & A.M.) “met at the old McKinnon Block” (now Williams Block, southwest corner Hastings and Granville streets) “and marched to the site in full regalia, and Grandmaster Young, afterwards Judge Young, he laid the corner stone and, of course, with the usual corn, wine and oil, and then we marched back again to the Temple. There was a band there, and the Mayor and Aldermen, and a crowd of onlookers.

“The Vancouver Public Library building is of Gabriola sandstone from Gabriola Island, but the foundations and base courses is from our quarries, the Vancouver Granite Co.’s quarries; not the old C.P.R. quarry, but our own quarry on the west side of the North Arm, opposite Croker Island, and perhaps—but I do not actually know—the old ‘Spratt’s Ark’ brought the stone down.

“The architect was a little man, he had offices in the McKinnon Block; I think he was G.W. Grant; anyway, his name was Grant.”

Memo of conversation with August Jack Khahtsahlano, son of Khay-tulk (Supplejack), grandson of Chief Khahtsahlanogh, who called at the City Archives and shared my lunch and a cup of tea at my desk, and came carrying a small parcel, 24 October 1940.

He has been invited to lunch with His Worship the Mayor, Dr. Telford, in his office, City Hall, on Monday, 28 October 1940.

Flags. Indian chiefs. Chief Yho-whahl-tun. “Jericho Charlie.”

August said: “I bring this flag to show you; it very old flag; it belonged to” (Chief) “Yho-whahl-tun; he’s got no English name. He was chief at” [blank]; “whitemans call it Ashlute” (sic); “it’s way up twenty-five miles back of Squamish, not on the Pacific Great Eastern Railway; that turns off at Ten Mile Point. I don’t know how he got the flag, but maybe the Roman Catholics at New Westminster give it to him; long time ago, long, long time.”

Major Matthews: Well, what does it mean?

August: “Well, you know, when they come together, the church, the priest ask who is the chief, and they give each chief on each” (Indian) “reserve a flag. Yho-whahl-tun was a minister” (clergyman); “every Sundays peoples come his house for prayer; they come from Squamish, and away up the river. He died; bury him up at his own place. Then, when he was dying, he says to my stepfather, Chinalset” (“Jericho Charlie”) “‘You keep this flag; for my country.’

“Then my stepfather he die, but before he die, I see it in a trunk, and Chinalset said to me, ‘When I die, you look after this flag’; that’s how I have it.”

Indian burials. Prophesies. Apples and raspberries.

“Yho-whahl-tun was the man who told the Squamish Indians that ‘By and by, a woman will plant some trees; by and by they will grow red berries’; that’s apples; no apples here then, not that time; Indians know nothing about apples. And he told them, ‘Woman will go outdoors and pick some berries’; that’s raspberries, but there was no raspberries that time. He knows. But he never travelled, but somebody tell him about places long way off, and he listen. And then in he’s house he tell the peoples what’s going to happen.

“Then, about forty years ago, we bury him in the ground. He was in a box, cedar box, but we bury him in the ground. His bones in the box was just like powder” (dust) “when we touch them with fingers.”

Pigeons. Qwhy-what. Haxten. Polly.

“I have dinner with my Aunt Polly; she lives back of the church” (at North Vancouver Indian Reserve.) “I ask her if there was pigeons here when she was young. She say, ‘Yes, wild.’ She’s old; she’s sister to my mother Qwhy-what; that’s three sisters, Qwhy-what, my mother, who was the oldest, then Haxten, she died short time ago, then Polly, she’s the youngest of the three; she’s got Indian name but we call her ‘Polly.’ I forget Indian name.”

Gassy Jack’s wife.

“Madeleine” (Gassy Jack’s wife) “she go up Squamish; not come back yet.”

Note: the flag is seventy-two inches by fifty-seven; broad red margin on three edges, white oblong centre with cross and embroidered words, “Religion,” “Civilization,” and “Temperance,” and corner ornamentation of bible, crown and keys, spade and axe, and governor.

See photo No. C.V. P. In. 47.

The Hastings Sawmill School, 1872 and Mrs. Alice Crakanthorp, née Patterson.

There was present, as a guest of honour, who was accorded an ovation by four hundred guests at a banquet held in the Hotel Vancouver, Friday, November 15th 1940, Mrs. Alice Crakanthorp, née Patterson, a pupil of the first class, April 1873, of the first school, Hastings Sawmill School, on the site of the City of Vancouver.

She is now, November 1940, the sole survivor of that first class resident in Vancouver; her two sisters, also pupils with her in 1873, survive, but reside in California.

She was driven to the Hotel Vancouver by Mr. Kenneth A. Waites, Vancouver school historian (King Edward High School), and was seated at the head table to the left of Dr. Alexander Robinson, principal of the Vancouver High School, an aged educationalist of distinguished carriage. She was “introduced” to the great assemblage of over 400 gathered in the great banquet hall, and rose from her seat, bowed to the brilliant scene before her, and sat down.

This demure little lady amazes one to look upon. She is an actual living connection between that humble, solitary unpainted shed standing in the clearing, midst stumps and forest debris scattered about in hopeless confusion, and a splendid educational system comprising 70 public schools, 90 private schools, 1,500 teachers, 50,000 scholars, together with many colleges and a University, which in the short space of her life has been created out of the silent wilderness. It is a little bewildering to reflect upon, yet it is true, for before I left that scene of magnificent luxury and splendour, and saw a large gathering of well groomed men and superbly gowned ladies disperse and go back to their homes, I actually shook Mrs. Crakanthorp, who was accompanied by her daughter, Miss Muriel, by the hand, and kissed her cheek.

J.S. Matthews.
City Archivist.

Vancouver, 18 November 1940.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. Frank W. Hart (the second Mrs. Hart) of Prince Rupert, who called at the City Archives with a relative, 19 November 1940.

She is on a visit from Prince Rupert, is returning in a week; she is 77, but no one would ever know it. She is as active as a woman of 57, and converses fluently. During my absence she was shown all the records we have made of Mr. Hart’s life, by Mrs. Stanley Williams (née Margaret Giles), and it was reported to me that she was well pleased, especially with Mr. Hart’s letters recorded in Early Vancouver, Volume 3.

Hart’s Opera House. John W. Stewart. Hector Stewart, his son.

Mrs. Hart said in part: “You know, the Opera House” (Hart’s Opera House, first in Vancouver) “had a canvas roof.”

Major Matthews, interjecting: And cotton lined walls, and a sawdust floor. (Note: see Early Vancouver, Vol. 3, for an amusing story of the “Texas Steer,” where the horse fell through the stage, and the “circus seats” fell with the crowd, injured a man, and they settled it by the prima donna giving the injured man, a rough logger, a bouquet of flowers at his bedside, and a kiss, and Hart left a twenty dollar gold piece beside his bed; nothing more was heard; no lawsuit for damages.)

Mrs. Hart: “Well. The roof was of canvas, and could be pushed up, and boys would peep inside. The boys climbed up the outside of the board wall, pushed up the canvas and peeped under it, and could see the stage. Well, Hector Stewart—he was just a lad then, perhaps eleven—he was up, had climbed up the outside and was peeking in, so Mr. Hart went outside, and gave him a push from behind. He fell over into the Opera House on top of the people. One or two were hurt when he fell on them, but not very much; nothing serious. Hector Stewart was the Chief of Police’s son; both dead now.

“But afterwards, in the Yukon, Mr. Hart was ill, and Hector was up there, and carried Mr. Hart a long way to hospital on his back; Hector was a big strong man, but Mr. Hart was a big man too, and heavy, but he” (Hector) “carried him a long way.”

The ladies left, apparently well pleased with what they had seen. Mrs. Hart is a very delightfully charming lady; no one would ever suspect her age, 77.

Memo of conversation with Mr. Joseph Jagger, pioneer of Burrard Inlet, 1882, who, accompanied by his daughter, Mrs. J.B. Abrams of 505 Eleventh Street, New Westminster, born Vancouver, 7 October 1886, and Mr. J.B. Abrams, paid me the honour of a visit to the City Archives this afternoon, 28 November.

Joseph Jagger, 1882.

Mr. Jagger said: “I am the son of James and Mary Jagger of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England, was born at Huddersfield 27th January 1861. In 1882 I left Liverpool for Philadelphia on the American Liner State of Illinois, and travelled via New York to San Francisco, where I took the steamship Idaho to Victoria, and arrived at Victoria on 24th March 1882” (about.) “I was single then, and was coming out to an uncle, James Holroyd, who had been a Cariboo miner of Williams Creek.”

S.S. Otter. S.S. Western Slope. S.S. Gertrude.

“After about three months in Victoria, I took the old Hudson’s Bay steamer Otter up the coast, landed on an island called Wrangel Island, and went on up the Stikine River on the S.S. Gertrude to the Cassiar. I was by myself, and on my sway to find my uncle, who was mining on Dease Creek. I stopped in the Cassiar, helping him, one summer, then we both came back to Victoria. I idled around a while and then went as second engineer on the sternwheeler Western Slope, running between Victoria, New Westminster and Gastown on Burrard Inlet. I remained with her about two months, and then got a job as second engineer at the Hastings Sawmill, in December 1882. Subsequently, I voted at the first civic election in Vancouver; I voted for Mr. Alexander, and ‘lost’ my vote; he was the unsuccessful candidate for mayor.”

George Gregory, 1880.

“In June 1884, Miss Edith Lilian Gregory, daughter of George and Clara Gregory, former of Sheffield, England, and I were married in our house at Hastings Mill, and by the Rev. Joseph Hall of the Methodist Church, Burrard Inlet. Mr. and Mrs. Gregory, my wife’s parents, had come out from Sheffield about 1880—Mr. Gregory came first, alone—and brought six children with them; you will see that several of their names appear on the roll of the Hastings School. Mr. Gregory was saw filer at the mill.”

Major Matthews: Where did you do your courting?

Mr. Jagger: “Oh, I managed it. But I must tell you. One time before we were married I was taking Mrs. Gregory for a ride in a sail boat; it was a Sunday. I got into the sailboat all right, and I got the sail up, but I did not know how to sail a boat, so we sailed right on and on until I ran the boat right up on the beach at what is now North Vancouver—about the foot of Lonsdale Avenue I should think; then, what do you think we did. We turned the boat around by lifting her to face the other way, and sailed back.”

Hastings Sawmill School.

“I must tell you another one. There was a teacher at the Hastings Sawmill School, and she was quite a big woman, and strong, and the boy pupils were quite big boys, too, but she was just strong enough to manage them. One of them misbehaved, and in the struggle, the teacher got the better of him, and got him down on the floor. Then what do you think he did? He bit her leg.” (And Mr. Jagger, most unsympathetically, laughed out loud.)

“My first wife died in September 1891; we had four children:

Annie, born Hastings Mill, 30th March 1885.

Beatrice, now Mrs. J.B. Abrams, born Hastings Mill, 7th October 1886.

Minnie, now Mrs. [blank] Creber, born New Westminster, July 4th 1888.

James, born 1891; now deceased.

“Then I married, secondly, Mrs. Lena Christine Nelson, from Denmark, and we had eight children (twelve in our family in all.)

Herbert William, killed in action, Great War, 1914-18.

James Lewis, killed in action, Great War, 1914-18.

Lilian Ann, Mrs. Ernest G. Abrams, New Westminster.

Gordon Nelson, at New Westminster, B.C.

Gladys Mary, Mrs. Frank Millican, Trail, B.C.

Juanita Christina, Mrs. W. Peters, New Westminster, deceased.

Joseph Raymond, married Patsy Hadden, Vancouver.

Ruby Evelyn, Mrs. Kenneth McKinnon, New Westminster.

“The birth of Beatrice, one of the few births in the city of Vancouver during 1886, having not been registered, Mr. J.B. Abrams, before leaving, gave me three dollars, the fee exacted by the Registrar of Births, Victoria, for delayed registration. Both application and fee were forwarded, and the birth certificate subsequently received; birth registered December 8, 1939.”

Approved by Mr. Jagger, 22 February 1940.

Early schools, North Arm, Fraser River, Point Grey, Lulu Island, etc.

Letter, Mrs. J.A. Wood, née Margaret Sweet, Salmon Arm, B.C., 2 December 1940, to Mrs. Walter Vermilyea, née Ada Sweet (her sister), visiting at Vancouver.

Salmon Arm, B.C.,

Dec. 2nd 1940.

Dear Ada:

I hasten to reply at once to give you any information I can, though that is not very much.

First you are mistaken about father having taught in the Town Hall before I did.

Uncle John Wesley, (Sexsmith) got permission to use the Town Hall for school purposes in Feb. 1881, and at once asked me to take the position of teacher as I had a certificate.

I taught there until the end of June 1882, when I resigned to go back to school in New Westminster, where Mr. Stramberg was starting a High School class after hours in the public school. The only High School in the Province, I believe, was the one in Victoria.

In the Town Hall on Lulu Island we had the use of the Councillor’s long table, with a bench at each side and a chair at each end. This with one blackboard was our full equipment.

Mr. C.C. McKenzie (Victoria) was our School Inspector, and I think, also Supt. of Education for the Province.

Yes, I attended the little school on the mainland where Frances taught and we stayed for the school week in Mrs. Sam McCleery’s house, but I don’t think it was kept up very long, for I also afterwards went to one near Mr. F. McCleery’s and boarded with them. I forget the name of the teacher—a married woman.

I don’t know anything about a school being held in the old church on the mainland, if Alida taught there, it was before I came to B.C. According to Mr. Kidd the school District was organized in 1877.

I suppose you have by this time made up your mind about your plans. I hope you will write soon and tell me what you have decided. I trust you are feeling quite fit—I was going to say and putting on more pounds, but perhaps you don’t want to do that.

We are all quite well here, and were very pleased the other day to hear that Winifred may be able to get home for a few days this Xmas.

Ellis has been sick with the “flu” at the coast but is better now. I heard from him yesterday.

We have had some snow here for nearly a month, which is unusually early.

Must close now as Fred is going down town soon.

With love,

Margaret.

Memorandum of conversation with Mrs. Walter Vermilyea, pioneer, 1876, who is on a visit from Illinois to Vancouver, who kindly called at the City Archives in company with her daughter, Miss F. Evelyn M. Vermilyea, escorted by Mr. Kenneth A. Waites, King Edward High School, and, after conversing for an hour or so, partook of a cup of tea and cake, 2 December 1940.

Ada Sweet.

Mrs. Vermilyea said: “I was born at the town of Selby, Lennox and Addington County, Ontario, September 5th 1872, and the first I can remember is the whistle of a train at Toronto; it was about July or August, 1876. We were on our way to British Columbia, and—I was four years old—I did not want to go; I wanted to go back; the whistle frightened me when it blew. We reached San Francisco by train and took steamboat to Victoria; it was very rough, and I was confined to a berth in a cabin all the way; finally we reached Victoria. I don’t know the name of the steamer. I was Ada Sweet then, daughter of O.D. Sweet, and Alice, née Sexsmith.”

O.D. Sweet.

“Father” (Orison Davis Sweet) “had gone ahead of us about seven months before, and was teaching school at Cedar Hill, Victoria, so that the travelling party consisted of Mother, my brother Kenneth, older than I am, deceased now, and myself; one of my brothers, Clinton, was left behind in Ontario, and came out three years later with my sister, Margaret Sweet. Then after we arrived here, my sister Alice Grace was born at Cedar Hill, Victoria, about 1878, February 16th, making five children in all in the Sweet family. Mother died in Vancouver in December 1916; Father had died previously in March 1907. Both were buried in Mountain View Cemetery. As I said, I arrived in British Columbia in 1876, when I was four years old; my husband, Walter Vermilyea, came later, in 1883.

“Father’s people, the first one being Robert Sweete, came from England in the ship Neptune in 1618. I do know that my father was born in Jefferson County, New York, and strangely, my husband’s father was also born in New York state, in Hastings County. His grandfather in New York was Solomon Vermilyea.

“My father, O.D. Sweet, was a school teacher and inspector, had the post office, telegraph office, drug store, etc., and taught school besides in Ontario.”

Sexsmith.

“Mother was Miss Alice Sexsmith, daughter of Simon Sexsmith and Margaret, née Holcomb, pioneers of Ontario, where Simon Sexsmith had traded in land, etc.—a sheep for an acre. He had three farms there, and on one farm they had a sugar bush, boiled sugar and maple sugar, but I was too young to remember it. I think Mother and Father were married at Selby, Ontario. Some of my grandparents were Church of England, but our family for five generations back had been Methodists.”

Sexsmith of Lulu Island.

“Alice Sexsmith, my mother, was sister of John W. Sexsmith who farmed on Lulu Island. He came out in 1878.”

The Sweet children.

“Mother and Father had five children, in this order:

Margaret, born in Selby, Ontario; married the Rev. James A. Wood.

Kenneth, born in Selby, Ontario; married at Ladner, B.C. to Emma Denyes. Deceased.

Clinton, born in Selby, Ontario. He came to British Columbia after we did, married Polly Asbury, now has great-grandchildren in Vancouver. Lives 2029 West 2nd Avenue.

Ada Esther, that is, myself, born in Selby, Ontario, September 5th 1872, married to Walter Vermilyea, January 1st 1891 at “The Parsonage” on Lulu Island.

Alice Grace, born Cedar Hill, Victoria, February 16th 1878. Married Charles F. Caldwell, Kaslo mine owner, deceased.

“All have grandchildren, and Clinton, great-grandchildren.”

Genealogy of Vermilyea.

“My husband’s family came from Holland to America in 1662 to New York. My husband found in a library in New York, an account of the Vermilyea family; they were traced back to a Peter Vermiglia, Italian spelling of the name, who was a high official of the church. The first one to come to America was Johannes Vermilje who brought his family in 1662. They came to own considerable acreage in the centre of what is now New York, and there is a Vermilyea Avenue there. My family consists of three daughters:

Beula Beatrice, born June 25th 1892 at Lulu Island at the time of a strawberry festival at the end of the bridge. A steamer from New Westminster brought people, and the band was playing in the grove. Dr. Tolmie was there with his three daughters and came to call. This daughter is now Mrs. Norman Johnston and they are missionaries in Bolivia. They have one daughter, Anna May, being educated in Oshweken, Ontario, near Brantford.

Ada Irene, born in Vermilyea Block, 925 Granville Street, April 9, 1894. She married Dr. A.M. Menzies, now one of the directors under the Metropolitan Health Board of Vancouver. They have two daughters and one son, the two eldest now attending the University of British Columbia, medical courses.

Frances Evelyn May, who is here beside me, born in the Vermilyea Block, January 15th, 1896. Unmarried.

Cedar Hill, Victoria.

“So far so good, I hope you have that part clear. Well, when we got to Victoria, and got off the boat, we went out to Cedar Hill where Father was to teach school. Mr. S.D. Pope had given up the school. We lived in a little cottage in the yard next to the school, so, small as I was, I saw the school continuously every day. The first I remember, there were two little boys, twin brothers, who had a regular fist fight back of the school and what do you suppose it was about—about me, as to whose girl I was. You see, going into school, I tried to walk in line with the best looking twin, which was Dave.

“Then I remember they took me to Victoria and they had a sing-song in the Institute for the sailors; it was a big place, and the sailors all stood on the back benches and listened while I sang.” (Interjection by Miss Vermilyea: “Mother has a lovely voice.”) “Noah Shakespeare was the postmaster, and he organised Good Templar Lodges, and the sing-song was for him—he was chairman—and he organised a lodge at Cedar Hill and appointed my father Deputy. The Good Templar Lodges were very useful. There had never been a real Christmas there before. Father and Mother got up a big Christmas festival, and told everyone to bring something, and they had a nice big table set, and I’ll tell you, the people did bring things; lots of beef and turkeys and geese, and we had a grand gathering that Christmas. James Deane of the museum or archives of Victoria was there; they had a Christmas tree and Jimmy Deane gave me a present. Father stopped at Cedar Hill about three years, and then we came to Lulu Island about 1879.”

Arrival, Lulu Island. George Carscallen.

“Father and Mother decided to go farming, so we went from Victoria to New Westminster by boat, and then down the North Arm of the Fraser on a tug, I think, the Senator. I don’t think she had paddles. We had all our furniture on board, and Uncle George—that is, George Carscallen—was on hand to help unload. There was no wharf, only the river bank away down, right on their farm. The farm was called the Smith and Robson farm. Uncle got off the little tugboat in a hurry. He fell off into the slough and the furniture fell on top of him; there he was down in the slough with a table and rocking chair on top of him. He said, ‘Well, I’ve come a long way to get nowhere.’”

Wild cattle.

“Father and Mother were renting the farm from Smith and Robson and, too, they were buying a thousand head of wild cattle running wild out on the prairie of Lulu Island, all over the island; we had to pay for them, of course. My brothers used to try to round them up with horses, and tried to ship them; tried to get them on the steamer, but they were so wild, they often jumped into the river and got away; some were going to the butcher and some for milk cows; we tried to tame the wild cows. Once, one cow fell in the ditch on her back, and it took all the ropes and things we had to try and haul her back out of the ditch, and when, finally, they got her out, she made a bee line for them with her horns. Uncle rolled under the fence to get away from her. We girls would get up on a high hay mound and watch Father and the boys and the performance. They say someone let them loose on the island about fifty years before.”

First school, Point Grey. Lulu Island school. Wellington Carscallen.

Mrs. Vermilyea, continuing: “The next thing I remember was the opening of the first school for children. It was just below what is now the Sexsmith place. It was Will Ferris’ father’s place before that.

“But, before that, we had a little school on the mainland, on the bank of the North Arm, up river, but below Marpole of today. It was a little shanty on the bank of the river. We had to take a row boat to cross the North Arm from Lulu Island; my brothers used to row it, and Wellington Carscallen too. It was a long row; it seems now it must have been two or three miles, so I’ll tell you what we did to get rid of that. We rented Sam McCleery’s house and we took our food and stayed there during the week, and walked up the trail from Mrs. McCleery’s to the little school, and on our way visited the Garipee estate. It seemed deserted. Margaret Sweet, my sister, attended school at the cabin at McCleery’s.”

Mrs. Samuel McCleery. Miss Frances Carscallen. First school teacher.

Major Matthews: How big was it; as big as a bathroom?

Mrs. Vermilyea: “Oh, bigger that that; about 12 feet square, perhaps 14 feet square, and the teacher was Miss Frances Carscallen. She had not more than a dozen pupils, all ages, boys and girls; she is still living at Sexsmith Station on Lulu Island. I was over there last week to see her. Play? We didn’t play; there was no place to play. There was a stove and cordwood; lots of cordwood all around; no buying cordwood in those days. And the school? It was almost over the river bank. How we got ashore from the boat, I do not know, but we got ashore some way. That was the first school on the mainland, I believe.”

St. Patrick’s Cathedral. McCleery cabin, 1862. McCleery school.

(Note by J.S. Matthews: Enquiry of Mrs. Logan, née McCleery, and her sister, Miss Elizabeth McCleery, lends every credence to the suggestion that the school house was McCleery’s old cabin, no longer in use, as they had built the house on the high land; Mrs. Logan says, positively, it was the old cabin. Miss McCleery is not sure, but she is younger.)

Methodist Church, Eburne.

“Then, there was a little church down at Eburne” (north side) “where the end of the bridge is now, a little white building, very small; it was built by the Methodists, but everyone used it, all denominations, and you reached it by boat. But to go back to the school. It would be a mile and a half, I should think, below the church, now Marpole. That was the first school, except the one at Hastings Sawmill, or perhaps the Cridland School.”

Cridland School. McCleery School.

“I think I was seven when I attended the little school on the mainland, because next year, when I was eight, I went to the New Westminster school, and when I was nine, I went to he school at Moodyville. The way I remember is that I visited Moodyville for seven months and went to school there, and we had a spelling match; there were four grades; I was in the second, and I won the prize. It was Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol, and Ben Springer, the manager of the mill, handed me the book. I remember I was nine then. But you must see my old teacher Frances Carscallen. She is Mrs. Errington now.”

First school, Lulu Island. First teacher, Miss Margaret Sweet.

“The first school on Lulu Island was on the river bank in the town hall. The front part was the Council Chamber, and the back part was the school. My sister, Margaret Sweet, who is Mrs. J.A. Wood, as I have told you, was eight years older than I am; she was the first, and at first the only teacher. To get to the school we either walked through mud and water very often, or if we had a boat, we rowed up the river to the school. Later we moved up the river and had a ranch—it was so marshy the horses would not walk on it—right where the bridge crosses to Lulu Island, and my brothers dug ditches and built dykes, but the water came over the dykes. Then when the water came over the dykes, we had to get a boat to get from the house to the river, and the chickens would be hopping on the roofs of the houses, and the pigs squealing. That happened when the moon was right and the tides were high. I have a photograph of the first school on Lulu Island and the boys all playing out in front.”

First high school.

“Then the schoolmaster, Mr. Kinney, gave us high school subjects, and I went to Victoria and tried the examinations with Emma Hay, now wife of Dr. Alexander Robinson, the superintendent of schools. She and I were roommates in Victoria; there were three hundred that year who were ‘plucked.’ The reason? There were so few schools and they did not want any more teachers.”

Cridland School. Miss Maggie Harding.

“Then I taught school and substituted at the Cridland School” (i.e., North Arm School, River Road and North Arm Road) “and boarded with Mrs. Cridland; that school had been opened for some time. Maggie Harding, the teacher, was ill. That would be 1888. Then I returned to school on Lulu Island for one year and took some more high school subjects.”

O.D. Sweet, Municipal Clerk, New Westminster and Lulu Island.

“You see, Father took the office for a short time of City Clerk at New Westminster and after this time he was Municipal Clerk on Lulu Island. He was also assessor, collector, clerk of the Council, newspaper reporter, and took 15 newspapers.”

At this point the conversation ended as tea and cake had arrived.

Vermilyea. Sweet.

Subsequently: John C. Vermilyea, see B.C. Directory, 1889, father of Walter Vermilyea, was a farmer of Lulu Island, six hundred acres, and the Vermilyea and Sweet farms adjoined. The late Mr. and Mrs. J.C. Vermilyea are buried both in Mountain View Cemetery. Walter Vermilyea died in Chicago, 24 July 1940. His brother, Herbert, a builder in Marpole, is deceased. A sister, Lydia May, now Mrs. Denison, her husband an American of Honolulu where she now lives.

Memorandum of conversation with Mrs. Walter Vermilyea and her daughter, Miss Evelyn May Vermilyea, who kindly called at the City Archives, 12 December 1940, to bring corrected narrative of 2 December 1940.

Genealogy.

Mrs. Vermilyea presented written information as follows:

Vermilyea.

Grandparents: Solomon Vermilyea and wife, Elizabeth Jones, born in New York State.

Son: John C. Vermilyea, born 1830 in Belleville, Ont. Came to Lulu Island, May, 1883. Had 600 acres on Lulu Island, 4 lots on Granville St., built two blocks at 925 and 871 Granville St., and a farm in California which he left because of water expenses (orange grove). All other property lost in 1896 by one mortgage.

Children: Walter, Herbert and Mae.

Daughter: Matilda, married Mr. Brandscombe. Their son, David Brandscombe, arrived with his family at Lulu Island a few years after Vermilyeas. For information see Mrs. Sarah Brandscombe, Newport Hotel, Vancouver.

Daughter: Mary, married Mr. Willard Garratt. Came to Lulu Island in 1888. Their son, Wilbur H. Garratt lives at 8643 Montcalm St., Vancouver.

John C. Vermilyea married Ruth McTaggart.

McTaggart.

Ruth McTaggart had a sister and brother.

Phoebe McTaggart married a Ketcheson. Their son, Royal Ketcheson, old timer, lives now on Lulu Island.

Joseph McTaggart, pioneer, had a grocery in West End.

Sons: Luther, deceased, Harry, professor in University of Toronto, Donald, Corporation Counsel, City Hall, Ernest, poet, artist, and Charles, electrician.

Genealogy. Vermilyea.

Mrs. Vermilyea said: “As I told you the other day, in 1883 John and Ruth Vermilyea came to Lulu Island from Belleville, Ontario, bringing with them the three children, Walter, the eldest, Herbert, and Lydia May, the youngest. John Vermilyea had over 600 acres on Lulu Island below the Brighouse property; he bought it, not preempted; I don’t know who he bought it from; it wasn’t much when he took over, but it was all hay land, and he built huge barns and houses. He went up to that school we had in the Municipal Hall, and as he was a minister of the Society of Friends” (Quaker) “he held services in the Municipal Hall every Sunday afternoon, or Town Hall we called it. There were no other divine services held on Lulu Island, so that his services were well attended by all denominations.

“He was the only Quaker on the Island, and of course his wife; she wore the regular Quaker costume, with a Quaker bonnet, a grey silk shawl, and grey dress; all the same kind of silk. He preached from inspiration; he did not have any papers; no music, no songs. He just preached and prayed. We all sat around the wall on the benches, and when it came time for us to go, the service over, he just shook hands with his wife, no benediction. The shaking of his wife’s hand closed the service.” (Mrs. Brandscombe reports when interviewed that O.D. Sweet held church services and preached and carried on Sunday School before this time, but discontinued the church services when the Quakers arrived, carrying on the Sunday School only.) “I do not know of services held elsewhere on the island at that time.”

Major Matthews: Mrs. Vermilyea, Christmas will soon be with us; what about the old Christmases on Lulu Island?

Mrs. Vermilyea: “We took the children, all the school children from all around, and took them to the School House, or Town Hall. Well, we got up entertainments; we had an organ; we had dialogues and songs, solos; you see we all went there in our boats, in row boats up or down the North Arm, often rowing against the tide. That was hard work. Everybody rowed. One time, my husband, Mr. Vermilyea, when he was a boy, rowed twelve miles to New Westminster against the tide to bring a doctor to a sick woman on Lulu Island. She was a minister’s wife. But I’ll tell you, when the wind and tide are against you, it is hard rowing. The Christmas entertainments were always public ones, rarely in our homes. We hadn’t time for Christmas trees in our homes and at the school house too. We had our tables set at home, of course, with ducks and geese and so on for ourselves. My mother went out and collected money from the logging camps and all around to get the organ.”

Queen’s birthday.

“We used to take a couple of boats, and the young people went to New Westminster to see the Maypole. We took a boy and a girl on each seat to pull the oars—twelve miles, that’s a long way to pull, so we put two on each seat, a girl and a boy on each seat. That’s the way we rowed up on a four-oared boat, two seats, a long row. So we would start out about nine o’clock, and it depended upon the tide when we would get there. If the tide was with us, we would get there in a couple of hours, by noon. Then we would just spend the day at the May Queen celebrations, and then we would row back in the evening, singing songs on the way back down the river. I think a lot of the older Fraser River. It was fine with the trees hanging over the water which we had to row around. It is just as valuable to me as the old Swanee River.”

Garripie.

“I never saw Garripie; the place was deserted. We would stop there and play on the way to the little white school on the river bank. There was a big pool of water on the Garripie estate, and we would play around there and try to fish. It all seemed to be deserted. There was no one living in it.”

North Arm Road (Granville Street). Wild animals.

“I remember driving all the way from Vancouver to the river with the old horse, ‘Billy,’ and I saw a bear on the way. He didn’t bother me; he just went across the road in front of me. I just held my breath until he got by. I don’t know how far away he was, I suppose a quarter of a mile away. He was below the big hill on the southern slope. I was all by myself.

“There was a man named Lindsay who lived over near Steveston. He was trying to get across the river from Eburne” (Marpole) “on the ice. The river was frozen over, and he fell into the river, and my brother heard him falling. They went out with ropes and planks and they pushed the planks out to him and threw ropes, and they pulled him out of the water on to the plank, and then drew him until they got him on firm ice, saved his life and took him to our house.”

O.D. Sweet’s farm.

“When Father and Mother bought 100 acres up by the Lulu Island Bridge, North Arm, they decorated all the front with shrubs and trees. They had a scow take evergreens from the mainland to our home, all the different kinds, pines and cedars and firs, silver maples, birch and every kind of tree and they decorated up each side of the path.

“He sent away to New York and Child’s Nurseries and got many kinds of plants and also small fruits of every kind. He left the farm when he went to Vernon. He died in Vancouver.”

Vermilyea blocks.

“Mr. Vermilyea had a fine farm on Lulu Island also. He mortgaged it to build the two blocks on Granville Street. That was how he lost the farm. They were built too soon. He was ahead of his time.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_007

Memo of conversation with Mrs. James Walker, 721 Cambie Street, daughter of Joseph Silvey (“Portuguese Joe” No. 1) and his Indian wife, Khaal-tin-aht, who kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon for a chat, 17 December 1940.

Peter Plant. Addie Plant. Mrs. George Myers. Supplien Guinne.

Mrs. Walker said: “I saw Lena Myers in New Westminster recently. Peter Plant was, she told me, her father, and Addie was her mother, his wife, and she, Lena Plant, is their daughter. Lena is now Mrs. George Myers of New Westminster; fine woman. She did tell me her grandfather’s name, he was French, she told me that he had 160 acres down at Marpole; he must have had money for he sold it. I cannot remember the name, it was a queer sort of name.” (Note: probably Supplien Guinne.) “I cannot tell you the exact spot where his farm was, but it was just by the bridge to Sea Island at Marpole, on the mainland side of the river; he had a nice house, and a lovely big orchard, and he had a dairy farm because my father” (Joseph Silvey) “bought butter and eggs there.

“Lena’s grandmother, Khah-may, was my grand-aunt, that is, she was my mother’s aunt.

“Lena told me that her grandfather at Marpole got old and feeble, he was about 100 years old, and he took a trip to the Old Country, and he came back, and went to Kamloops for treatment, and died there. His wife did not go to Kamloops but went to Point Grey” (Musqueam) “and stayed with her Indian people.”

Memo of conversation with Mr. Geo. Green at City Archives, who received his information from Rev. James H. White of Sardis B.C., 6 January 1941.

First private school on the mainland.

“Miss Emily Woodman arrived at Victoria from St. Thomas, Ontario, 10th February 1859, came with first party of Methodist missionaries who came to B.C. There were four missionaries, Rev. E. Evans, D.D., leader” (this from A. Begg’s History of B.C., page 484), “Rev. E. Robson, Rev. E. White, and Rev. Arthur Browning.

“Rev. E. White was appointed to New Westminster district, then Queensborough. He arrived in New Westminster, 1st April 1859, and his family arrived from Victoria 21st April 1859. There was a four year old boy with him, who is still living, now Rev. James Henry White, Sardis, also a one year old baby girl, now Mrs. C.L. Street of Chilliwack.

“Mrs. E. White’s sister was Miss E. Woodman, approaching eighteen years. When the Rev. Mr. White arrived there were no dwelling houses in Queensborough, only a tent which was occupied by James Kennedy, later editor Columbian, and the two families doubled up. In the meantime, they put up a crude hut for the family to live in. Rev. Mr. White then built the first church in New Westminster. It was very crude and the back was on a cedar stump” (described in Vancouver Province of 25 March 1935), “there was also a cedar stump just in front of the door—John Robson, later Premier of B.C., before they had a bell to call the people to church, stood on the stump summoning the faithful to worship with a tin horn.

“No school existed, and the children were doing nothing. Government refused any assistance, so Miss Woodman started the first private school with attendance of five children, which soon grew to 17. The school was situated on the waterfront, site not known.”

(In that early day there were only a few children. Moody’s first request for a school was not until October of ’59. The families of the Royal Engineers had gone up to Derby from Victoria in April and stayed there for several months. It was when shelter had been built for them at “the camp” that they first came to New Westminster, hence his application in September or October.)

“Her pupils were: (These were probably not the original five, but were some of her later pupils.)

Frank Barnard who was sworn in December 17th 1914 [see Sun of that date] as Lieutenant-Governor of B.C.

Johnny Irving, son of Capt. Irving. At this time, the Captain had just started to build the first steam boat to be built in B.C., named Governor Douglas, built on Fraser River. [See Biographical B.C., Vol. 2, page 685.]

Frank Richards, later Sheriff of Victoria.

Three children of Sullivan family. Mr. Sullivan was a cook up in the Cariboo gold mines; these three children were Joe, Julie and Arthur. In later years, their father was cook at Moodyville mill. Later the family moved to Granville, or “Gastown” where they owned property. Arthur, the youngest, was a singer in Wesleyan Church.

“Miss Emily Woodman was born in 1841 at St. Thomas, Ontario, and was educated there; she was a twin, her twin sister was Mary Ann Woodman. Mary came out in 1863 with Mother and Father. Mary Woodman married James Cunningham in 1865, and Emily Woodman, teacher, married a brother, Thomas Cunningham, both of New Westminster, in 1864” (?); “Emily died in 1925. I have been told by a daughter of her twin sister that she lived at the corner of Ash and 7th Avenue, Vancouver, and died there.” (See “Thomas Cunningham” in Howay’s Biographical B.C.)

“There are two daughters and one son of James Cunningham still living.

Mrs. George Spiers, Bellingham.

Mrs. Thomas H. Talbot, 2405 West 14th Avenue, Vancouver.

Fred Cunningham, New Westminster.

“Mrs. Thomas Cunningham, née Emily Woodman, is buried in Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver.

“Mrs. James Cunningham, née Mary Ann Woodman, died January 22nd after 1925.

“Mr. James Cunningham died May 4, 1925; buried Fraser Cemetery, New Westminster.

“Joe Sullivan was the eldest of the three boys. They lived next door to the Rev. White family, and all went to the first school, and Joe Sullivan is responsible for tempting” (James White) “him until he told his first lie.”

Second school.

[The second school] “was started possibly at Sapperton, likely at the camp, for the children belonged to the soldiers. It was also a private school, the teacher was the daughter of one of the men, her name is unknown.

“Rev. John Sheepshanks came in September 1859, and said that they needed another school, that it was too far to go to the school on the waterfront. Col. Moody, the military head, discouraged the mixing of civilians and militia. Rev. Sheepshanks wrote to Col. Moody and asked him to use his best endeavours with Governor Douglas, the letter is undated; Moody wrote to Douglas, letter dated October 7, 1859 asking for school—letter never answered, and next letter Sheepshank wrote dated June 27, 1860, again to Col. Moody to ask him to use his influence with Governor Douglas. One margin of Col. Moody’s letter in Douglas’ own handwriting is ‘no funds.’ Sheepshank states there were twenty-eight pupils.”

First public school.

[The first public school] “was authorised by Douglas in 1863.

“The Rev. Jamieson had arrived in New Westminster, he was the first Presbyterian minister, had a large family and wanted a school—with the result that he got a grant with a promise that a school would be started in 1863.

“Jimmy White, now Rev. James Henry White, went to public school, his teacher was MacIlveen, fair hair, and stands out in his memory as a man who drank a lot and gave the pupils a holiday.

“Hughie Burr, another teacher, and the owner of a very strong raw hide strap (and he used it). Dr. White tells us how the pupils each took turns in cutting a notch each day, a little bit at a time, so that they couldn’t be accused of cutting the strap.”

(This was in ’66. The school then was on Mary Street, now 6th Street, opposite the present Columbian office. Col. Moody’s wife’s first name was Mary, hence the name.)

Excerpt, New Westminster Columbian, Wednesday, 1 April 1863.

Secular education.

A petition signed by the resident heads of families in this city was forwarded to His Excellency the Governor, last week praying for a grant of one hundred pounds—to assist in maintaining the school on unsectarian principles. The parents agreeing to pay an equal amount.

It affords us more than ordinary pleasure to state that a reply has been received granting the request, and holding out the encouragement to expect a more liberal allowance after the expiry of the present year.

We may state that a first class teacher, of fourteen year experience, Mr. McIlveen, has been engaged and the school house erected by Mr. Jamieson, on the Manse Grounds. It is most pleasing to have to record so prompt a compliance with the expressed wish on the part of His Excellency. It is understood that this arrangement is simply provisional and that a proper colonial school system will be introduced as soon as possible.

Note: Rev. E. White was transferred to Nanaimo in late 1863, and returned as pastor to New Westminster in 1866. It was when they returned in ’66 that Mr. Burr was teaching.

[First white child born at New Westminster. Royal Engineers.]

The first white child born at New Westminster is claimed to be, and doubtless correct, was Newton White, now dead, born to Rev. Edward White and wife Jane. (Mother of J.H.W. of Sardis in either June or July of 1859.) (I have the date, but not now at hand.)

Although in some quarters this is questioned by the statement that a Royal Engineer child was the first, the Royal Engineers did not return from Derby till after that. There was no home for them.

The main body of Royal Engineer was transferred from the Thames City because the government did not feel justified in trusting such a big sailing ship to navigate the river. The Eliza Anderson was much smaller and had been running up the river for some time.

When the Eliza Anderson passed up the Fraser with the main body of Royal Engineers on April 14th, the only buildings were a grocery store and dwelling overhead (the first building erected in New Westminster) owned and built by Wm. J. Armstrong, native of Ontario, but who had dwelt in California since 1851, and had come to Fraser’s River with the gold rush of 1858—a butcher shop crudely built by Mr. Dickenson, later a Mayor of New Westminster—a bakery owned by Philip Nick, a German who came with the gold rush from California, and was interested heavily if not the owner of the “Pioneer Mills” built on Burrard Inlet in ’63. (The construction foreman and designer, and first man to operate the little mill was T.W. Graham, a good draughtsman and mill builder)—and a saloon owned by “Colonel” John Thomas Scott, who built the Scott Road, later, and the Douglas Road. (Scott was a military man who served in the United States Army for many years, attaining the rank of Captain, but never that of Colonel. It was an honorary sobriquet only. A long obituary of Scott is in the Columbian of 15 February (?), 1908.) (See Early History of Burnaby, 4 August 1939.)

Those four buildings, all very crude, and a rough landing of floating logs built by Scott as a temporary landing were there on April 14th.

Opposite “The Camp” (not Sapperton), close beside the Fraser, at the mouth of the Brunette, and west to the Glen Brook, the members of the Royal Engineers (part of the first and second parties to arrive from England only) had started to clear the land. The Recovery, an old ship which had been moored as a light-ship to guide shipping at the mouth of the Fraser, was brought to “The Camp” and formed a shelter for the first Royal Engineer men at the camp.

Memo of conversation with Mr. W.R. Lord of 3050 Oak Street, Vancouver at City Archives. Mr. Lord talked as J.S. Matthews typed, 21 January 1941.

Donald Ross Lord, father.

(See B.C. Directory, 1882-3, “D.R. Lord,” British America Cannery, Canoe Pass, page 248.)

“Don’t know about his parents; he was born in Elsworth, Maine, U.S.A., and he married Sally Rose at Port Blakeley, Puget Sound; he was a millwright at the time, and about 76 years ago he went into the furniture business in Seattle, Washington, and then he went out of that and went over to the Columbia River and built a summer resort out at Clatsop, outside of Astoria, and then from that he drifted into the salmon canning business; he was in the salmon caning business with John A. Devlin of Astoria, Oregon; then in 1881 he came to the Fraser River and built the British America Cannery, Canoe Pass, and then the next year he built a cannery for the same company—he was a shareholder—on the Skeena, also the British American. Then he sold his interest in 1885, and came over here and built the Royal City Planing Mills on Carrall Street; then he went back into the cannery business on Puget Sound. I forget the name, on Puget Sound. He was there for a few years and then he took ill, and was ill for a long time with a tumour, and then he died in Seattle, Washington, about 1910 or 1911, leaving Mother a widow. He is buried in Seattle, Washington. The family was always Presbyterian.”

Sally Rose, mother.

“Mother was Sally Rose of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, daughter of a Mr. Rose, naturally, but I never saw him; Mother came to Port Blakeley as a governess, I don’t know what year; that was where she met my father. She died in Seattle, Washington, not so very long after Father.”

Children.

“I” (W.R. Lord) “am the only one left of the seven children, four sons and three daughters. The order of their birth was:

“Harry C. His photo is in Lewis and Dryden’s Marine History of the Pacific Coast.

“Frank L.. He married Miss Ladner of Ladner.

“Charles R. He was a cannery man in B.C.; he married a Miss Parmiter of Ladner.

“Amanda; she married J. Prendergast. She has no children

“William Rose, that’s me. I married Mary Whiteside when her people were farming on Lulu Island, 26th March 1890.

“Lottie E., she married Mr. Evans; he was a manufacturer’s agent; I never met him; they lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, U.S.A., and no children; not one of my sisters has children. But my brothers, they all have big families, all but one; he only had one daughter.”

William Ross Lord.

“Born 17th July 1866 at Seattle, Washington Territory” (don’t know where.) “Educated at public schools of Portland, Oregon and San Francisco, California. Married Miss Mary Whiteside at the little old Presbyterian Church, Sea Island, 26th March 1890, and crossed from Lulu Island to Sea Island in a row boat—as the bridge was out with the ice—then was married in the church by the Rev. —, then by Freeman Steves’ stage across the bridge to the mainland, and up the Vancouver Road, now Granville Street, through the towering trees, a narrow slit in the forest, to catch the Islander for a honeymoon in Victoria.”

Mary Whiteside.

“Daughter of John Whiteside, farmer, No. 4 Road, Lulu Island. She is a cousin of his Honour David Whiteside, and W.J. Whiteside, a barrister, King’s Counsel, both of New Westminster. She was born in Scarborough, Ontario, 1st September 1866. Her father and mother were born there, too, and came to British Columbia in 1887 and settled on Lulu Island. No members of her family there now.

“Our children are:

Charles Percival, born in Vancouver, he was drowned off the Fraser River, 1910, March 22nd, unmarried; he was only 19.

Frederick Melvin, born on Lulu Island, married, and has three children. He lives in Vancouver; he is a lieutenant, looking after recreation, all B.C.; has his office in the old Hotel Vancouver. He was in the Social Service Dept., Vancouver.

William Ross, born on Lulu Island, married, and has three children. He is manager of the Phoenix Cannery at Steveston.

Arthur Edward, born on Lulu Island, married, no children, City Solicitor, City Hall, Vancouver.

Harry Donald, born in Vancouver, married Gertrude Bickle, daughter of the owner of the Coast Quarries; she is a niece of the Chief Justice of Canada; and they have two children.

Frank Nelson, born in Vancouver, married, one child, he is in the automobile license department, cashier, British Columbia. His wife was Rena Stinson of Vancouver.

Grace Edna, born on Lulu Island, she was our second child. She is now Mrs. A.L.P. Hunter, three children; he is a barrister.

“On Friday, 17th January 1941, at St. Mark’s Church” (Anglican), “Kitsilano, my granddaughter Margaret Hunter married Frank Holland, a member of the staff of the Great Northern Railway.”

See Early Vancouver, Matthews.

Memo of conversation with Mr. Charles Jones, Bridgeport, Lulu Island, Superintendent, Water Department, Municipality of Richmond, who kindly called at the City Archives, 22 January 1941.

First Town Hall, Richmond.

Mr. Jones said: “The old Town Hall stood on the southwest corner of Church and Seventeenth Road; that means the ‘River Road’ on the Brighouse Estate; right directly opposite the old Presbyterian Church, now the Richmond United Church, and on the former site of the old Town Hall, now stands ten auto tourist cabins. I joined the Richmond Municipality service in 1911, have been with them continuously since; attended Council meeting in the old Town Hall, and saw it burn down January 1st 1913. At that time Mr. Charles Blyth was Municipal Clerk, followed by Mr. Samuel Sheppard. Minutes of the Council meetings were put on a blackboard with chalk, and the clerk used to shout to the men in the workshop, which was in the front of the same building, ‘Don’t make so much damn noise.’” See photo No. C.V. P. Out. 254.

Indian graves. Woodward’s Landing.

“One day we were digging a trench for a water main on the property of Mr. James Gilmour on the South Arm, west of Woodward’s Landing, and east of No. 4 Road, and when we got down about three feet, we struck a board in a shell dump. Further excavation brought to light a stone pestle and mortar, a big flat stone, about, I should think from memory, about twelve inches square, hollowed out, and a spearhead of bone; no barb on it, but it looked like a tusk which had been split; also the skeleton of a deer. Still further excavation was stopped on account of our getting onto the Canadian Northern Railway right of way, which had recently been put through. I have the pestle and mortar and spearhead in my home. I will give them to the citizens of Vancouver to keep for posterity to look at.”

First Brighouse fire brigade, 1919.

“There was a volunteer fire brigade at Steveston in earlier days than mine, and we have the old hand pump, horse drawn; it would take about twelve men on the ends of a walking beam to work it; we have it at the Municipal Hall at Brighouse yet, and taking good care of it although it is never used.

“But the first fire brigade at Brighouse was also a volunteer fire brigade; here is a photograph of it taken outside the Municipal Hall at Brighouse. The names of the men from left to right are Levi Fair, farmer; James Cherry, municipal truck driver; Charles Jones, that’s me, water staff; John Cosens, farmer, now near White Rock; G.H. Anderson, bricklayer, at Brighouse; Rev. Nixon, formerly minister of the old Presbyterian Church. The Deputy Chief was James Herd of Garden City, now road-master of the B.C. Electric Railway Co., and the Fire Chief was Edwin J. Ackroyd, now has an electric shop on Oak Street, Marpole.” See photo No. P. Out. 255.

C.P.R. telegraph. Old Hotel Vancouver.

“I joined the C.P.R. telegraph as operator, old Hotel Vancouver, 1903, and remained, the last one there, until it was pulled down; then I was transferred to the C.P.R. Depot.”

Memo of conversation with Mr. W.A. Grafton, 542 West 63rd Avenue, formerly of Grafton Bay, Grafton Lake, etc., etc., Bowen Island, and of City Hall staff, who came to the City Archives carrying a large bag full of things, 29 January 1941.

Pilot sloop Claymore. Skunk Cove pilotage. Pilot boat flare.

Mr. Grafton said: “This can is the pilot flare used on the pilot boat Claymore by the pilots out in English Bay to signal a sailing ship at night. It came with the Claymore when she first came out there near Point Atkinson and anchored awaiting to pilot ships; you see, prior to that the pilots came aboard at Victoria, or lived there.

“We used to fill this can with the handle about half full of coal oil, and put in a tablespoonful of turps” (turpentine); “the turps so that it would light quickly. In those days we used fusees; we could not use ordinary matches; they would not light the coal oil flare in a storm; we had to set it alight. This holder, with the grating fire pot at the end. We put asbestos in that fire grating, and then dipped the flare in the coal oil, and then set the fusee to it, and then when it was alight, waved it slowly backwards and forwards in the darkness on the Claymore’s deck, and that let the sailing ship wanting a pilot know where we were. It was used when the Claymore first came up about 1889; we signalled by waving it backwards and forwards over our head, or in front of us. Then when we had finished signalling, we put it out by returning the handle and flare head first into the can, and the coal oil drowned it, and it went out. The top of the grating is broken, but it used to screw on, and that held the asbestos, which soaked up the coal oil, in place.”

Chinese scales.

“When the Chinese brickmakers left Bowen Island” (Deep Cove) “brickyard, they left this rod and brass pan behind; it works like our steelyards work. I don’t know what they used it for.”

Ship Martha in glass bottle.

“This little toy ship, built inside this glass bottle, and you see, it’s the Martha, the flag on the mast is marked ‘Martha’; that’s what the sailors used to amuse themselves making. They build the little toy ship, then push it inside the bottle, and pull up the masts and yards with one string. I got it from some sailor about 1900, and they used to amuse themselves on long voyages making them.”

Glass bottle curiosities, flask.

“I don’t know where I got these two bottles; you see, one is covered so as to look like a potato, and the other covered” (pint size) “so as to look partly like a broken bough of a small tree; very cleverly done. And this of course is just an ordinary advertising flask for whisky; they gave them away. I don’t know much about the two camouflaged bottles. I got them somewhere when I was on the pilot boat.”

How the Hudson’s Bay Company steamer Beaver was wrecked. True, or untrue; here was what was said.

Memo of conversation with Mr. A.W. LePage, 3538 Dunbar Street, this afternoon, 5 February 1941, as we went to the elevator, City Hall. He had called at the City Archives to give me a gold-plated medallion of the Beaver’s copper to send to Miss Margaret F. McNeil, first white child born in Vancouver, 115 N.W. 15th Avenue, Portland, Oregon, who intends to present it to the British War Relief Society, Portland, to sell or raffle to raise funds. Mr. LePage is acting for the estate of C.W. McCain, who dismantled the Beaver.

S.S. Beaver. Capt. Marchant. A.W. LePage.

Mr. LePage said: “Do you know how the Beaver came to go ashore. Doesn’t it seem queer to you that she should have actually passed out of the Narrows, and went ashore outside Prospect Point?

“Well, old Captain Marchant, I knew him better than I know you; he told me himself. I used to meet him every day almost. What he said was the passengers on the boat were going back” (to the logging dump) “and some of them were pretty well ‘lit up,’ and they had forgotten the liquor—call it ‘booze’ if you want to—and they wanted him to turn back to Vancouver so that they could get a supply.

“So he turned back, and in turning around he ran ashore. Anyway, that’s what he told me, Captain Marchant himself.”

J.S. Matthews.

5 February 1941.

Memo of conversation with Ormond Lee Charlton, 11 February 1941.

Pioneer (13 September 1886), Celista, north shore Shuswap Lake, down for the winter, and now staying with his daughter, Mrs. Norman Bennett, 2227 Pine Street (she has four sons; her husband is in the Marine Dept., R.C.A.F., Sergeant, supply boat.)

Mr. Charlton said: “I came to Vancouver from St. Martin’s, New Brunswick, C.P.R. and arrived here 13th September 1886. I was born at St. Martin’s. My father was the school teacher; his name Andrew Charlton, and Mother was Elizabeth Charlton; she was a Miss Elizabeth Fowler, daughter of James Moorehouse Fowler, who was United Empire Loyalist, who was farming in Upham, King’s County, and incidentally one of the Uphams, George Fred Upham, is now living in Vancouver. Father was a school teacher; he died in February 1868, when I was only two and a half years old. I was born August 19th 1865, and was one of a family of two. My sister, Mrs. William Wood, Alice now of San Francisco, 204 Hugo Street. She has three children.

“Well, as I said, I came to Vancouver, 13th September 1886; just a young fellow, 21, and looking for adventure. No idea of what I was going to do. The first job was in the Brunette Sawmill at Sapperton, labourer, and then afterwards I came back to Vancouver and at the time of the clearing of the ‘West End’ of Vancouver, that is, west of Burrard Street, I was employed as bookkeeper for Harry Berry, and Barnes and McLellan, feed and flour, who had a place of business on Carrall Street, between Cordova and Water Street.”

“Chinese” John McDougall.

“At that time all of Vancouver west of Burrard Street was stumps; it had been logged pretty well, but there were still a great number of trees standing, but all the good large timber had been taken out. The owners of the property had combined to let the contract for clearing, and the white labourers had agitated that the contract be given to white labour only. Then the contractors let the contract to John McDougall, who saw that the contract did not specify that he must employ white labour, and so he imported twenty-four Chinese from Victoria.”

The Vancouver Chestnut. “Siege of Vancouver.”

“But before I tell you any more, I ought to say that the sheet The Vancouver Chestnut, this which you have here, was got out by” (Dr.) “‘Bob’ Mathison, the printer, on Hastings Street, and in it you will see a ‘Speech of Roycroft’ at the ‘Siege of Vancouver’ was written by myself; it is a parody on Shakespeare on the ‘Siege of Harfleur.’ It ends, ‘Hurrah for China, and the Rice Brigade.’

“But to get back to the ‘West End’ clearing. The Chinese were camped in buildings on the shore of Coal Harbour, Burrard Inlet, somewhere near where the Hotel Elysium, where there was a creek from which they got their water; there was a bit of a clearing there, and there was an unoccupied shack there; not very big; a small one. I think there were some tents, but most of them were housed in a wooden building.”

Chinese riots, 1887.

“It was February, about the 25th” (1887.) “One evening a mass meeting was held in the then new City Hall on Powell Street, upstairs. The meeting was addressed by several speakers, but no action taken, no resolutions passed; it was a very ordinary meeting; nothing of especial significance, just an ordinary meeting. After the adjournment, several people were talking in different groups through the hall, and someone at the rear called out, ‘Let’s pay our respects to John tonight.’ There had been talk of tarring and feathering the contractor, John McDougall, and I thought that was what was meant by the remark, but the men, who subsequently rioted, proceeded to the camp up Water Street, and a trail through the clearing, stumbling over logs and sticks. I don’t know who led them, if anyone did. There was a little snow on the ground, and of course it was dark; the crowd were so far ahead of me that I do not know if they stopped at the saloons to get a little encouragement as they went. They were so far ahead that I did not see that part of it. I stopped in conversation with restaurant people, and we heard shouts from the west. Of course, in those days, at night, Burrard Inlet was very still and quiet, and a shout could be heard a long way.”

Chief of Police Stewart.

“I followed the second crowd, and arrived on the scene just before Chief Jack Stewart and Superintendent Roycroft, and saw one Chinaman in the salt water up to his neck, and stopped another one from going in. Just at that time the Chief Police, Chief Stewart, and Superintendent Roycroft arrived. Superintendent Roycroft slipped on the snow as he passed me, and I helped him to his feet.

“Then Chief Stewart ordered the crowd to disperse. There were small fires, apparently of bedding and Chinese goods, and the Chinamen, among the tents and old buildings were apparently trying to hide themselves.

“The rioters refused to disperse on the Chief’s order, and threatened him with bodily violence, but nothing was done by the rioters to hurt anyone, not even the Chinamen, but one or two of the rioters said, ‘Let’s finish this thing up,’ and remarks of that nature, but they did nothing and soon dispersed, and went back to Water Street and town.”

Tom Greer, milkman.

“The next day John Frauley was arrested; he was a logger. He claimed to be home in bed when it happened. On Saturday morning, Tom Greer, brother of Sam Greer of Greer’s Beach, was distributing his milk, and was met by Sergeant McLaren, with a warrant for his arrest. He asked, ‘What am I to do about my milk?’ The Sergeant told him to ‘Go on, deliver your milk, and then come up to the City Hall.’ Just after lunch on Saturday, I was walking down street when the sergeant stepped beside me, and walked down to where I was employed, and waited until we were inside before he presented a warrant to me, and I was arrested. Being Saturday afternoon, the police court had been held for the day, and the police magistrate, Black, refused to reconvene it, and said that under no circumstances would he accept bail. Although $10,000 cash was offered by different citizens, quite a number of them agreed to put up the $10,000 among them, but he would not accept it.”

City Hall, Powell Street. Court House.

“On hearing this, I sent for Mr. Blake, of Blake and Muir, barristers, and Mr. Muir came up to the City Hall lockup, and after some little talk he stated that J.J. Blake, his partner, was stipendiary magistrate, and could accept bail. This was done and each of the prisoners were released on three thousand dollars bail; $1,000 each and two sureties of $1,000 each. And we were free until the Monday.”

Riots, 1887. Suspension of charter.

“The case came up on Monday morning before Magistrate Black; the court was held in the upstairs, City Hall, Powell Street, and adjourned, I think until the next day; anyway, it finally came up on Thursday. Thursday morning we were tried; all three together, not singly. Mayor M.A. MacLean, R.H. Alexander, and Mr. Black were on the bench. Evidence was presented by Chief Stewart, his son Hector, and Mr. Glover, afterwards of the B.C. Electric Railway, but nothing to connect either of the prisoners with the riots was produced, and we were discharged without having to bring even our own witnesses. I think they just arrested us to save their face.”

“The keys of Vancouver.”

“The thing which I am most interested in is that we were tried twice for the same ‘crime,’ which I understand is contrary to British procedure. As the trial proceeded, the Princess Louise was entering the harbour with a force of special policemen on board; came in silently, no one heard her whistle if she did blow it. We left the Court House” (City Hall) “and went to different places, but the police knew where to find us. Superintendent Roycroft’s force landed on the C.P.R. dock, and marched up to the City Hall; about thirty-eight of them, uniforms, and arms” (revolvers and batons), “blue serge uniforms; it had taken two or three days in Victoria to outfit them, and Smith and Weston five-shooters. Notwithstanding the fact that Vancouver was in a state of ‘riot,’ the superintendent demanded of Mayor MacLean the ‘keys of the city,’ and the Mayor said, ‘Where is your authority?’ The authority was in the hands of another gentleman who was not present, but who had come from Victoria on the boat.” (It may have been a Mr. Hall.) “He had to be found, which of course was not a very big task in a city the size of Vancouver at that time. When he presented his credentials, Superintendent Roycroft asked for the prisoners, and was told that the prisoners had been tried and discharged. He insisted the city had no right to try them, the city charter having been suspended several days previously by an act of Legislature, passed through three readings in one day. The Mayor handed over the ‘keys of Vancouver’—I don’t know just what keys; probably the key of the lock-up—and the city police knew where we three were and rounded us up, and asked our permission to be tried again, to which we agreed. So we three appeared at the City Hall, upstairs, in court, and were tried again by Judge Vowell; he was gold commissioner for the Cariboo, and he happened to be in the city at the time.

“The witnesses were the same, with the exception of Mr. Glover, who did not appear, and the case was again dismissed for lack of evidence.”

North Vancouver Catholic Church. Indian Band.

“I am not just sure of the date, but it was 1887 or 1888, and the place was the Squamish Indian Mission at North Vancouver, and the chief performers were the Indian Band; I am not sure if it was the only band on the inlet at the time; it might have been. Some thousands of Indians were gathered at the Mission from all up and down the coast to meet a large number of Roman Catholic Church dignitaries. The place was a mass of tents and other shelters, pitched in the rough clearing between the stumps. In front of the Indian Church was four small cannons, muzzle loaders.

“A large flotilla of canoes had proceeded to Vancouver and met the Archbishop and Bishop and lesser clergy at Andy Linton’s boathouse at the foot of Carrall Street, adjoining Water Street.” (See photos C.V. P. In. 10, 12, C.V. N. In. 2.)

Andy Linton’s boathouse.

“As the flotilla was ready to leave Linton’s float of logs, ‘Squamish Joe,’ he was a prominent Indian from that North Vancouver Reserve; he was a longshoreman at Moodyville—not the same man as Chief Capilano Joe—gave the signal to the band to play, and to the canoe men to move out; the bandsmen were all in the canoes. To illustrate the quietness of Vancouver Harbour at that time, I was in a boat about fifty yards off shore in front of the Mission Church at the Reserve, north shore, and heard, quite distinctly, Joe’s order, ‘Let her go.’ And the band played, I’ll bet you couldn’t guess—‘Yankee Doodle.’”

(Note: it is said that as the Bishop reached the Indian Reserve across the inlet and proceeded up the beach, this same band played “Johnny comes marching home.”)

Early cannon.

“Well, as the ecclesiastical party was going over in the boats and canoes, the guns in front of the Mission Church were booming out welcome in great puffs of white smoke at about minute intervals. I forget the name of the Indian who was in charge, I think his name was Moses, but he would exclaim in stentorian tones, and measured ejaculation, ‘One—two—three—four—five,’ and at five the cannon was touched off with a fire brand.”

Ship Hindustan. S.S. Skidegate. Cannon.

“Another funny incident. The ship Hindustan, Capt. Walsh, carrying timber between Burrard Inlet and Chilean ports, loaded at Moodyville with a cargo of lumber, and pulled out to anchor waiting for tugs to take her to Royal Roads. She had several Chilenos” (Chileans in Spanish) “in her crew, and the porter of the Moodyville store was a fellow countryman, Pedro de la Flores, commonly called ‘Pete.’ Pete thought that he should fire a salute to the Hindustan on her departure, so he loaded up an old muzzle loader, presumably from the gunboat Sparrowhawk. He used as wad a gunnysack and as the tugboat started to move the Hindustan down the harbour, he discharged the cannon. The tugboat Skidegate saw the gunnysack wrapped around his topmast, and the language he used to poor Pete about firing on a British ship was something scandalous. That’s the end of that story.

“After about three years in Vancouver, I went back to St. Martin’s, New Brunswick, and was wandering around for a while, Boston, Massachusetts, went to see what Ontario looked like, worked on the lake steamers, and on a farm in the Muskoka district, and the street railway in St. Catharines, came west on a harvest excursion, and on through to Vancouver again in the fall of 1896.

“Then I worked in the sawmill at Ruskin, and I had about a dozen different jobs, but I met my wife at Ruskin; she went there as a visitor to the Rev. B.H. West, who was then a shoemaker at the mill; he had been their next door neighbour in Victoria. I worked at Ruskin for a while, then moved to Port Moody, and worked in the Canadian Pacific Lumber Co.; didn’t like Port Moody climate, and moved to Victoria; worked in the Taylor Mill in Victoria, and later with Walsh Bros. truckmen, and Baker and Sons, flour and feed store, and then went into the honey bottling business on my own. Worked up a good reputation for nectar brand honey, and handled a number of other household specialties; bottling machine oil, cedar mop oil and things of that kind. The Great War, 1914-1918, ‘killed’ the honey business. British Columbia did not produce nearly enough honey, and a large amount of my supplies had to come from the United States, Australia, and Honolulu; the latter sources were cut off by the lack of shipping space, and the United States source was cut off by an embargo placed on the export of honey in order to have enough for the United States troops. Struggled along for a while, but finally gave it up, and took to buying fruit on the trees, taking it off, packing it and selling it in Vancouver and New Westminster. That was only a part-time job, so I went up to Celista in 1926.

“At Celista and Magna Bay, that is the next bay on Shuswap Lake, I started a trucking business to Notch Hill, Salmon Arm, and got the mail contract, which before that had been carried by boat. After fulfilling my contract, another party outbid me for the mail contract, and the trucking business was not sufficient to pay the outlay.

“So I went to live on my son-in-law’s farm, Mr. Walter Nelson; he had a ‘stump’ ranch.”

Genealogy.

“I married Miss Hannah Chapman, daughter of Richard Chapman of Victoria, farmer, etc., at his home at Oaklands, Victoria, on October 4th 1899; the clergyman was” [blank.] “She was Methodist then; I was Anglican. Clergyman was Methodist. We were blessed with four children, one son and three daughters. She died, January 27th 1940, and is buried at Celista, Shuswap Lake. Our children were:

Catherine, born in Victoria, 8th December 1900, and now Mrs. Fred Henderson of 1546 Bank Street, Victoria; she has two daughters and one son.

Darwin Charlton, born in Victoria, 20th May 1902, unmarried and lives at Celista with me.

Gladys, born in Victoria, 27th January 1904, and now Mrs. Norman Bennett of 2227 Pine Street; as I told you, her husband is on the supply ship (sergeant), Sekani, Royal Canadian Air Force. She has four sons.

Eleanor, born in Victoria, and now Mrs. Walter Nelson, living at Scott’s Creek, near Sorrento, Shuswap. Her husband is on the ferry boat on the lake. She has six children, three sons and three daughters.

“That makes thirteen grandchildren altogether.”

The return of General Currie to Vancouver.

A cursory memo by J.S. Matthews.

Written following a letter, dated 13 February 1941, from Colonel Willis O’Connor, Office of the Principal Aide-de-Camp, Government House, Ottawa. (His Excellency the Earl of Athlone.) As Major O’Connor he was with General Currie the day he returned to Vancouver. Col. O’Connor’s letter says in part: “It’s hard for a great man to be a hero in his own country. He played too straight a game.”

My recollection is that, news being that General Currie would reach Vancouver in the morning—I think by C.P.R.—I arose earlier than usual and made my way downtown. I found portions of Granville Street roped off, lamppost to lamppost, with a thick rope, about one inch, from Hastings Street to the old Hotel Vancouver on Georgia Street. I waited, as I was too late to reach the station.

There were few people on the streets; fewer than usual. The ropes hung bare; none were near them; it seemed queer to see streets roped off for a crowd, and a few stragglers only on the sidewalks. It seemed ominous.

However, presently, the procession came up the street. I forget just what, but a few motor cars, and it hurried onwards; there was scarcely a cheer. I do not recall hearing one. I hurried on down to “The Arena,” on Georgia Street West, at Denman, and walked in just as the procession arrived.

The inside of the “Arena,” since burned down, was not especially prepossessing. It “sat” about 5,000, but was gaunt and bare; tier on tier of seats—bleachers—high up to the roof. All were empty; not a soul sat in them. The interior was poorly lighted in daytime, better at night, and this was daytime. In the centre of the large wooden floor was a platform, perhaps forty feet wide by twenty feet deep, and a lot of chairs ranged in rows.

As soon as the procession arrived, all those who entered seemed to go up on the platform and take seats; General Currie and others of his party, excepting Major O’Connor, among them. Major O’Connor stayed on the floor and I spoke to him. I had met him in Ottawa during the war. There were more people, it seemed, on the platform than on the floor as audience.

I whispered to Major O’Connor, “This is awful.”

Major O’Connor replied, “Never mind; he’s living it down.”

Poor Currie; it was a terrible welcome; heartless, thoughtless, cruel, and undeserved. I was ashamed of Vancouver that day.

Here is part of Col. O’Connor’s letter, 13 February 1941.

I can remember the day that General Currie went to the old arena; it wasn’t a very friendly reception. It is hard for a great man to be a hero in his own country. He played too straight a game for the politicians, and would not be under their thumbs.

Willis O’Connor.

J.S. Matthews.

18 February 1941.

Item # EarlyVan_v6_008

Memo of conversation with William Henry Evans, 866 West 15th Avenue, Vancouver, who very kindly called at the City Archives this morning, 19 February 1941, to talk about the Hudson’s Bay steamer Beaver.

Wreck of S.S. Beaver.

Mr. Evans said: “I came to Vancouver from Toronto in 1886; I was working for the C.P.R. at Yale, in the machine shop under Andrew Onderdonk and ‘Fatty’ Armstrong, and cut the end of my thumb off, and was sent down to Westminster by freight train to Dr. Trew. Then I went back to Yale again, and saw the first train come through to Port Moody; my name sake, Billy Evans, was engineer. And I stayed at Yale until the shops burned down, and then I was brought down to the roundhouse in Vancouver, or Vancouver shops, the little bit of a shed at the back of Carrall Street, near the B.C. Electric Railway Co., they had a bit of a turn table you turned by hand there; push it. Then I quit.

“The next thing I did was to take a contract to clear some lots on False Creek, north side, south end of Carrall Street over False Creek, just east of the street” (old George Black’s slaughter house.) “I had two brothers with me. We cleared the lots, we certainly did. I never got paid for all. Then I was here in New Westminster at the time of the fire.

“Then one day, old Capt. George Marchant and I were fooling around at the Sunnyside; that was the only place to go to anyway to spend time, and he asked me to come on the Beaver with him as assistant engineer; the Beaver was tied up to the Hastings Sawmill store wharf, and the chief engineer was David Simmons, and my brother Tom was deck hand, and a Chinaman, ‘One Lung,’ was cabin boy. That must have been about the June 1888, because I was only on her a month when she went on the rocks.”

Observation Point, now Prospect Point.

“She had been running north, and this time, the night she was wrecked, it was dark, about one a.m. in the morning; we were going to Nanaimo for bunker coal before going north to some island, Harwood or Thurlow Island, and from the time we left the dock until we were on the rocks was not very long, I think I was having a sleep and don’t actually know who was on board except the crew, or if there were any except the crew.

“Anyway, I think the tide was pretty near high water, but still running in, because the captain hugged the shore pretty tight to get past the eddy off Observation Point, and the first thing I knew she hit, and that settled it. We all got off. We were in too much of a hurry to pack up, and believe me, it would not have taken any of us three minutes to pack up, because in those days we travelled light. We all got off into the water and waded ashore; walked through the park to the Sunnyside Hotel, and we were at rest, and peace. There was a peaceful calm settled down on us. The barkeeper, when he saw us, thought we had gone nutty because we had not long before left the bartender with goodbyes, and promised we would see him again, by and by, but he did not expect to see us that quick.”

Beaver’s walking beam.

“About the walking beam. I was up with Mr. A.E. LePage at Stanley Park workshops the other day; we both went up together to have a look at it. They have got it all covered with black paint now, and it looks sort of dilapidated; it was lying on the floor with a lot of other machinery and miscellaneous junk, but I recognised it at once.

“The Beaver had four of those side levers or walking beams, two for each engine. The boilers burned slack coal, and lots of it, and we kept up a pressure of well, she blew off at thirteen pounds; the valve was set for thirteen pounds. And the engine would stop dead if the steam went down to six pounds; the steam pipes were not covered in those days. The steam led to the steam chest, and the rocker arms, or walking beams as some call them, worked the air pump of the jet condenser, boiler feed pump, bilge pump, and any other little pump kicking around. In order to pump the bilge we had to set the whole machinery going; the paddle wheels need not be engaged until we disconnected with a sliding clutch on the main shaft.

“That walking beam down in the Stanley Park workshops came off the S.S. Beaver. I know it did because I’ve handled it lots and lots of times, and am familiar with it.”

[signed] William H. Evans,

February 19th 1941.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. David Beach, née Jane Daniels, of 240 S.W. Marine Drive, who very kindly called at the City Archives, 27 February 1941, bringing with her a newspaper obituary clipping of the death of her husband, Mr. David Beach.

William Daniels, North Arm. River Road.

Mrs. Beach said: “I am living with my two daughters, Miss Vera Beach, and Miss Evelyn Beach, at our old place on River Road, now S.W. Marine Drive; the same road I was born on, on 12th June 1877, but you must consider when I was born the River Road as we afterwards called it, it was just a trail in the trees to Westminster; what I mean is this, literally, I was actually born on the road itself, on the site of it, because, afterwards, when they made the road, it passed over the site of Father’s first house. Father’s first house was made of cedar shakes; I remember it very well; it was still standing when I was old enough to recall it. It was a little east of where St Luke’s” (Anglican) “Church is now; not many feet at that, and St. Luke’s Church is at the corner of Prince Albert Street and Marine Drive.

“The little house Father had built himself was just two rooms, cedar shake roof and sides; he split the shakes himself on the property. The floor was split cedar, too; there was no lumber in it. Mother used to say she could not sweep it, it was so rough; she used to say she swept it all right, but not properly. The fire place was an old stove and a stove pipe through the roof, and we got our water from a small hole, a shallow well, nearby; scooped it out with a bucket. We used the wash tub for our Saturday night bath, in the kitchen. There was no garden; trees right up to the door; and the two cows we had. Father had to get rid of them as there was no grass to feed them on; you see, there was only the narrow trail, and besides that everything was bush, tall trees; it had never been logged out, and while there was a muskeg, it was full of spruce and cedar, and there were two narrow trails through it to get to the water of the river. I am not speaking of something I know nothing about; I recall it myself when I was a child.”

Clearing the forest. Oxen.

“I don’t remember what year they began logging it, but I do recall the start. Angus Fraser, he bought the timber from my father and then Mr. Fraser logged it. Mr. Fraser brought his logging outfit by boat; everything came by boat then, and landed it from a scow or boat about half a mile above our second house.

“He had oxen, and bull punchers, and hauled it on a skid road, to the bank of the river, and rolled the logs in at the rollway, and made the booms up, and took the logs around to Burrard Inlet or up the river. I don’t know what Father got for the timber, but it was very heavily timbered land; they cut one big log, and took it to New Westminster at the time Princess Louise was here. I don’t remember seeing the log, but I have often seen the stump it came off, and I recall Father saying that the log had gone to New Westminster. I cannot say why I recall these things so clearly, but it seems as though it was just yesterday. Perhaps it is that we had so little to think about at that time. I was only five years old and I used to run away and ride on the last log of the ‘turn’ of logs; that is, the last log in the string of logs the oxen were pulling. I got on the end of the last log where no one could see me. Sometimes they used to catch me, and the hook tender, a man named Bonaparte Russell, he was French, he caught me once, and perhaps it would be just as well if I did not tell you what he said. One thing he did say, that is, ‘He would break my neck if he caught me on there any more.’ But I never fell off. You see, I was the eldest of the children.”

Daniels’ Ditch.

“The ditch they called ‘Daniels’ Ditch’ was farther west; the creek which emptied into it came out at Manitoba Street.”

Genealogy.

“My father was William Daniels; he had three brothers in British Columbia. My father was the oldest, then came Dan, not Daniel, just Dan Daniels, the next Alfred Henry, and last Daniel Daniels, and he had two sisters, Blanche, who married James Rowling, and Agnes, who married Ely Gerrard, once of Lulu Island.

“Father married Sarah Porter in Rochester, New York. My mother had come from County Cavan, Ireland; she was the daughter of Joshua and Jane Porter of a little village called Virginia. Mother was Anglican and Father was Presbyterian.

“My brothers died when they were babies, and I have four sisters; I am the eldest. This is the order.

Eldest, Jane, myself, born River Road, 12th June 1877, married David Beach, at New Westminster, 12th September 1892, and I have four daughters.

Frena Blanche, now Mrs. H.R. May, Lulu Island, and she has eight living children.

Sarah Ann, now Mrs. Ben Thomas, and she has one daughter.

Violet Blanche, she is Mrs. Fred Soames, and she has two children; they live at Grantham’s Landing.

Youngest, Laura, now Mrs. Archibald Emery; no children; they live in Vancouver.

Memo of conversation with Mr. Quintin James Trotter, 26 March 1941.

Now of 1071 Comox Street, formerly of Kew Beach, West Vancouver, who kindly called at the City Archives, with his famous dog “Rex,” and as the City Hall regulations would not permit a dog to be taken to the ninth floor in the elevator, accompanied by Major Matthews, they all three climbed nine floors. Mr. Trotter is seventy-one.

Genealogy.

Mr. Trotter said: “I was born in Bobcaygeon, Ontario—that is the Indian name for ‘flat rock’—on the 30th May 1870; my father was Alexander Trotter, furniture manufacturer, born in 1834 in Antrim Co., Ireland, and came to Canada in 1852, and settled at Bobcaygeon, Ontario, where he worked in Moss and Boyd’s sawmill, and then started in the cabinet work, and it developed into a furniture factory making anything in the cabinet line. He died there in 1921, after having filled public office as Councillor for a number of years; he belonged to the Presbyterian Church; aged 87 when he died.

“Mother was a Miss Margaret Moore before she married Father at Bobcaygeon, about 1862, and there were eleven children, six boys and five girls. Four of my sisters are living in Toronto, and one sister has died. Of the six sons, three are living, one in Toronto, one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and one, that’s myself, in Vancouver, since March 17th 1898. Mother died at Bobcaygeon about 1919, aged 77.

“In 8th August 1902, at my stepdaughter’s, Mrs. W.M. Gow, house, on Harwood Street, and by the Rev. Mr. Wilson of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, I married Miss Leila Marie Coughtery, widow of the late A.B. Coughtery, Vancouver pioneer butcher. There was no children, but Mrs. W.M. Gow is my stepdaughter, the only stepchild. Mrs. Trotter died in 1936. I am the only one among the Trotter brothers and sisters without children.”

McKinnon Block.

“When I came to Vancouver, C.P.R., in March 1898, the Klondike rush was on, and I worked for Robertson and Hackett, sawmill, cabinet making, on Seymour Street, between Pender and Dunsmuir, and the first work I did was making fixtures for the McKinnon Block, now Williams Block, southwest corner of Hastings and Granville, and then I got a chance to go as steward on the Stikine Chief, a stern wheeler, on the Stikine River, from Wrangel to Telegraph Creek. I worked on her until she went up to St. Michael’s to run on the Yukon River, but got wrecked on the way. She was owned by J.A. Mara, M.P.P., of Mara, B.C.”

S.S. Princess Victoria. Waverley Hotel. Golden Gate Hotel.

“Well, then I came back to Vancouver again, and started to work for the old Royal City Planing Mills, Carrall Street, and stayed there a year; then went to E.H. Heaps and Co., at Cedar Cove” (Powell Street), “sash and door factory, and then I had a cigar store on Carrall Street, and then I worked on building the upper works of the Princess Victoria, the first ‘honeymoon ship’ on account of the staterooms—she came into the harbour looking very gaunt; just her iron showing, no upper works at all—and while I was working there I bought out the Waverley Hotel, on the southwest corner of Seymour and Georgia streets, where the Strand Theatre is now. I sold out there in March 1906 and cleared up a little profit, and then, on June 27th, bought the old Golden Gate Hotel, southeast corner of Davie and Granville streets, and closed it down for three months for remodeling. Opened up again in September 1906, and I called it the ‘Tourist Hotel,’ and sold out again in 1908, to Geo. E. Trorey, who still owns it.” (For $65,000.)

Alderman Fred Crone.

“When I had the Waverley Hotel, a young fellow named Fred Crone came and stopped with me; he told me afterwards he only had a dollar and eighty cents when he came to my hotel, when he first arrived in Vancouver. He was just a young fellow, big, good natured, strong, but not married.”

Vancouver Exhibition.

“About 1909 or 1910, they started the Vancouver Exhibition. They were offering one hundred life memberships to men about town in Vancouver, so I gave them the hundred dollars life membership fee, and this button which I am wearing is the life member’s button.”

“Holy Joe’s Cove.”

“Then I dabbled in real estate until after the Great War, say about 1919, when I opened up a summer resort at a place once called ‘Holy Joe’s Cove,’ now Kew Beach.

“Calvert Simon, who used to be Simson, Balkwill and Co., ship chandlers, told me that the first name of my place was ‘Holy Joe’s Cove,’ and that Joe was a very contrite fellow after a drunk, and he would go to the Salvation Army, and they would sober him up, and then he would promise to go straight again, and then go home to his cove. Joe was a fisherman, and after he had saved up a little money, he would go to town and have another ‘drunk,’ and then get ‘saved again.’

Naming of Kew Beach.

Major Matthews: Who named Kew Beach, Mr. Trotter?

Mr. Trotter: “I did. The reason was that the point is in the shape of the alphabetical letter ‘Q,’ and the first letter of my Christian name was ‘Q,’ and ‘Kew’ Gardens in London, England, is a well and favourable known name for a beautiful spot. Mrs. Trotter and I argued the point, and we decided upon ‘Kew.’ Mrs. Trotter was chatelaine at Kew Beach, and it was her pleasure to make every visitor comfortable and happy.”

Kew Beach, 1919.

“It’s a long story as to how I acquired Kew Beach, but to cut it short, in 1913 it fell into my hands as debt; I loaned $12,600 on it as a mortgage to A. Oswald Barrett, and there was a second mortgage against it in favour of a Colonel Mainguy. The property comprised fifty acres, taking in the point. There was no legal difficulty; everything was very agreeable, and it was arranged that I should take over the property. Mr. Barrett is still in Vancouver, and we are good friends. And I paid $1,800 in back taxes on it.”

Eagle Harbour Cannery.

“So, in the spring of 1920, I built ten little cottages for summer campers on the beach looking towards Eagle Harbour cannery. I built a float, cleared the beach, which was covered with rocks and boulders, and made a fine beach of it, and the cottages soon filled up, and have been full ever since, up to 1936, when I sold out. Here is a photo of it you can have; the building to the left is the store; next to it is our cottage, 1922.”

Kew Beach Station. Marine Drive.

“For water there was a natural spring. I did not pipe it, but got a pump; ice-cold clear beautiful water, and lots of it. Then I put a store in in 1922; there never was a post office, and is not yet; we had to go to Caulfeilds for our mail, but the newspapers were thrown off by the conductor of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, at Kew Beach Station. Eagle Harbour Station was moved to Kew Beach Station; we had quite a time getting it changed. At that time I had a small gasoline launch, and went to Vancouver for supplies.

“Sometimes in the summer we would have sixty or seventy adults and children camping in the cottages, and on holidays there would be hundreds of them come. They became so numerous that I had to cut a trail up the cliff to the Kew Beach railway station.

“We were there for seventeen years and one month, and never had an accident or disaster. Bit by bit, the taxes, which had started at $230 on the 50 acres grew to $779.58 for 1936. I held the fifty acres to the last, less the Pacific Great Eastern right of way, and the Marine Drive right of way; Marine Drive reach us in 1926, and after that we could drive to town.

“I had a boat building shed, or shop, where I built boats—don’t forget, I am still able to do cabinet work—I built nine row boats during the seventeen years we were there; I used them for hire.”

Kew Beach. “Chulks.”

“I’ll tell you something about Kew Beach. On the southwest, or south side, there is a boulder about fifteen feet in diameter, and it is sitting in a niche about twelve feet wide, wider at the top than at the bottom; it is about thirty-five feet deep from the top to the bottom, and this boulder sits in the top of the great crevice.

“Well, on the east side of Vancouver Island—this is an Indian legend in connection with this rock or boulder—there was once a great Indian tyee, and to show his power, he took this boulder in his sling, and was going to throw it at Mount Garibaldi, but he hit the wing of a raven, and the boulder dropped short, and landed in this niche of rock. That story was given to me by Andy Paull, secretary, Progressive Native Tribes of B.C., one day when he was up at Kew Beach.”

A.J.T. Taylor.

“Finally, in September 1936, A.J.T. Taylor, who as you know was one of the principals in the building of the First Narrows bridge, took such a fancy to the location that he offered me a good price for about twenty-four acres west of the P.G.E., and the remainder I still own.”

Major Matthews: What became of the beaches and cottages?

Mr. Trotter: “Mr. Taylor bought all of the waterfront, including the beach; he tore down all the cottages, excepting three, and the remaining three he lined with lumber, and used them for some private purpose. The beach is now private property, and is not used by other than members of the Taylor family and their friends.”

Memo of conversation with Miss Margaret Elizabeth McCleery in the City Archives, 18 April 1941.

She was resting, very tired, after a trip to New Westminster in connection with the plans for a proposed subdivision on both sides of South West Marine Drive at Macdonald Street, very close to the two old McCleery houses and the barn (6750 Macdonald Street and 2650 S.W. Marine Drive.)

Fitzgerald McCleery.

Miss McCleery said: “Father did not come to British Columbia for gold; he came to get freedom. You see, in those days in Ireland they had to ask permission to cut down a tree; Father had heard of a place called the Peace River; that’s where I’m going as soon as I can get this subdivision matter fixed, and almost 80 years after my father started on it but never got there. He said he was going some place where he could down a tree, or plant one if he wished to, without asking permission.

“You see, it was this way. My father showed me when we were in Ireland in 1910, and we went and visited his old home. As a boy he got a job, and when he came home that night his mother asked him what he had been doing. He said, ‘Carrying liquor upstairs on a tray.’ He had been carrying drinks to a man’s wife; she was addicted to liquor, and her husband had sent her up liquor on the tray, and Fitzgerald did the carrying upstairs. Father told me his mother said him, ‘Fitzgerald, you are not going to work there again,’ and Fitzgerald said, ‘That’s settles it; I’ve heard about a place called Peace River, and I want to go there.’

“Samuel said he wanted to go too, but Samuel was younger than Fitzgerald and he was frail; he always, all through his life, suffered from bronchial trouble. So it was decided that Samuel could go too, and Fitzgerald was to look after him. So his father, my grandfather, borrowed one hundred pounds on a field of flax, $250 each, and when Father and I were in Ireland, Father took me to see that field of flax—sixty years after, it was still growing flax, which shows that they know how to feed their land and not bleed it, for flax is very hard on land.”

Hugh McRoberts.

“They started from Belfast, and left England from Southampton, and when they got to Victoria, that was the first they began to understand about gold. In Victoria they heard of a man named Hugh McRoberts, and Father told me that when he heard the name Hugh McRoberts, he remarked to the person he was speaking to that he had an uncle by that name who had gone to Australia, and the person replied, ‘I think it’s the same.’ But Father did not know Hugh McRoberts was here until he found him here.

“Father and Samuel first met Hugh McRoberts, their uncle, in New Westminster. The two brothers continued on up to the Cariboo; they walked all the way, and when they got there Fitzgerald was earning six dollars a day, but Samuel was ailing and could not work, and it was taking three dollars a day to keep Fitzgerald, and three dollars a day to keep Samuel, so that would never do, so they decided to come back to New Westminster, and walked all the way back. On the way back, the bible, which his Sunday School teacher had given him, and which I have given to his grandson, Harry Fitzgerald McCleery Logan, my sister’s only son and child, fell out of their pack and rolled down the cliff, so they climbed down after it.

“And that was how my father and uncle spent the first year after they arrived in British Columbia.”

[Fitzgerald McCleery.]

On the evening of 28 April 1941, I dined at the home of Most Worshipful Brother A. McC. Creery, 5337 Balsam Street, and after the dinner one of his life-long friends, Mr. A.P. Horne, 4025 Granville Street, of Horne, Taylor and Co., West Pender Street, came in and we all chatted.

Fitzgerald McCleery. His Worship C.S. Douglas. A.P. Horne.

Mr. Horne: “You remember C.S. Douglas; he was Mayor, and in the real estate business. Well, Douglas told me that he went to old Mr. McCleery, Fitzgerald McCleery, and told him he could sell his farm down on the North Arm for two hundred thousand dollars. Douglas told me what was said; it went something like this.

Mr. Douglas:	“I could sell your place for $200,000, Mr. McCleery.”

Mr. Fitzgerald McCleery:	(puzzled) “But what would I do with $200,000?”

Mr. Douglas:	“Well, at six per cent it would bring you in twelve thousand a year; that would be one thousand a month.”

Mr. McCleery:	“But what use would a thousand a month be to me? My family don’t need more than fifty dollars a month to supply all we require; what use would a thousand dollars a month be to me?”

On the morning of 9 May 1941, Miss M.E. McCleery, “Greta,” youngest daughter of Mr. McCleery, was in the City Archives, and I repeated the above to her, and asked if she had ever heard of it, and if it was true. “Greta” was very near to her father, who called her his “right bower.”

Miss McCleery: (laughingly) “Sure, it’s true. Yes, I’ve heard that before. Of course it’s true.”

And then she went on laughing. A splendid woman; a real chip off the old block.

In the afternoon I called at the home of Mrs. Fleming, 6551 Sperling Avenue, to see Mrs. McCorvie, a very old lady, daughter of Mr. Christopher Lee, who was on the council of New Westminster in the very early days, and I mentioned Mr. McCleery.

Mrs. McCorvie: “Yes, I remember Mr. Fitzgerald McCleery very well; they used to walk, Mrs. McCleery too, all the way from their farm away down the North Arm, up the trail to New Westminster, to church.”

Memo of conversation with Most Worshipful Brother A. McC. Creery, 5337 Balsam Street, or “Ardglass,” as he has named it, who kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon, 9 May 1941, bringing with him, at my request, photographs of the late Mrs. McCleery, and of himself.

Mr. McC. Creery invited me to his home to dinner on Monday 28 April, and after a stroll around his garden, of which he is very proud, his granddaughter, Miss Underhill, acted as chatelaine at dinner, and later Mr. A.P. Horne, an old friend of the family, dropped in, and we spent a very pleasant evening.

A. McC. Creery.

Mr. Creery said: “Here are the two photographs I promised you.”

Major Matthews: Tell me something about them?

Mr. Creery: “My dear wife, she was a daughter of John Henville Hulbert, of Hampshire, England; she came to visit her sister, Mr. Duncan Bell-Irving, Dr. Bell-Irving, at Vancouver. The first time I remember meeting her was at the home of G.G. Mackay, Georgia Street, and I did not know her name, and put it down in my notebook as ‘Miss Holbrook,’ and that was on Georgia Street, and she was living on Alexander Street, and I walked home with her in the rain, and did not get back to my lodging on Homer Street until half past two in the morning, which was very good progress for the first day; that was in July. I had reached Vancouver on 23rd February 1890, and she came in April of the same year. Then we were married at Watford, in England, on June 27th 1891; then we came back to Vancouver, 6th August 1891, and have been here ever since.

“All our children, save Cuthbert, were born in Vancouver; five sons and one daughter, Mrs. F.C. Underhill; she was the eldest.

“I came out here to work in a private bank as a clerk; the private banking firm of Lafferty and Moore, of Calgary. Then Mr. Casement, he came from Ireland, and he and I got together and bought out the Vancouver branch of Lafferty and Moore, and started Casement and Creery, private bankers. And one of our most valued accounts was the Bodega Saloon, and Joe Fortes, the celebrated Joe of English Bay whose monument is out there, was bartender, and used to come up every day with a deposit. The Bodega was run by Sandy MacPherson, and Joe Fortes was the barkeeper.

“We did very well at first; excellent, but the trouble was we loaned money in too large amounts. We loaned a too large amount to Diplock; he had a stationery store, and there was a logger named Taylor; we loaned too much to him, and then when the smash came we could not get it in. The Bank of British Columbia would lend us all the money we wanted at 7%, and we were making as much as 12% or 24%, but then, in the early nineties, the depression came, and J.C. Keith came over one day and wanted us to pay up—he got instructions—and, oh ho, ‘Close up.’ We did banking business in a real way; I wish I had one of our old check forms to give you, printed ‘CASEMENT & CREERY, PRIVATE BANKERS.’ And all through it, Mrs. Creery was wonderful, simply wonderful.

“Then I started selling life insurance, and other insurance, and made trips into the interior; Nelson, Sandon; meet W.J. Twiss in the same business at Kaslo.”

Robson Street.

“The first street car that went down Robson Street, well, I was on it, but not in it; I was on the roof. It was loaded with people, so some of us got on the roof; it was the first car going down Robson Street.”

“Ardglass.”

Major Matthews: Why did you name your home “Ardglass”?

Mr. Creery: “That was where I was born but I have never seen it. It is the name of a fishing village in County Down, Ireland; it was a place famous for its fresh herring; just a fishing village.”

S.S. Beaver.

“One day Joe Horne” (A.P. Horne) “and myself were fishing at the mouth of the Capilano, and we crossed the First Narrows in a boat, and the tide was swift, and we were swept near the wreck of the Beaver, so we went on board, and removed her name board with the name ‘BEAVER’ in big letters on it, off her pilot house. Joe Horne took it home, and kept it for years, then years afterwards I suppose his conscience pricked him or something; anyway, he gave it to the Hudson’s Bay Company, and they have it now.”

Mr. Creery is particularly bright and cheerful, especially at his advanced age, but suffers from arthritis, walks with a cane, and has difficulty in rising from his seat and sitting down again.

But I went with him down in the elevator, crossed over to his motor car parked in the City Hall grounds, he climbed in somewhat awkwardly, had difficulty in dragging his leg in after him, but finally managed it, and then drove off—and at his age, which must be about 78, because he once told me he was “27” when that Hastings football photo was taken, and that was 1890, and this is 1941.

As fine a gentleman as lives in Vancouver. He was Member of the Legislature for four years; the Provincial Party elected him, the only one of the party to be elected of about fifty candidates in the Provincial election. There were three Provincial Party members elected, but one was a former Conservative; the other a former Liberal. Mr. Creery was the only true Provincial Party candidate elected. He did not enjoy his experience; said he did not find it edifying, but he said (Premier) John Oliver always kept his promises; the others did not.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. G.A. Bonnallie, 1361 Harwood Street, who very kindly called at the City Archives, Tuesday, 27 May 1941.

Mrs. G.A. Bonnallie. Rev. C.J. Brenton.

Mrs. Bonnallie said: “My father, Rev. Charles Jones Brenton, was the only son of Capt. Brenton, master mariner, who sailed from Liverpool; his last trip was to Malta, where he died and is buried. My mother was Miss Mary Phinney, daughter of Caleb Phinney of the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia; Mother always said that she was not a Canadian, she was a Nova Scotian, because she was born before Confederation. The Phinneys are very, very old timers in the Annapolis Valley; her brother was Guy Phinney, who went to Seattle in the very early days and helped to lay out Seattle; there is a Phinney car line runs out to Woodland Park; it is named Phinney car line in honour of my uncle, Guy, and he laid out Woodland Park, and owned it. He built a church there in memory of his mother, and he called it St. Mary’s Church because the bell tolled on St. Mary’s Day, and no one rang it; the bell tolled before the church was built. There was a painter up on the Church, and he was a Roman Catholic, and the bell rang three times, so the painter got down and stopped his work. Uncle had the first building up after the Seattle fire, and he had to stand and play the hose on the men’s feet while they were taking away the hot ashes so that they could start and build. Both my father and mother are buried in the Masonic plot in Mountain View. Father died in 1909; Mother in 1921. They were married in Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia on April 16th 1864, and out of a family of five boys and six girls, there are living now three only, Mrs. Gwendolin Arnaud in Seattle, and Mrs. E.G. Langley (the youngest), West Vancouver, and myself, Pauline, Mrs. G.A. Bonnallie.

“The Brenton family have died out in Vancouver; there are no boys left. I had five brothers; none of them had sons. Dr. P.R. Brenton, the eldest of the family, had one daughter, Miss Helen Brenton; she is in Tacoma; all around typical American girl, and very successful. And of the four other brothers, Capt. Brenton was drowned in English Bay in 1920, Aubrey died in 1909 (same year as Father), Vincent died in 1912, and one died as an infant.

“The Beckett family” (Major Beckett) “went to Sherbrooke, Ontario, in 1818 by oxen team from Montréal; they are really of Scotch descent; there are Beckett Hills and Lakes in Scotland, named from the same family; one of Major Beckett’s daughters, Rozana, married William Bonnallie of Sherbrooke, and my husband was the eldest son in a family of two sons and one daughter, Douglas and Edith, both deceased. My husband, George Archibald Bonnallie, was born in the room his mother was born in, at Montréal Street, Sherbrooke; they owned most of Sherbrooke, Ontario. He was educated in Sherbrooke, and entered the service of the Eastern Townships Bank, and the Eastern Townships Bank amalgamated with the Canadian Bank of Commerce about 1912. He was transferred out here from the Eastern Townships Bank in 1909” (to Vancouver) “and we were married at St. Paul’s Church, Vancouver, by Archdeacon Pentreath, on August 23rd 1911. We had two children, Barbara and Douglas, Barbara born in Vancouver 5th October 1912, and Douglas born 23rd October 1914 at Ladysmith, B.C. We were there during the coal riots.

Jericho. City Hospital, 1902.

“There is one thing I ought to tell you about. It was a bright summer day about 1902, and we took our lunch and a row boat, and rowed over to where the Jericho Club is today; the only way to get there was by water, and the Dalglieshes were living there, and my brother, the doctor, made great friends with Mrs. Dalgliesh, and she allowed him to pick her prize lilacs. Rowing over he got a blister on his hand and the blister broke and the poison went in, and he had a poisoned hand, and he went to the old Hospital on Cambie Street, and it was so crowded they had to put him out in one of the halls.”

First motor ambulances. Women’s Hospital Auxiliary.

“Oh, I will tell you a queer thing. I helped to beg for the first motor ambulance in Vancouver; it was hard work getting the money. And the first day it was taken out on a trial run, it ran over a man and killed him, in front of old Fader’s grocery store on Granville Street, Pender and Granville, where the Bank of Montréal is now; he was the first passenger in our ambulance. It killed him outright; he was visiting here from the States. There was no organisation; there was no I.O.D.E. or anything; we just begged, individually, for the ambulance; we were a sort of hospital auxiliary, but there was no president or anything.”

Christmas fund.

“We did the same thing with the Christmas fund for the poor; Dr. and Mrs. Munro gave us their home, and we held dances and bridges and invited our friends and raised money, and then we would send out Christmas hampers to the poor, and that was the beginning of the Vancouver Christmas Fund, which afterwards grew to such proportions. You see, I used to go down to the hospital and help a lot, and that was where we got the idea we should have to get a motor ambulance, but this other Christmas fund, you know, the different girls in town would help us pack and deliver the hampers, and everything we bought was wholesale, and so on.

“When I went to see Mr. H.A. Edgett, and told him about things, he said there were ‘no poor in Vancouver,’ so I told him of some of the cases, and he felt so bad that he filled two big bags with nuts and carried them out to the car for me. Mrs. Dr. Munro gets quite annoyed and indignant when it is printed in the newspapers that Mrs. W.M. Rose is given the credit for starting the Province Christmas Fund; Mrs. Munro says it was we who started, Mrs. Munro and myself. Dr. Munro was a very fine doctor; so is she; wonderful people.”

Memo of conversation with Mr. James Errington, 356 East Sixth Avenue, who kindly called at the City Archives soon after the office opened this morning, 2 July 1941, using two crutches; a somewhat feeble old man, not looking very well, and whom I hurried to make seated.

James Errington. City Hall. Blackberries. C.P.R. construction.

Mr. Errington: “I used to pick blackberries right here, right here where this City Hall is.”

Major Matthews: How long ago was that?

Mr. Errington: “I came to Vancouver in June 1887, a year after the Fire, I think the first week in June. I came from Revelstoke to here. I had been working on the bridges of the Canadian Pacific Railway, erecting bridges; Stoney Creek, Mountain Creek, Surprise Creek and Cedar Creek.”

The first train, 1885. W.C. Van Horne. Last spike.

“Well, now. I worked on the last culvert to let Mr. Van Horne’s train pass, to cross over to drive the last spike. I could not see the spike as it was being driven, but it was only a few yards away, just by. We were working good and hard to get the culvert finished so that the special train with Mr. Van Horne and his party could cross. Then, after that culvert was done—the bridge work was all completed then—then I went to Revelstoke and stayed there until next June, 1887, and then I left for Vancouver, and landed at Port Moody, and came on to Vancouver on the old stern wheeler, Princess Louise.”

Hastings Mill wharf. Granville Hotel. Tom Cyrs.

“We landed at Vancouver a little after one o’clock at the old Hastings Mill wharf, the only wharf there was, and I grabbed my grip and went ashore with everybody else, and of course I did not know where to go, and I was hungry, so I went to the Granville Hotel on Water Street, old Tom Cyrs” (proprietor.) “Anyway, I got my dinner, came out, and gave him fifty cents. There were no chairs then in the dining room, just a long bench along the side of the wall, and sitting a few feet from me was a logger, half drunk, and Tom Cyrs was behind the bar. Tom walked across to where the logger was sitting, and put his hand out, and grabbed the logger by the hand, and he” (Tom Cyrs) “said to the logger, ‘Hello, you s— of a b—,’ and hauled off and smashed the logger in the face. Then Tom Cyrs went back to the bar. I cleared out, and said, ‘This is no place for me.’”

City Hotel barroom.

“I went to the City Hotel at the far end of the block from where the Europe Hotel is nowadays. There was a big hall, great big beer hall, great big place; you could go clear through from Powell Street to Alexander Street. I stayed there.

“Then I said to myself, ‘You have go to get out and get a job,’ and it struck me that the steadiest job in British Columbia was in a sawmill. So I went to the Royal City Planing Mill at the foot of Carrall Street, and asked if there was a chance of a job. The man said, ‘Come at one o’clock.’ I asked, ‘How long will the job last,’ and he said, ‘As long as you fill the bill,’ and I stayed with them for about twenty-five years.”

Harrison Mills.

“Then I switched off and went up to Harrison Mills at Harrison River; I was a sawyer, and earning good money. I was not at the Royal City Planing Mills very long until I got to be sawyer, because I was ambitious, and they tried me on the re-saw first, I made it stick. Finally, the R.C.P.M. sawyer was quitting, and they put me on the head saw, and I remained there after that.

“After Harrison Mills I went to Cariboo, Quesnelle Forks, and put up a small sawmill for the Bullion Mining Company, right over to the south fork of the Quesnelle River—about four miles east of Quesnelle. Then I quit, and for a time stayed home in Vancouver, and the next year I went up to the Yukon—that was before the Great War” (1914.) “I was at Lake Klulernie, up in the White water country, different direction from Dawson, and I put up, I was in full charge—another small sawmill for W.L. Breeze, a young American educated in England. His father had left him several million dollars, and he was not to get it until he was thirty-five. He had an income of $20,000 a month. I had no trouble at all up there, but the job finished and I left.”

A hazardous trip in mid-winter of 150 miles.

“The only thing which excites me, and it makes me sore, is when I read about fellows freezing to death. Now, I came out between Christmas and New Year, and I came out by myself, all alone, one hundred and fifty miles, and all I had was two loaves of bread and a bit of butter, some tea and sugar, and no blankets; could not pack them; too much snow, but I had a small hand axe. The first day I walked twenty-four miles through the snow. Towards evening I was getting pretty hungry and thirsty, so I had this tea and bread.

“I hustled into the bush, made a fire in the wind—it was blowing hard—I had no kettle, but I had a big tin cup. I scooped up some snow with my hand, filled the cup with snow, put it on the fire; the snow melted. I put in the tea, and thought I had a nice cup of tea. I did drink it until I got to the bottom, and it got too thick. Wait. I’ll tell you the rest; yes, too thick to drink. When I got down that far in the cup I discovered that it was dirt” (rabbit’s dirt); “that’s the truth. The way it happened was that the dirt was in the snow, and I did not see it in the bad light and it being covered with snow, when I put it in the tin cup to melt and I did not notice it when it was melted until I had drunk the top off. That’s true.”

Northwest Mounted Police. Gideon’s roadhouse.

“Well, it was getting dark, darkish and cold, and I was without blankets, so I said to myself I might as well walk as cut wood all night to make a fire, so I started to walk another twelve miles to where there was a summer stopping place, but nobody there in winter. So I walked about two miles, and then I met a Northwest Mounted Policeman going in with the mail to the place I had left. He asked me where I was going. I said, ‘To Gideon’s roadhouse tonight.’ There was nobody there, but they used to leave the kitchen door open, and there was a stove and a bunk with a mattress. He said, ‘You had better come back; you’ll never make Gideon’s.’ I determined to go on. He said, ‘Which way are you going?’ I said, ‘I’ll take the new road.’ Well, I kept a-going in the night, all night work, and finally I got to the end where the new road joined the old one, and I knew I had about two miles to go.

“There was a low log about twelve feet long alongside the road, and I sat down on the log to take a rest. I had just sat down when I went sound asleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but I woke like a shot out of a gun. I was scared to death, and I was cold by that time, and afraid I would freeze to death; my, but I did go after that.” (Men going to sleep in the cold are liable not to awaken.) “When I got to Gideon’s that night, there was somebody inside, and the door opened, and a man named Ernie Johnson, prospector, had a big fire, and pot of tea on the stove. Boy, I was in bad shape by that time, clothes all frozen, and he gave me a shot of hot tea, rolled me in blankets, put me in the bunk and he dried my clothes, and the next morning I started out for ‘Shorty’ Chambers’ place; everyone in the Yukon knew ‘Shorty’ Chambers; he used to ferry the men across the Yukon at ten dollars each.”

Genealogy.

“I was born in the county of Cumberland, England, August 19th; will be 78 in August 1941. Came to Canada on the old Sardinian when I was 19. My father was James Errington of Penrith, Cumberland, and my mother Jane, she had been a Miss Galbraith, born in Scotland. My grandparents were David and Jane Errington. When I left the Old Country, I was three days out of Liverpool, and I made my resolutions. I was leaning over the side of the boat, and three things came to my mind; I don’t know why, but I have remembered them. One was ‘to be a good citizen,’ and the other was ‘not to be a charge on the government of Canada,’ and the other was ‘to adopt myself to the ways of the country.’ Those were the three things. I don’t know what put them into my head.

“When I left Liverpool, I had no idea where I was going, except that I was going to Canada.”

An appointment necessitated a conclusion of our conversation. The old gentleman hobbled with some difficulty as we went to the elevator, promised he would come again soon.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. William Black and her sister, Miss Mary MacDonald of 156 East Eighteenth Avenue, Vancouver, who kindly called at the City Archives, 2 July 1941.

They are the daughters of the late James MacDonald, who came to Vancouver in 1907 and for a time lived in the buildings at the old brickyard on Westminster Road, now Kingsway.

James MacDonald. Brickyard. Gartley Road. Welwyn Street.

Mrs. Black said: “My father, James MacDonald, came to Vancouver in 1907, and for a time we lived in the brickyard out towards the old Gladstone Inn on Westminster Road; the brickyard was between Perry Street and Welwyn Street; Welwyn Street used to be Gartley Road, named after an old Orangeman who was the first to live there.

“Dad made our shack from boards which came from the old brickyard. Dad helped to take down the great big smokestack at the brickyard. Father covered our roof with cedar shakes he made himself. He would go to a good big tall spike of a dead cedar, hammer it to see if it was sound or rotten, and then chip it down and split it into cedar shakes. Mother used to get water from the creek at first; we had a big boiler, and we put the water in that and boiled it, and then let it settle, and then used it.

“We used to dip the water out of the creek with a pail. On wash day we would fill up a good big barrel in readiness. Then Dad dug a well.”

Water from wells.

“The old shack was one of the dwellings belonging to the brickyard, and it was painted, painted red, and we thought that was quite ‘classy’ to have it painted, to live in a ‘painted house.’ The Chinamen had lived in it, and when we went into it, it was plastered with grease, that thick” (indicating) “all over the floor; we had to scrub and scrub to get it all off and get the shack clean. It was just a mass of grease. The Chinamen left some of those little bowls which they use to put rice in when they are eating. We thought them funny little things.

“Of course, when we went out at night we had to take a lantern, and Father was working at night, and Mother used to take him something to eat, his midnight lunch; he was working not far away, and one night she took his sandwiches, and she got lost in the trees; we could hear her calling, but we could not find her. When we did she was standing on a burning stump; it was down near the Selkirk School.

“Mother died December 9th 1940, aged 72; Father died November 3rd 1926. There are five children and three grandchildren, all granddaughters.

John, who has one daughter, and lives at Britannia Beach.

James, who was killed accidentally in 1929.

Norman, who has one daughter and lives 13th Avenue West.

Elizabeth, that is, myself, Mrs. Wm. Black, 156 East 18th, and I have one daughter.

Miss Mary MacDonald, unmarried, the youngest, lives with me.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. Daniel Snell, widow of the late Daniel Snell, 301 East 17th Avenue, who called at the City Archives accompanied by her eldest son, Daniel Joseph Snell, jeweller, 2690 Triumph Street, 2 July 1941.

Daniel Snell. First Salvation Army.

Mrs. Snell said: “My late husband, Mr. Snell, was the first sergeant-major of the Salvation Army, Vancouver, when it was formed; they held their meetings on Water Street over Oscar Brown’s old fruit store, that is, on the northeast corner, Abbott and Water streets. We used to enter it from the rear, going up a flight of steps, and the room was just a bare room with a platform slightly raised at the entrance. The building was over the beach.

“Mr. Snell joined the Salvation Army in Carberry, Manitoba, when they opened there first, and then I went with him, although, actually, I belonged to the Methodist Church, and had been married in the Methodist Church on Whitehouse Street, Bedminster, Bristol, England. We had a membership of about, say, fifty, and the meetings would vary up to seventy-five, mostly waterfront workers, and people from the downtown district. We were in there about a year, perhaps not that long, then they moved to much better quarters on Carrall Street, just across from the Europe Hotel; they had a nice big place at the top of a very high flight of stairs, and the building was right at the end of Powell Street, about next door to the Alhambra Hotel. Mr. Snell was a longshoreman, and had the job of throwing out the interrupters and other bad actors, and many a time I have seen him take them to the top of the stairs and give them a shove, and they would go clear to the bottom.”

“Ten Nights in a Barroom.”

“While he was working down on the waterfront some of the boys used to kid him about being in the Salvation Army, and they said, ‘We will get even with you, tonight, when you are out on your march,’ and Mr. Snell, being sergeant-major, was on the lookout for something to happen and sure enough it did, or tried to. After being out on the march, and finished their open air meeting, and having started back to the hall, my husband happened to notice something across the road, so he stepped out of line and taking his knife from his pocket, he cut a rope that these boys had been holding across the street about four inches from the ground, to trip up the lady officer-in-charge, Miss” (Captain) “Frith.

“She ‘got after’ my husband for getting out of line, but afterwards she heard what it was, and that she was saved from being tripped. It was Mr. Snell and myself, and my children Dan, Carrie, Nellie, just the three, all five of us, put on ‘Ten Nights in a Barroom’ on the stage in the Carrall Street Hall. Mr. Snell was the actor who came home drunk every night in the play.”

Hallelujah Point. Salvation Army picnics.

“Speaking of Salvation Army picnics, I recall one so well, leaving the upper end of the C.P.R. dock, the east end, the City Wharf I think it was at the foot of Carrall Street, in the” [blank], “a little steamer, and which the Salvation Army had chartered for the picnic. I think it must have been Dominion Day, I’m not sure. We chartered a steamer because it was only a short trip, and to get to Brockton Point any other way we should have had to go all the way around the park. There was a big crowd for the small steamer—all I can remember was the one trip—there was a big pier over at Brockton Point, but it was so high that we had quite a job getting off the boat onto the pier. But after we got there we certainly had a wonderful day on the clearing by Brockton Point, where the Nine O’Clock Gun is now.

“The reason we went to the clearing where the Nine O’Clock Gun is, now called Hallelujah Point, was that it was about the only place where there was a clearing; we made tea and ate sandwiches, and ran races, and had a lot of singing and a short service, and my husband used to play the drum, and my son used to stand on top of the drum and sing a chorus.”

Brockton Point graveyard.

“There were some grave boards and crosses in the trees close by; there were quite a few little head boards; wood, rounded on the top.”

Mount Pleasant. False Creek bridge.

“Mr. Snell and I went to Mount Pleasant in 1890; here is a certificate issued to us by the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce in 1936. The first house we lived in 1890 was the third house on the east side of Westminster Avenue, just across the old False Creek bridge, and was two-storey with a store front, and the water came right up underneath the house; we had a row boat, and used to tie it to the back verandah.”

Drifting shingle bolts.

“One time, we had the boat and also a big Indian dugout, and Mr. Snell was quite a swimmer, and I remember one time, in going out in a canoe, paddling away out in the centre of False Creek and he dived off the end of the canoe, intending to swim back to the canoe, but it was caught in the current, which was very heavy in those days through the narrow opening under the bridge, and the canoe was caught in the current, and he thought he could not regain it, so started to swim back to the shore, which was a good long swim, and then, another incident, one day, after a very stormy night, a lot of shingle bolts had been thrown adrift from the mills lower down the creek, and quite a number had got up through the bridge; they were eight feet long and had only been cut once, and Mr. Snell and my son Dan went out and pulled in about a dozen of the bolts, and had tied them at our landing. There was an empty lot right beside our place, and after getting those logs all tied together, the owner of these shingle bolts happened to come along, and wanted to know who ‘in hell’ had taken his bolts, and proceeded to untie them, and I went in and called Mr. Snell who had gone to bed on account of just getting through a night’s work on the wharf on account of his longshoring, and he partly dressed and came out, and I’m sure I don’t know how he did it, but he got out on the shingle bolts and got a hold of this fellow who was taking the bolts, and after breaking an oar on him, got a hold of him by the shoulder, and kept on ducking him under the water. You see, this fellow swore so much, and my father was trying to make him take back what he said, which he finally did. Then the man went up and reported the matter to the Chief of Police, and the next we saw was the man coming back with Officer O’Grady of the chain gang, and after my husband explained what had happened, Office O’Grady thought that the man had been punished enough, so advised Mr. Snell to let him have the shingle bolts.”

Cordwood. Leamy and Kyle. Wild ducks.

“We never used to buy firewood in those days; we were there for years before we bought firewood; we used to take the old boat down to Leamy and Kyle Mill, Cambie Street, and fill it with slabs; they were glad to have us take it away. We used to go out in the boat and catch all the tommy cod and whiting we wanted under the False Creek bridge, and the street cars at that time had not really started; they were just starting; we rode on the first one. Ducks! There was all kinds of duck shooting up on False Creek, mallards, teal, and so on, east of Westminster Avenue, and there used to be the old slaughter house which drew a lot of birds. And we used to go swimming; we used to go in by Caroline Street, beside the slaughter house; the boys wore bathing trunks, but not all the time; sometimes the boys used their birthday suits.”

North Arm Road. Blackberries. Water from wells.

“After we moved from there we went out on the North Arm Road—they call it Fraser Avenue now—and stayed there about a year; we were between 25th and 26th Avenue, on the North Arm Road, and we had quite a little place there; Mr. Snell was still working on the wharf, and had to walk to his work, and the children had to walk to the little old wooden Mount Pleasant school, the red wooden one, and we used to go picking blackberries, tons of them, right out of the back yard, and we got our water from a well, pulled it up in a pail by sheer strength; the water was down thirty-five or forty feet and to pull a pail up was quite a task; there was no windlass.”

Strathcona School. D.L. 301.

“Then, about 1898, we moved back to the city, which was Keefer Street, and my son, Dan, went to the Strathcona School, the old part, just after they moved from the Oppenheimer School, and I used to go up and sweep out the school; I worked that for about a year. Then after staying there, Mr. Snell heard about some cheap property out in D.L. 301, what they called ‘No Man’s Land’ afterwards; and the street car at that time was running as far as Ninth Avenue, and he and his son-in-law, my oldest daughter’s husband, built the first house in that district, on Seventeenth Avenue East, the number approximately would be about 375 East 17th on the fourth or fifth lot from our present home, No. 301.”

China Creek. Trout. Beaver. Grouse.

“When we went there was all forest around us, and a little cow trail which came out about Fourteenth Avenue. Westminster Avenue was opened as far as 16th Avenue; just a trail you could get through, and the lumber came in across country. We got our water, first of all, from a creek through the back end of the property, until we could put a well in, but we struck water at about twenty feet. There was real good fishing in that creek, trout. I have seen beaver, even; too small a creek for salmon. It is now China Creek, and still runs to the present day.”

Maddams Ranch.

“Maddams was down at the mouth of it.” (See Maddams file.) “We had lots of wood, enough for ten years without buying, and there was lots of grouse in the woods.”

Seventeenth Avenue East.

“At first we had three lots, three wide lots; for the corner lot we paid $75, and for the inside ones about $50, and a small payment down, and about $5 or $10 every month; you see, at that time they wanted to get that part settled up. No telephone, just walk when you wanted anything; even when we lived on the North Arm Road, we had to walk.”

We had talked enough. Mrs. Snell, who is about 83, may have been overtaxing her strength, although she did not appear to be, so, as it was about 4 p.m., we sent for afternoon tea and fancy biscuits.

J.S.M.

Item # EarlyVan_v6_009

[photo annotation:]

Our First School, 1872.

At Hastings Sawmill, Burrard Inlet, now Vancouver, B.C.

Second Mill Store

First Mill Store

Cottages

First Office

Dr. Walkem

R.H. Alexander

Shed

Hastings Sawmill School

Now foot of Dunlevy Ave.

Capt. Raymur.

Barque “Cornelis” (wreck)

City Archives, 1936

This negative is consequent years of endeavor—it is worth what it cost. J.S. Matthews, 1936

Memo of conversation with Miss Esther J. Cummings of Santa Paula, California, 2 July 1941.

An attractive lady, becomingly attired, who together with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Victor Cummings, widow, and her daughter Miss Irene, aged about 13, of Saticoy (Indian name), California, called at the City Archives, City Hall, Vancouver, B.C., accompanied by Mr. K.A. Waites of King Edward High School.

Major Matthews: (after formalities of introduction) Where have you been all this long time?

Miss Cummings: “I was born and raised and have always lived in California, but this is my eleventh trip to Canada, always to Vancouver and Victoria. We drove up and are staying at an auto court; we are going over by Steveston auto ferry to Victoria tomorrow. Mother was Miss Georgia, not Georgina, Sweney; that is the proper way to spell it, Sweney. She was the first school teacher at the Hastings Sawmill and so the first in Vancouver. That was in 1872. She moved from there to San Francisco; I don’t know why she went. Whether she had an attraction or not I don’t know, but she found one; very quickly, she married my father, John Franklin Cummings, in the early eighties; the wedding was in a pioneer community church in Santa Paula, and they had eight children, four boys and four girls, not all living now.

“Mother came to British Columbia from New York when she was an infant. My grandfather was a mechanical engineer, and he worked under the British flag as the Chief Engineer on some steamship, and this steamer came to Burrard Inlet to be loaded. Then Mother was educated in Victoria and was a graduate of the Girls Seminary at Victoria. And had come back home, to Hastings Mill, when she was asked to be the school teacher at Hastings Mill if they would built a school for her to teach in. Mr. Sweney was mechanical superintendent at the Hastings Sawmill at that time. Her father had been chief engineer on the boat, and was at sea about three fourths of his time, and my grandmother was living on Burrard Inlet. Mother died, Santa Paula, September 4th 1940.

“Father was born in Ohio; his father was James Cummings, we never met him; my grandmother’s name was Christina Cummings. He came from Mansfield, Ohio; he had one brother, Wilson Shannon Cummings, and three sisters, and Father used to tell us when we were children that his father was a pioneer settler and owned several tracts of land in Ohio. When my father was eighteen years old he wanted my grandfather to give him a tract of land which he could have for his own, and my grandfather thought he was too young and would not give it to him. Just about that time some pioneers from California came to buy some horses from my grandfather, and my father heard them tell the wonderful story of California, so that night he challenged my grandfather, and told him that if he could not have the land for himself he was going back with these men to California; so he went to New York with these men, and came to California by boat to Panama and across the isthmus and up to San Francisco.

“Father died twenty-three years ago, 13th May 1918.

“Santa Paula has now about 11,000 people, but when Mother and Father first went there, it was a wild land. Everything came from San Francisco, it came down by boat; there were no railroads there, and Mother went there because Father was already there; he was interested in agriculture; he found it was such wonderful rich land that he just bought; then he bought large tracts and developed it, by plowing it up and planting it in orchard, principally English walnuts. Today, the largest lemon ranch in the world adjoins our old family home. When they bought the property only the surface rights were given in the deed, and since then the owners have had to pay extra to get only a part of what is underground; the mineral rights—oil mostly.’

“At first Father was living in a cabin, but when Mother went, he had a two-storey house, the first in the Little Santa Clara Valley, the first two-storey, built for her, and she had the first piano in the valley; she was very musical, and played and sang. Father gave her a piano as the first gift after they were married. All the children were born on the old home. And they still own the property, which is now planted to walnuts and oranges.

“Father was not a public man, but always kept extremely busy, and was a great fancier of horses. He had some of the very finest horses in the country; in fact, he had the first Arabian horses there were in the valley, and also owned a great many cattle, specialising in Jersey milk cows.

“The greatest memory I have of him is of always being good to people who lived around us; he was always helping people, particularly widows and orphans. He belonged to the Community Church; you see, when they went to live in Santa Paula, down there it was much the same it was up here; when they held church in Mother’s little old school house at Hastings Sawmill, and everybody regardless of denomination attended it; they had the same thing down at Santa Paula, a community church; although Mother belonged, in Victoria, B.C., to the Church of England. Mother was the soloist over at the ‘iron church’ in Victoria.

“Father and Mother had, as I told you, eight children, not all living; in seniority of age they are:

Ada, died unmarried in 1940 at Santa Paula.

Madge, now Miss Madge Cummings, in Santa Paula.

Walter Wallace, married, and has four children, three girls and a boy. Also living at Santa Paula.

Esther Julia, that is myself, at Santa Paula.

Janette, now Mrs. F.W. Marsh, of West Ninth Street, Los Angeles; no children.

Victor Edwin, married, died in 1939 at Saticoy, California, and has two children, Paula, and Miss Irene, here with us today.

John F., junior, unmarried, at Santa Paula.

Wilson Shannon, unmarried, Santa Paula.

“My mother, then, had six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, Christine Hall, daughter of my brother Wallace’s oldest daughter, Caroline.”

Approved by Miss Esther J. Cummings, her letter, 21 July 1941.

J.S.M.

[Letter from John Sheepshanks to Col. R.E. Moody.]

New Westminster,

June 27th, 1860.

Sir:

It is my duty as acting chaplain to the troops under your command to call your attention to the school now established in the Camp.

There are now twenty eight children in regular attendance for four hours daily, except Saturday when there is a half-holiday. They are instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, singing and the rudiments of the Christian faith. The schoolmistress is a daughter of one of the men, was for some months in one of the Training Schools in England, and under her, the children have already made satisfactory progress; their improvement has been marked especially in general behaviour.

But it is to the payment of the schoolmistress that I particularly wish to draw your attention. These 28 children are the representatives of only 13 families, and it is impossible for their parents unassisted to raise a sufficient sum for the payment of the schoolmistress in this country where the wages are so very high. They are desirous to do as much as they can, and by the monthly school payment plan we shall obtain a little over forty pounds per annum. The pay of the men is good, but since everything here is so very expensive, I do not think that they could do more than this. This is quite insufficient for the salary of the schoolmistress. She could easily obtain more than double this amount either in this colony, or on Vancouver Island, and should she wish to leave, as is by no means improbable, for she is young, and may wish to marry, we would not obtain another teacher unless a salary of double the present were offered. My own belief is that a house with seventy pounds per annum is the lowest remuneration that could be fixed upon.

It is obvious therefore, that we are in need of assistance, such assistance as is accorded by Her Majesty’s Government to schools for the education of soldiers’ children at home.

I need not point out how undesirable it would be that the care of the welfare of the children of our soldiers which is manifested at home should be slackened out here, where it is of such high importance that they should be brought up in the fear of God, and in principles of loyalty to the Crown.

I write, therefore, to ask you, sir, to take such steps as you may think most fit to obtain a grant from Her Majesty’s Government, in aid of the payment of the schoolmistress, and the general expenses of the school.

I may add, that several of the men who have been upon the survey have told me that when they have been stationed in a place where there was no regimental school, they have received extra pay to enable them to discharge the expense of their children’s schooling.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

John Sheepshanks,

Acting Chaplain to the

Detachment, R.E.

To Colonel R.C. Moody,

Commanding R.E.

Note.

On receipt of the letter of Rev. Mr. Sheepshanks, dated 27 June 1860, Col. Moody appears to have delayed writing to Douglas in Victoria until over three months later, possibly because he wrote the Home Government direct, in England, but there is no confirmation of this. Relations between Douglas and Moody were anything but cordial at that time.

Moody did, however, write Douglas on 2 October 1860, stating that a school building would cost probably forty pounds exclusive of labour, and suggesting that an additional thirty pounds a year be granted, to be added to the forty pounds already being paid by the parents of the children “by the monthly payment plan,” for the salary of the schoolmistress.

On the margin of this letter, which is now in the Provincial Archives, is the short curt note in the handwriting of Douglas: “No Funds, J.D.”

There is also an earlier letter from Sheepshanks to Moody, which is undated, but written before any school had been opened for the children of the soldiers, asking for one. Moody, having received this previous letter, wrote Douglas on 7 October 1859. (Sheepshanks had only arrived in New Westminster in September of that first year—see Vancouver Province of 26 June 1937—so that he got busy at once. Miss Emily Woodman had started her school for the civilian children down in the “Town” before this. The Camp was not at present day Sapperton, but beside the Fraser, in front of the penitentiary of today, and Sapperton arose later.)

This undated letter of Mr. Sheepshanks resulted in Moody writing Douglas on October 7th asking permission to expend up to one hundred and sixty pounds in making provisional arrangements for a school. To this letter there was no response from Douglas.

Conversation with Tom MacInnes, author, who called at the City Archives, 11 July 1941.

“Portuguese Joe”—Gregoris Fernandez. Dr. T.R. McInnes.

Mr. MacInnes said: “‘Portuguese Joe,’ why, I remember him; my father dug a bullet out of him and saved his life. Father said he ‘should have let the blackguard die.’ Father” (Dr. T.R. McInnes, afterwards Lieutenant-Governor) “and I came over from New Westminster; he had been in the Civil War with the Southerners, and knew all about bullets and such, and when someone shot ‘Portuguese Joe,’ he came over from New Westminster to Gastown and I came with him. I was nine years old at the time. It was in 1876; it was summer time, about July 1876.”

Gold earrings.

“He had gold earrings; I saw them myself; see Jack Bell, he sailed over from Nanaimo in a little sloop with this ‘Portuguese Joe.’ He did not die of the bullet wound, and afterwards I used to come over often and I saw him in Gastown. I don’t remember very much, I was between 8 and 10 years old then, but I vaguely remember those earrings; it was an old custom with sailor men.

“I know it was 1876 because I was attending the Brothers’ St. Louis School, and we were building a house; it was just after we arrived. It was the year that steamer, Pacific went down off Cape Flattery and her passengers were lost.” (4 November 1875.)

Sunnyside Hotel.

“Father told me to stay at the Sunnyside Hotel while he went up the beach to ‘Portuguese Joe’s’ store, and I got a fishing line, and the back of the Sunnyside Hotel was over the water, and I fished and caught some whiting and some fish like eels, and little flounders; there were lots of fish in the harbour at one time, all gone now. I thought myself very clever, and took the fish to the Chinese cook, and he cooked them for me.”

(Mr. Tom MacInnes was born 29 October 1867 at Dresden, Ontario. Came to B.C. with his father and mother in 1874.)

Memo of conversation with Mr. George Williams Edwards, 2596 West 8th, who very kindly called at the City Archives this morning, 14 July 1941, to examine the inscriptions to be placed in sealed glass tubes, and which is proposed shall be placed on the top of Mount George Edwards, and Mount Tinniswood, Jervis Inlet, by Mr. A.T. Dalton, F.R.G.S., City Hall, when he attempts what is thought to be the first ascent of these two peaks.

Mr. Edwards is president, Vancouver Pioneers Association, 1941.

George W. Edwards.

Mr. Edwards: “You had better add to the inscriptions, ‘Born Brighton, Ontario, in 1867, March 16th.’”

Major Matthews: Mr. Edwards, when, why, how, and for what did you come to Vancouver?

Mr. Edwards: “Well, I had been in the photographic business in Waterloo, Ontario, and hearing from old friends that Vancouver was growing, I decided to quit Waterloo and come to Vancouver. My family, father and mother, came out a few months ahead of me. I was single at the time. Six of us came out. Father, Mother, two brothers and one sister, and myself; I was the eldest. We came C.P.R. Father and Mother came out in January 1891; so did the others; I came last, in August 1891. Father started a spring mattress factory in Vancouver, which he afterwards sold to James and David A. Smith. Father died in 1930; Mother died in 1920; both are buried in Mountain View; the others are living.

“One of my brothers is Capt. A.N. Edwards; he is with the Harbour Navigation Co., running to Indian River; he was, at one time, the manager of the West Vancouver Ferries; he does not work all the time, only when he feels like it and there is something special which interests him. My other brother, E. Herbert Edwards, partner with me in the photographer business, is taking life easy; he is retired, and spends his time amusing himself.

“My sister Louisa, still Miss Louisa, she never married, has her own home on Haro Street.”

Edward Bros., 1891. Pioneer photographers.

“When we got off the train, the first thing to do was to find a location for a studio, and finally we located in part of a shop run by a man named Hardiman; this building had been built by Spinks and Tatlow; part of the Spencer store site now. It was about fifty feet from Seymour Street, south side Cordova Street; the old C.P.R. office was directly across the street.

“Dick Hall, afterwards Sheriff Hall, had a photographic studio in the same block, just a few doors east. Dick Hall sold out to Wadds Bros. We kept on until 1921, when we retired, and rented our property at 623 Granville Street.

“When we moved to Granville Street in 1902, we quit the portrait business, and went into photographic supplies.

“In 1898, at Christ Church, I married Miss Rosalind Webling, daughter of R.J. Webling of London, England, and we have two children. The eldest, Lucy, now Mrs. C.B. Crittenden of Louisville, Kentucky, has one little daughter about nine; the youngest, Florence, is living with us at home, single. Mrs. Edwards is not very well just now. Mrs. Crittenden is a graduate of the University of B.C. She was born in Vancouver in 1900, and Florence in 1908, or about. Mrs. Crittenden was for some time head of the Health Department at Chattenough” (sic.)

Mount George Edwards.

Major Matthews: When did you start climbing mountains; I see on the Forest Map of Sechelt Peninsula for 1933 that there is a mountain named “Mount George Edwards”?

Grouse Mountain. Dam Mountain. Goat Mountain.

Mr. Edwards: “My first mountain climbing was in the Similkameen Valley. I went down there for the mining company—it never came to anything—where the town of Princeton is now. The company was prospecting all that ground where the townsite is now. Afterwards I came back from there, I was photographing all along the C.P.R. line, and climbing up mountains to get views, and that gave me a start. The first party to climb Grouse Mountain was Sidney Williams, and Phil Thomson” (Vancouver Yacht Club); “just those two. There had been a Major Burnett here who had tried, together with the Rev. Norman Tucker of Christ Church, to climb Mount Crown and they failed to break through the underbrush, so Sidney Williams and Phil Thomson made it by following up Mosquito Creek, up on to Grouse Mountain, and over the ridge as far as Goat Mountain. They gave the names to these peaks, Grouse, Dam and Goat.”

Major Matthews: Why?

Mr. Edwards: “On Grouse, they shot quite a number of blue grouse; from the top of the next peak, which they called Dam, they could see the old intake dam on the Capilano River; and on the next, which they called Goat, they shot two goats; that was the way it was, how Goat, Dam and Grouse got their names.

“Sidney Williams asked me if I thought the names appropriate, and I thought they were very good. We organised a party about ten days later—that was in October 1894—this party consisted of Sid. Williams, who was a surveyor in partnership with Dawson, of Williams Bros. and Dawson, surveyors” (Dawson was afterwards Surveyor-General), “Ernest Cleveland, the present chairman of the Vancouver Water Board; Knox—I forget his Christian name, but I think he lived at Duncan and was quite an experienced climber; Parkinson, who was a surveyor; and myself; this is five in all. I took up a camera.

“I took a photo of the four others, and I do not know what became of the negative, but I know that Dr. Cleveland has a photo of the party. We made the trip, and blazed the trail from the waterfront to the top of Grouse in four hours; we blazed the trail from Mosquito Creek, below the falls on Mosquito, to the top of Grouse.”

Mount Crown, named in 1859. “Sleeping Beauty.”

“The following year, 1895, Knox, Parkinson and I think Cleveland—there were four, including myself—climbed Mount Crown. We followed the same route, climbing Grouse and over the ridge to Goat, then down Goat and up Crown. This was the latter part of June 1895. Sam Robb of the World wrote a most fantastic account of our trip. Sam said we had seen an avalanche, and one of the ‘Lions’ had fallen off and slipped down.”

Jervis Inlet. Princess Louisa Inlet. Mount George Edwards.

“I have been up Jervis Inlet lots of times. The way it came about that Mount George Edwards was named after me was that Arthur Dalton, being an old friend of mine; I had no idea he was going to name it after me. I had climbed with his father, W.T. Dalton, the architect, but I have done no climbing on Jervis Inlet; I have climbed on Bute Inlet, the unnamed mountains back of Orford Bay, and at the head of Bute Inlet; I was just hunting for game.

“I have been up peaks in the Rockies; Mount Stephen; I did not get to the top; I started out not intending to climb it; I just wanted to take a photograph of the valley, and after taking the photograph I started going on up until I realised the shoes I had on were getting pretty thin, and by the time I got back they were pretty near off my feet.”

Memo of conversation with former Alderman F.E. Woodside of B.C. Chamber of Mines, 402 West Pender Street, Vancouver, 23 July 1941.

Prelude.

I noticed in the News-Herald, 23 July 1941, this morning, that a dinner had been held to celebrate the opening of the Vancouver Airport, ten years ago, but did not see that former Alderman F.E. Woodside was present, so telephoned him at his office.

J.S. Matthews.

Vancouver Airport. Alderman Frank Woodside.

Major Matthews: I have heard, Mr. Woodside, of a man who went “ploughing” around in the muskeg on Lulu Island, got himself all “plastered’ with mud and his feet wet; he was looking for an airport for Vancouver. Do you happen to know him?

Mr. Woodside: “Yes, know him very well indeed; have known him all my life.

“You see, people were beginning to get interested in airplanes; they were coming up here once in a while, oh, once a year, and there was no place where they could land, and I got an idea about an airport, that they ought to have a place in Vancouver where airplanes could land. I was on the Council at the time; it was in the early twenties. Major D.R. McLaren—he’s an official of Trans-Canada Airlines now back east—he was out here, and I talked it over with him, and I took it up in the Council; you’ll find it in the records.

“So I went out on Lulu Island, and tramped up and down for days trying to find a piece of land which I could show Major McLaren and ask if that would do. And by and by, I took him out there and showed him a piece of land; it was all peat and muskeg, but we thought it might be drained, but they sent a man out from Ottawa, and he said it was no good, so we gave that up.

“Then we got an idea that we could make something of the flat land at the mouth of the Seymour Creek, Second Narrows, but that turned out no use, too.

“So the end was we got a piece of land on the north side of, and adjoining, the Lansdowne race track; it belonged to someone, I forget his name” (note: it may have been Mr. Virtue) “but we took a lease on it. That was a couple of years or so after I started hunting for a site for the airport.”

Note: excepting only 1920 and 1923, Alderman Woodside was on Council from 1912-1928, both years inclusive, so that it is hard, without examining records, to say what year the above refers to.

Memo of conversation with Mr. Dan Matheson of 777 Irwinton Apartments, and of Mayo, Yukon, who very kindly called at the City Archives, 24 July 1941.

Dan Matheson. Cordova Street. Volunteer fire brigade.

Mr. Matheson said: “Cordova Street, we planked it with two by ten planks, all the way from Powell Street to Cambie Street; it was very wet along there. Well, of course, we had no fire department here at that time, so there were three places where we sank wells, ten feet square by twelve feet deep, and these wells were underneath the wood planking, and there was a man hole cut through the plank to get the fire suction hose. We had an old fire pump; I don’t know where it came from; it had steam, and we dropped the suction hose into the well; then, when we pumped one well dry, we had to go to the next well.”

Water from wells. Rats.

Major Matthews: Where did the water come from?

Mr. Matheson: “Seepage! Lots of rats before the fire, but the fire killed all the rats.”

Sir John A. Macdonald. Duncan McPherson. “C.P.R. Hotel.”

“About the first through train over the C.P.R. to Port Moody; Sir John A. Macdonald and members of his cabinet came along with him, and the steamer Yosemite, side wheeler, went up to Port Moody, and brought the party to Vancouver, and landed them at the Hastings Sawmill wharf which was the only wharf here then. Everybody in town, naturally, went down to meet the boat. Amongst them was an old Scotchman named Duncan MacPherson, who had a hotel on Hastings Street called the ‘C.P.R. Hotel.’ Evidently, he was an old boyhood friend of Sir John, and, of course, down on the wharf, there was a space lined off to keep the people away from the gang plank. Old Duncan persisted in elbowing his way through the cordon of police, and two police caught old Duncan and sent him back, and Sir John was standing on the front of the boat which was not quite alongside of the wharf. He recognised old MacPherson, and Sir John hallooed out, ‘Helloooo, Dunc.’ And Dunc. hallooed back, ‘Helloooo, Old Socks.’ Sir John was coming down the gang plank by this time, and old Dunc. kept on hollering, and when Sir John got up to him he gave him a very cordial handshake, and the people were rather dumbfounded to see the great friendship of old Dunc. MacPherson and the Prime Minister of Canada. You can imagine how the police released their grip on him when he called Sir John ‘Old Socks.’”

Memo of conversation with Mrs. John Hugh Dewar, formerly Mrs. John William Wallace, now of 1024 Cotton Drive, and together with her daughter, Mrs. Matilda Parson, same address, very kindly called at the City Archives, 25 July 1941, and presented us with five old photos.

Mrs. John H. Dewar. John W. Wallace. Salt Spring Island.

Mrs. Dewar said: “You see, I came to Vancouver in 1891. I came to New Westminster in 1887, to Vancouver about three years later, and have been here ever since.

“I was born on the south end of Salt Spring Island, February 23, 1870. Father was Joseph Akerman; he went there in 1865; he came from Devises in Wiltshire. First he went to Ontario, I do not know what part, I think Ontario. How he got to British Columbia I do not know, but I have heard him speak of San Francisco. His father was Jonathan Akerman; Father married Martha Clay, from Hinckley” (sic.) “I know nothing of her parents, but she came to Victoria in 1862 on the ship Robert Lowe around the Horn; it was after the ‘bride ship,’ but there were a number of girls on the Robert Lowe. They came for the same reason most came, because they thought they could do better in a new land; in those days there was nothing for girls to do.

“Father and Mother met in Victoria; both were Anglican. At the time they were married, Father was working, driving horses, I think for a man named Pemberton; he was a farmer. They must have been married about 1864, because at first they went to Horseshoe Bay, Chemainus, and from there they went to Salt Spring Island.”

Salt Spring Island.

“Our old property which Mother and Father had first belonged to—I forget; it was a piece of property with an old log shack on it; they afterwards sold it to a Mr. Mills, he was a member of the House of Parliament at Victoria. But our other piece of property was preempted; it was quite close, but I don’t think it adjoined. Then we went and lived on it.

“There were eight children altogether; one was born in Victoria, four were born in the log cabin, and three in the new house. The children in order of birth were Fanny, born in Victoria; Joseph; Tilly—that’s me; Martha and Edward, born in the log cabin; James, Thomas and William in the new house.

“Willie is still single; Joe has one son and two daughters; Ted has two sons and three daughters; James is now in Victoria, but I don’t know about his children. Martha, now Mrs. W. Page, is still living on Salt Spring Island. Fanny married Mr. Nightengale, but both she and he are dead; they had four children, three boys and a girl; one boy is dead. I don’t know anything about the boys, but the girl is Mrs. Gilbert Mouat, of Ganges Harbour, you read so much about in the newspapers; her husband has a store there; he did well. So far as I know there are three boys only to perpetuate the name Akerman.”

Major Matthews: Where did all your love affairs start?

Mrs. Dewar: “On Salt Spring Island; it was the only place where there was any in those days. Mr. Wallace came from Halifax, Nova Scotia, was a ship’s carpenter; he used to speak of having been so many places; he was in Vancouver before the Fire, June 13, 1886. We were married in Father’s house on Salt Spring Island; the minister, Rev. Archibald Scriven. We had one children, Matilda Martha Wallace, born February 14, 1888, at New Westminster; she married Edmund James Parsons, master mariner. We were married May 14, 1887, and came to New Westminster, stayed there three years, and came to Vancouver 1891.”

Green Road. Carlton Street. Westminster Road. Vancouver Belle.

“We came to Vancouver in 1891, and lived on Westminster Road fourteen years at what is now called Carlton Street, but in those days it was Green Road, the old name for Carlton Street, because some people by the name of Green had a two by four ranch on it. Mr. Wallace was ship’s carpenter, and worked wherever there was building; he helped to build the Vancouver Belle” (sealing schooner) “down on the corner of Carrall and Dupont streets.

“Mr. Wallace died June 1921, and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery. About two years after he died I married John Hugh Dewar; he passed away at 1024 Cotton Drive in August 1939. Mr. Wallace died at 1575 East 12th Avenue.”

East South Vancouver School. Central Park, first school. Carlton School. School Road.

“We lived at Green Road, now Carlton Street, until 1905—we had eight acres—then we sold out and moved in to Vancouver. In 1906 we had an acre up Westminster Avenue, on Horne Road; built a house, and sold out in 1911, and went for a trip to England.

“We went to see all our relatives, at London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle—my aunt was in London; Leicestershire, Nottingham, London again, Brighton, Wiltshire, London, back to Liverpool, sailed to New York, then Chicago, Rio Grande trip, San Francisco, Oakland, Mount Pamalpias” (sic) “then Shasta Route to Portland, and Portland to Vancouver, six months altogether, and it cost us one thousand dollars. That was in 1911. After our return we built 1575 East 12th Avenue, where Mr. Wallace passed away in 1921.”

Peter Dubois. John Connon. Battison Avenue. Martin Ravey.

“When they wanted to have a school out Westminster Road, in South Vancouver—and Burnaby—they got the first children together in a place owned by Peter Dubois, west of Boundary Road, south side Westminster Road. My daughter Matilda was one of the first of the year, I think 1896; Martin Ravey, still living, was teacher. We had the school there for a few months, then it was moved to a building on John Connon’s property on Westminster Road, about four blocks west, but there were no blocks then; right near Battison Avenue; Battison’s five acres adjoined Connon’s five acres. This photo shows the first school, all of it, taken in the summer of 1896; Martin Ravey is at the back beside Mrs. Alcock with the bonnet. Doris [blank], now organist at the Holy Rosary Cathedral, is the little girl in the front sucking the end of her parasol. It was really a South Vancouver school, but children came from as far east as the Royal Oak Hotel, two miles; it was a long walk.” (Photo No. C.V. P. Sch. 50, N. Sch. 28.)

Carlton School. Joyce Road. Carlton Hall.

“Later in that year the Carlton School was built at the corner of Joyce Road and Westminster Road. And at the same time, Burnaby built the same size school, same shape, on Westminster Road at what is now about Mackay. This photo is of the Carlton School, Joyce Road, in 1898, and the teacher is John McMillan. The school is still standing, and called Carlton Hall. This photo is of the first class in the Carlton School, although of course there was no such school then; it was not named that, it was called the East South Vancouver School.” (Photo No. C.V. P. Sch. 49, N. Sch. 27.)

Gladstone Inn. Mrs. Emma Morris. Thomas Deighton.

“When we went there first the name ‘Deighton’ was still in paint on the front of the Gladstone Inn. This photo is afterwards, when Mrs. Emma Morris had it, taken about 1898; she took over the Royal Oak Hotel, then came back and finally followed her husband, Levi Morris, to the Klondike.”

Memo of conversation with William Henry Evans, 866 West 15th Avenue, Vancouver, who very kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon, 4 August 1941, to talk of the Hudson’s Bay steamer Beaver.

Hudson Bay Company’s S.S. Beaver. Walking beam. The Indian Nahanee.

Mr. Evans: “That was a very pleasant ceremony of unveiling the old walking beam at Prospect Point the other Saturday afternoon” (26 July 1941); “very good speeches, fine weather, good luncheon at the Pavilion, and Rowe Holland made a marvellous chairman; it was funny when Mr. Holland introduced Nahanee as a Chinaman, but Nahanee was good on the radio; said he was on the Beaver for one day, just one day, passing coal.”

Major Matthews: What are you doing up here at this time of the day?

Mr. Evans: “I had to come up town from the old Horse Show Building; it’s the Stanley Park Armouries. The colonel said it was all right; he winked.” (Mr. Evans is watchman or caretaker there.)

Beaver’s engines.

“You see, the engines of the old Beaver worked like this. First she had one boiler, it was astern of the engines, and longways across ship, and coal was further astern, and on both port and starboard of the boiler, coal was everywhere we could get it. Then, towards the bow, were the two upright cylinders; about eighteen inches diameter; I don’t know what her piston stroke was, and the cylinders were bolted to the engine bed. On both sides of the cylinder were upright iron posts, or guides, and the piston rod was fastened with a nut on the top end, to a cross arm on the ends of which was the slides. So then when the piston went up and down the slides slid up and down the guides; is that clear; so far so good.

“On the outside of the posts, and fastened to the cross arm were two connecting rods, one on each side, and outside the posts. So when the piston went up and down the guides went up and down, and outside the posts, the one end of the connecting rod went up and down. The other end of the connecting rods were fastened to the one end of the walking beam.

“The walking beam—there were four of them, two on each engine—oscillated on a trunnion in their centre, so that when the piston went up, the slides went up, and the connecting rod” (one end) “went up, and the other end pulled up the walking beam, and the other end went down.

“On the other end of the walking beam were two more rods of the same kind, and these two connecting rods were fastened at the other ends to the cranks on the main shaft which revolved the paddles. There were only two cranks on the main shaft, and two walking beams connected by connecting rods to each crank; the idea of two connecting rods was to keep things in line; otherwise, the whole machinery, piston and all, would have been wobbling.

“The mainshaft was in two pieces, connected between the engines with a clutch, so that one engine could go ahead and the other astern.

“The two walking beams on each engine were only about twenty inches apart; they had to be, or you could not have got the connecting rods into the crank.

“I have forgotten to tell you about the hatchway to the engine room; it was forward of the engine—as the boiler was astern. You went down the hatchway, and then you ducked your head; it you didn’t, the beams above would knock your head off; I mean the wooden supports to the deck.

“Get it clear. There was one boiler, two cylinders, two cranks, and four walking beams.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_010

Conversation, Miss Margaret E. McCleery, daughter [of] Fitzgerald McCleery, 1862, at City Archives, 7 August 1941.

Fitzgerald McCleery. D.L. 315. Surveys. Location stake.

Miss McCleery: “This survey stake” (a piece of cedar, roughly squared four inches, thirty-one inches long) “was found last month under the roots of a maple tree two feet thick on the lane south of the sixth subdivision of D.L. 315, and about one hundred and thirty-five feet south of Marine Drive, midway between Macdonald Street and the boundary line of D.L. 315 and 316.

“Gerald, my father’s grandson, and father’s son-in-law Harry Logan, and Robert Mackie, brother to William Mackie, the pioneer who lives not far from us” (came here in 1882), “they were all working on the road; they told me about it when I came home that night, and Harry gave it to me, and I give it to you, and I stuck the little Union Jack on it with a pin.

“You see, we cut down the maple tree, then cut the roots all around. We did not use powder to blow it; we put horses on it and pulled it over. This old piece of cedar was in the ground underneath the centre of the tree. You see, in those days, when you located a proposed preemption, you put in a location stake; then afterwards when the property was proved up, i.e., certificate of improvement granted, it was surveyed by a surveyor, and proper corner stakes put in. As far as I can see, Father preempted 160 acres, and it looks to me that this was the location stake on the northern boundary of D.L. 315. Later he bought forty acres north of that again. I did not see the horses pull the stump over, but they told me that when the stump went over this piece of cedar stake was standing upright in the ground underneath the centre of the maple tree.” (The historic stake has been mounted on a polished board, and a handsome brass inscription plate affixed. It is preserved in the City Archives.)

Note: McCleery preempted the first land in the City of Vancouver as created 1929.

Memo of conversation with Mr. James McLellan, 328 Ash Street, New Westminster, who very kindly called at the City Archives, 14 August 1941. He was one of those pioneers who were present at the unveiling, Prospect Point, 26 July 1941, of the walking beam of the S.S. Beaver.

First baseball in Vancouver.

Mr. McLellan said: “The Terminal Baseball Club was the first baseball club in Vancouver; it was organised in the winter of 1887; the first meeting was held in an office but I am not sure whether Ceperley’s office or the office of the American Consul, Charles M. Bolton; Mr. Ceperley was afterwards made Hon. President, and Mr. Bolton was President; the name selected was the ‘Terminal Baseball Club.’”

“Terminals” Baseball Club. AL Larwell.

“I was born in London, Ontario, 14th November 1866, and came to Vancouver in November 1887 by C.P.R. Al Larwell, he looked after the Cambie Street grounds, he had a little club house which he lived in, right there on the north end of it; he was quite a sport, and he played baseball in the east in Ottawa. So one evening Al Larwell came to the ‘Greyhound’ hotel looking for ball players. He did not know that I could play ball, but he had been told that there were some ball players staying at the Greyhound; I had played in London, Ontario and Strathroy; I had played in Detroit in 1884 for a junior team in Detroit. And when I came west I played in Winnipeg too. Then at the time we built the C.P.R. Hotel in Banff, we played there against Calgary; that was in the spring of 1887; the hotel was started about April 1887.

“So Al came around and asked Harry Cole if there were any ball players in the hotel; Cole came in the sitting room and asked. So two of us, Billy Norval and I, said ‘Yes,’ we’d played. So Al Larwell told us to come around to some office, I forget just where, one evening that week, and we did, and when we got there, there was a few of us there, and we talked it over about organising. There was present Larwell, and Metz, and Geo. L. Allan, the boot store on Cordova Street, and Norval, and myself, and there might have been two or three others; I forget.

“So we decided; Al Larwell took charge of the meeting, more or less, it was only a talk, and decided to get a few more interested in it.

“So we got talking to Frank W. Hart, furniture store, who was quite prominent at the time, and Tom Dunn, also of the business man of the growing city, and a few others, and they held a meeting and Andy Kyle, he was clerk or bookkeeper for Tom Dunn, and they just took charge and looked after the ball club, and we were out of it then except for the playing.”

The first game.

“I cannot tell you the exact date of the first game of baseball here that I played in, but it was early in the season of 1888; about the first of May, I should think. That day we played for a cup which was presented by Harry Cole of the Greyhound on Water Street; we played against the James Bay Baseball Club of Victoria, and we won the cup. I don’t know where the cup got to, but Harry Cole kept it in the barroom for a year or two anyway. Of course, we had a few practices before the game, and we had the practice games on the Cambie Street grounds, which at that time was the pretty stony ground on a low slope; the south corner was the lowest. We had the diamond up on the corner of Cambie and Dunsmuir, on the high corner, and we batted south.

“Then in the spring of 1890 I went over to live in New Westminster, and have lived there ever since. I don’t know what became of the team; I think all died, all dead now, so far as I know, except myself. I think I am the last of the first baseball club of Vancouver.

“The names of the men who played on that first match against James Bay were” (see News-Advertiser, 22 May 1888) “Norval, catcher; Flannigan, an Irishman, he was pitcher; Allan, short stop; Larwell was second base; Brophy, he left field; McLellan, first base; Metz was third base; Peck was centre field; and Lang was right field.”

Al Larwell.

“Al Larwell was a good sport. He lived in a shack at the north end of the grounds; he kept his beer under the floor of his cabin; had a trap door in the floor. Just a little hole a few inches square, enough to keep a few bottles and things in, but actually what he had there underneath was a little keg, a small keg about eight gallons.”

Cambie Street grounds jamboree. Orange Lodge.

“We had a jamboree in the shack once. That was on the 12th of July about 1893; we played ball that day; we picked a team; just a scratch team, and we played the City Team, but the scratch team won that day, so that, well, the Orangemen were having a picnic out at Brockton Point, and they gave us, well, there must have been near a dozen bottles of whisky, and two kegs of beer anyway, and we made a whole night of it in Al Larwell’s shack; that was their ‘reward’ for playing for the Orangemen’s amusement at Brockton Point.”

Memo of conversation with Mr. A.A. McCormack of Mitchell Island, North Arm, Fraser River, formerly No. 703853, 102nd Battalion, “North British Columbians,” C.E.F.

He lives on the north side of the island, just east of the bridge, and called at the City Archives, City Hall, 30 October 1941, carrying an ox yoke.

On the evening of 25th October previously, at the annual reunion of the 102nd Veterans, Major Matthews, formerly an officer of the 102nd, asked Mr. McCormack if he knew where he could get an ox yoke, as he wanted to save one of these relics of oxen, logging, and the lumber industry on the site of the city of Vancouver. Mr. McCormack said he thought he knew of one which had, for some years, to his own knowledge, been lying in an old shed on Mitchell’s Island. He promised to try and get it.

A.A. McCormack. Oxen. Logging. Mitchell’s Island. Mitchell’s estate.

Major Matthews: Good morning, gracious, what’s this coming.

Mr. McCormack: (smiling) “Well, here it is.”

Major Matthews: Where did you find it?

Mr. McCormack: “It was hanging in Mr. Mitchell’s woodshed, where it has been hanging for twenty-five years. I went there fifteen years ago, and it was there then when I first went, and Mr. Mitchell told me—he’s dead now—that he had not used it for thirty-five years; that would be fifty years now. Mr. Mitchell died in 1930 or 1931.”

Major Matthews: Where are the bows?

(Note: the bows are the “U” shapes which pass down both sides of the ox’s neck and under his throat, and hold the yoke in place.)

Mr. McCormack: “The original bows? I don’t know where they are; I expect they are lost.

“Yesterday I went to the executors of the Mitchell estate, they are Mr. Mowatt, Mr. Alexander Mowatt, and Mr. Robinson. Mr. Mowatt was in his office; he is of the Mowatt Transfer Co. on Beatty Street; Mr. Robinson is at the corner of Main and Marine Drive; he keeps a store and garage there. I asked for permission to remove it, and bring it here, when Mr. Mowatt granted; I did not see Mr. Robinson, he was not in when I called. Mr. Mowatt was very glad to let the City Archives have it.”

Major Matthews: Well, who shall we say presented this?

Mr. McCormack: “Well, I suppose it is presented, really, by the Mitchell estate, but it wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t spoken to me the other night, and I brought it in this morning—in Mitchell’s [Mowatt’s] passenger motor car. He has just gone on to his office.”

The story of the yoke.

“Mr. Mitchell told me that he” (Mr. Mitchell) “bought a yoke of young cattle, and broke them in with this yoke, and while he was breaking them in, they ran away and swam down the river with the yoke on the two of them together, and he went after them with a boat and led them ashore. He used it for ploughing and clearing land on Mitchell’s Island.

“The yoke is made of soft maple; he told me he made the yoke himself from a tree growing on his island. His son, George Mitchell, lives at the corner of No. 5 Road and No. 20 Road; Mrs. Alex Mowatt was George’s sister; she died some time ago. Mrs. Tipping is another sister, and Mrs. Waldo, another sister, lives in California, and there is another sister but living in Los Angeles, Mrs. Widdows. Gerald Mitchell, George’s brother, operates a large farm on Nicomen Island. There are a lot of grandchildren of the ‘original’ Mitchell.”

A.A. McCormack.

“I came here in 1887 from Saskatchewan; we went there from Plantagenet, Ontario in 1883, mother and fathers, brothers and sisters, ten of us moved to Saskatchewan; there are two of us left now, my sister, Mrs. Lipsay of Merryfield, Saskatchewan. Climate brought me here to Vancouver. I worked on the construction of some of the buildings here, for instance, the Van Bramer Block on the northwest corner of Cambie and Cordova; also a small store where McLennan and McFeely is now. I was working for Oakes and Callo, but the Van Bramer Block construction was under a Mr. Dixon, now of Dixon and Murray, on Eveleigh Street.”

Kitsilano, 1890.

“The series of six logging photos which you have here of a lot of logging scenes in that valley back of the English Bay Cannery are interesting.” (C.V.P. Log. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and N. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.) “It was operating when I came here, and was the first steam logging railway in British Columbia.”

First logging railroad in British Columbia. Kitsilano. Point Grey. Clay cliffs.

“I think Jerry Rogers operated it for the [blank], I don’t know where exactly. I was often up there. The first time I found out what the tide meant; I was hunting ducks out Point Grey, and the tide came in, and marooned us under the clay banks, just beyond Jericho, the tide came in and we could not get along the shore to come back; the cliffs dropped straight in the sea, the mud banks, and we had to climb the cliff by hanging on to the roots of the trees. We had not gone in a boat; we went hunting along the shore, and the tide keep crowding us up to the bank, and when we turned to come back found that the tide had shut off our retreat, and we had to climb the banks, and come back through the woods to Sam Greer’s farm at Greer’s beach.”

Samuel Mitchell (brother of Alex. Mitchell of Mitchell’s Island).

“Samuel Mitchell, brother of Alex. of Mitchell’s Island, still lives on No. 19 Road, Lulu Island. He is married, and has a son who runs the farm, and an unmarried daughter.”

Genealogy.

“In 1918 I married Miss Clara Higgins, daughter of W.H. Higgins, Baptist Church, and she is living, but has not been out of bed for five or six years; is an invalid; we have no children. I have to keep a nurse with her all the time.”

Kitsilano forest.

“Kitsilano was very heavily timbered.”

Mr. McCormack, who stated it was “McCormack,” and not “McCormick,” as some members of his family spelt it, looked at his watch; said it was 11:30 a.m., time to go, and went. A very kindly pleasant gentleman. He remarked, “The day you attacked Regina Trench” (21 October 1916), “twelve of us were building an observation post for General Odlum about a mile back, near the Sugar Refinery on the Bapaume Road. We couldn’t see the attack; there was too much smoke. A moving picture man was up there to take pictures, but he came back and said he could do nothing; there was too much smoke” (smokeless powder, too.) “He said that ‘Anyone who came out of that was lucky.’”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_011

[photo annotation:]

West End. False Creek Kitsilano Pt. McNichol Ave. Whyte Ave. Creelman Ave.

Greer’s Beach, 1898, from foot of Balsam St.

Conversation with William (“Bill”) Nahanee of North Vancouver Indian Reserve, who kindly called at the City Archives, 12 September 1941.

His address is Bewicke Avenue, House No. 80, North Vancouver. Phone, North 958-L.

Capt. James Bramer. Moodyville ferry.

Mr. Nahanee said: “Capt. Van Bramer was a steamship owner here; he had men run the Moodyville ferry for him; he lived at Moodyville. I don’t know whether he was an Englishman or not; he was a little man with a beard. He lived on the east side of the mill up on the hill overlooking Kanaka Row; he had a house there which belonged to the Moodyville Sawmill. I was born on 15th March 1872 at Hastings Sawmill, at the Indian village at the foot of Heatley Avenue, and I remember him as long as I can. I worked for him on the ferry boat, carrying cordwood. In his cottage on the hill there lived with him an Indian woman, her name was Lizzie, her Indian name Ka-ak-sala; she belonged to the Katzie Indian Reserve up the Fraser River. She was a young woman, and they had three children. There was Louisa, Leonora, and the youngest one whose name I don’t recall. I don’t know if he named the tug Leonora after his second daughter, or not, but it would seem so.”

Tug Leonora. Tug Senator. Union Steamship Company.

“Capt. Van Bramer sold all his boats; that is, the Senator and the Leonora—just two all I recall—to the Union Steamship Co., then he went away; I don’t know where he went but I think it was California. The Indian wife went back to the Katzie Reserve with one daughter, the baby one. The two eldest went with their father to New York or somewhere. I don’t know what became of the youngest daughter; I have not seen her for years, but Capt. Van Bramer’s Indian wife Lizzie died many years ago, and her second husband, George Whel-tum-tun, he died too.”

S.S. Beaver. W.H. Evans.

“So far as I know, Billy Evans” (W.H. Evans) “and myself are the only two persons living now who worked on the old Beaver.” (Note: at the unveiling ceremony of the walking beam at Prospect Point, 26 July 1941, Mr. Nahanee spoke over the radio, and told what he recalled of her.) “I was about thirteen or fourteen, and worked on the Beaver for one day only; myself and another boy were passing coal.

“The Beaver used to come into Moodyville all the time, and one day she wanted some coal, and we got the job packing the coal from forward, where it was stored in the fire room, back to the engineer. It was loose, and we had a wheelbarrow. She was going north to get a boom of logs, and we two boys went as far as Bowen Island or somewhere, and then the boilers sprung a leak, and she had to come back. Then when we got back to Moodyville I left her.”

Sue Moody. George Moody. Netty Moody. Moodyville Sawmill.

“I never saw Mr. Sue Moody, who built the Moodyville Sawmill, but I want to tell you that he went overseas somewhere to get something for his mill, but the ship went down, and he did not come back. He was drowned. He had two Indian children; his wife was Indian; one girl and one boy. Both are dead now. There was George Moody, and Netty Moody. She married Fitz Myers’ boy in New Westminster, and George Moody, he died too, got run over by a train. I don’t remember his children if he had any. But Netty Moody, she became Mrs. Fitz Myers, and left two sons, both married now, I think. And, queer thing, they do not know who they are, or where they come from. I think I am the only one who does. I think one is George Myers, and the other I do not know his name, but I think he is a pilot running about the gulf.”

Joe Nahanee, Kanaka. Hawaiians.

“My daddy Joe Nahanee” (pronounced Na [short]; hay [long]; nee, as in Magee) “he was a guard for the Hudson’s Bay Company, Victoria; there was about fifty Hawaiians and white men brought up from Hawaiian Island to protect the white men against the Indians—anyway, that’s the story. The story is that afterwards the chief of the Indians sold them some land where Victoria is now. Where the Parliament Buildings is now was a little reserve.

“When the men of war came over from England, then there was no more use for the Hawaiians, and they sent them to Salt Spring Island, and my daddy went with them, but he did not settle there, he came on up to the Hastings Mill and went to work firing in the boiler room.”

Kanaka Ranch. Kanakas. Coal Harbour. Deadman’s Island.

“Then he took up a place down in Coal Harbour, at what was called the Kanaka Ranch; when I remember first there were six or seven Kanakas; there were two families there.”

Ben McCord. Kemo. Maggie McCord. Minnie McCord. Maggie Eihu.

“One family was Kemo” (note: this must be the family which Calvert Simson named Campbell) “and the other was my mother and father, Nahanee. I don’t remember Ben McCord; he was before my time, but he married my sister, Maggie; she is now dead; Minnie McCord was my niece; that is, she was daughter of my half-sister Maggie, who was Maggie Eihu. Father died two years after I was born, that is, about 1874, and he is buried on Deadman’s Island; he was pure Hawaiian. He had married my mother who came from Capilano” (Homulcheson) “reserve; Mother’s name was See-em-ia; that was the name they gave me when I went to the Hastings Sawmill School, William See-em-ia; Father was, of course, dead. Mother is buried in the Capilano Indian graveyard. I had two sisters. Maggie, my sister, that is, half-sister, she is dead now; and the other sister was Lucy; she married, dead now. All older than me.”

Note by J.S.M.: True or untrue, but the story is that at the Kanaka Ranch there lived an Indian woman who had two husbands. She lived, figuratively, one month with one, next month with the other.

Mary Eihu. See-em-ia.

“Mary Eihu was my mother; it is my mother’s letter dated October 1st 1899 re the Kanaka Ranch at the foot of Denman Street which you have in the Eihu file. I am the son mentioned there, that is William, and the girl mentioned is my sister Margaret, or Maggie. I am a plaintiff in the court case, I suppose as it says, 23rd July 1899, and spent a lot of money trying to keep that property. My sister, Maggie, sold the property for twenty-six thousand dollars.”

Major Matthews: Do you recall any wharves or anything used for commercial purposes along that shore.

Mr. Nahanee: “No, there was nothing. I lived there for about fifteen years, and there was nothing along there except nothing; just rocks and boulders on the beach; nothing there until we fought it in court; we had just a little boat wharf on piles, about four piles, usual size; just enough to tie up a row boat.”

Major Matthews: Come here, look at this picture by Mr. de Forest, presented to the City Archives by Mrs. Douglas Creighton; do you recognise that scene?

Trail, Coal Harbour to Gastown.

Mr. Nahanee: “That’s Deadman’s Island, and there is the park, and opposite is our old place; that might be our boat, too, I don’t know, but that is where I lived for fifteen years. I go out to work, leave there my home, then when work finished, come back; sometimes in a row boat, and sometimes along the trail which ran from Gastown westwards along the edge of the cliff to Coal Harbour and our ranch.”

Coal Harbour.

“Coal Harbour is named because of coal, charcoal. My daddy made charcoal out of wood, and sold it to the sawmill. They wanted it for the blacksmith instead of ordinary coal; no ordinary coal about sometimes, so they used charcoal.” (Note: this, of course, is his view of how it was named; not the true one of course.)

Dan McPhee.

“After we won the case in the courts, Dan McPhee started a little store on our property; the little store was on the corner of Denman and Georgia.”

Squatters. Kanaka Ranch. Mary Eihu.

Major Matthews: What had you, as William Nahanee, got to do with the lawsuit for the land.

Mr. Nahanee: “I had no claim; it was my mother, Mary Eihu. I was just helping her. The judge said that we could live there forever, but it was no good to us; we could not sell it; we had no deed or anything, but this McPhee and others must have worked something, otherwise how could they have sold it, or else my sister got the property.”

This was dictated, as it were, to me as I typed, by Bill Nahanee, as we sat together side by side.

12 September 1941.

J.S. Matthews.

Conversation with Henry John Newton of Port Hammond, B.C., who on a visit to Vancouver for the day kindly called at the City Archives for a chat, 25 September 1941.

Port Hammond.

Mr. Newton said: “I came to Vancouver, that is, Burrard Inlet, that is, Gastown, I think it was in February 1880; came down by boat on the Fraser River to New Westminster; just a minute, that would be, it was a very severe winter. Leaving New Westminster I came over by stage; the stage was driven between New Westminster and old Gastown; a man named Lewis drove it, and on board the stage was Capt. J.A. Raymur, who was manager of the Hastings Mill, and Harry Harvey, who was the storekeeper at the Hastings Mill store; I worked under Harry Harvey in the store. I had come from what we now call Port Hammond in these days, but at that time we called it Katzie; that’s the name of the Indian village right on the river along side of Port Hammond, to the west. All our mail was addressed ‘Katzie,’ and was brought up by the river boat; I’ll tell you how it was delivered; the purser on board the boat got a stick of wood about that long” (about twelve inches) “and the letters and papers were tied onto it with a string, and when the captain took the boat in close to the bank, the purser would run way up on the top deck and throw it ashore.”

Genealogy.

“I was born in New Westminster, 14th January 1864; Father, William Henry Newton, he was in the Hudson’s Bay Company, Victoria; then he was up at Fort Langley, and for a while, about a year, he was in charge there. Then he went back to Victoria, and when he was at Langley the first time, he took up that land next to Katzie Village” (Indian) “and in 1871, the fall, he left the Hudson’s Bay Company and moved up to Katzie, and started to farm; had a good tract of land.” (D.L. 280 and 281.) (See Colonial Pre-emptions, F.W. Laing, page 88 and 170, preemption records 1860.) “A.O. Morrison is now on part of the land Father took up.

“Mother was the daughter of John Tod of the Hudson’s Bay Co.; Emmeline Jane Tod; they had been married in Victoria by old Bishop Cridge. There were six children; I’m the fourth. Of the others one only lives now; she is Miss F.M. Newton, staying at the Elysium Hotel; she was the second. The first, she was Emmeline Frances Newton, she was afterwards Mrs. F.D. Seymour; he is still alive and I think living in Seattle; was last spring; they had no children. The third was the late Miss Ada Newton; I’m the fourth; the fifth was Georgina W. Newton; she a nurse at one time; never married; and the youngest one was my brother, William Greenshields Newton; he died when he was only twenty-six in Vancouver, in hospital, in September 1896. So that, of us all, there are two only living, and no grandchildren.

“I’ll tell you what I have got at home, a photo of Mr. R.H. Alexander, when he was manager, and Ainslie Mouat, the accountant, and I was cashier, and F.W. Watson, a young Englishman who came out here some years ago; I’m not sure of the date, but it must have been around 1894, or early nineties.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_012

[photo annotation:]

HASTINGS SAWMILL, July 1886

Hastings Institute	Fire Engine Shed	The First Store

Forest beyond

Smoke of clearing fires

Duck pond, invisible

Bachelor shacks

Bachelor shacks

Observe closely, the water flume on supports; in lower left hand corner

Shack

Caulfield cottage, far

Capt. Neilson cottage, near

Two cottages, far up Dunlevy Av.

Flume, water, 12” x 8” deep

The white cottage with white fence is Capt. Neilson’s; the saw filer. (Neilson Creek, West Vancouver.)

Water box or troughs

Library & Mechanic’s Institute

Fire Hall, open door. Ducks

Office

Old old store. Lodge, dances

At 11, the flume goes underground to cookhouse

Sawdust. Playground

Grandstand

School roof

Two houses on Alexander St.

Dunlevy Ave (white fence)

The two distant houses are for Dr. Bell-Irving and Henry B-I 308-310 Alexander St.

R.H. Alexander big house

Roof of oil house

Pig sty (long building)

Cookhouse, bell in cupola

Hastings Mill Store

The Hastings Institute also included the Library, the genesis of our cultural institutions.

Ald. C.A. Coldwell’s cottage

Road to Granville

Clearing; stumps

Lumber

Burrard Inlet near

Coldwell’s cottage saved, 13 June

See “Early Vancouver,” Vol. III, pages 70-73 [of original volume], Matthews.

City Archives. J.S.M.

See Dakin Fire Map, Nov. 1889

J.S. Matthews

First Hastings Sawmill store.

“You see this old two-storey building with the flag pole in front of it” (P. Mi. 19, N. Mi. 2) “and upright board and batten construction; I believe that used to be the first mill store.

“I think there was a man named Webster who ran that store; I’m not quite sure, I’m almost sure it was a store; of course, in my day it was a warehouse for all sorts of rubbish, and the upstairs was used for a meeting place for the A.O.U.W. This over here on the right, this long building, is the pigsty, and behind it the cookhouse.”

Cookhouse bell. Church service.

“They used to ring the bell on the cookhouse for church in the old school house; I used to ring it; you went in the cookhouse and there was a rope down to the kitchen. And the bell was rung for the meals in the cookhouse.”

F.W. Alexander’s house.

“When I first went to the Hastings Mill, the Alexanders were living in a one-storey cottage” (see photo C.V. P. Mi. 27, N. Mi. 17); “afterwards, when I came back in the fall of I think 1884, the big house on the hill had been built for the Alexander family. You see, I came in 1880, and stayed about a year, and went away for three or four years, and came back about 1884, I think the fall of 1884.”

Leaves Hastings Mill store.

“I left the Hastings Mill store to go to the office before 1890, and stayed in the office until the end of March 1906; then I went up to part of the land my father took up at Katzie” (Port Hammond) “and farmed there for a few years, about spring of 1925, and then, after a rest, in May 1926 I went up to Abernethy and Lougheed’s logging camp as fire warden on the run from Marks to Loon Lake, and stayed for six months, and then went to work for them on the railway and was there until the end of March 1929, and then I bought out Harry Fraser’s small store on the corner of the Laity Road and the Dewdney Trunk Road. I was there until the end of March 1932, and when they opened up the new Lougheed Highway which was opened up in 1931, I moved down to the corner which I bought, the Lougheed Highway and Laity Road, which is now Third Avenue. Laity was an old timer there; he took up land in the 1870s; sons and grandsons are there yet. I still have the store.”

Genealogy. Mrs. Whatmough.

“In 1896 I married Mrs. Whatmough; she was head nurse at the old City Hospital on Beatty Street, the first hospital the city built. She died in January 1932.”

Dominion Day. Yachting. Peter Cordiner. Greasy pole.

“You know the sawdust spit here in this picture; from this building out to the north of the store, and back to the mill, all covered with sawdust. We used to have the races on Dominion Day on the sawdust. And the sailing races between boats. There was one of the boats, sail boats, belonging to Peter Cordiner—he was afterwards an alderman on the first Council—he got some blue jackets, I think, off the warships to sail his boat, but he did not win the race; they went around the buoy the wrong way, and say, wasn’t he mad about it. His boat got in first, too. And out from the mill store wharf, they ran out a greasy pole with a little flag on the end; you had to walk out on this pole to the end. I suppose the pole would be out twenty feet or so.”

Trout Lake. Beavers.

“We used to get our water from Trout Lake; I was only up there once; we walked up the flume; there were beavers up there; just a little lake in the bush. The flume ran out from the Hastings Mill along the shore, and then almost in a direct line, as near as possible to the lake. The flume was open top, just a wood flume; flume all the way; there was not an awful lot of fall; some places it was over ravines and high up; others it would be close to the ground, and when it froze they would send a man to clear the ice out.”

“Dumps” Baker.

“He used to have a whole pile of dogs; I think he must have slept with them; he always smelt of dog when he came in.”

Japanese. Uchida.

“I don’t remember the first Japanese, but there was a Japanese down there called Uchida; he seemed to be the boss; I know the timekeeper always used to fix up with him; I don’t know if he was the first, but I know the timekeeper always looked to him as being in charge of the Japanese.”

The office burns.

“I don’t know when the office burned, except this, that it was just before I came back, the second time I worked in the store; I came back in 1884.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_013

[photo annotation:]

KITSILANO INDIAN RESERVE, looking east, circa 1907. Chin-nal-set’s, or “Jericho Charlie,” of Jericho & Greer’s Beach, house, 100 yards east foot Chestnut street, 50 yards north Ogden st produced. Chin-nal-set married Qwhy-what, or “Sally,” widow of Hay-tulk, or “Supplejack,” son of Chief Haatsa-lah-nogh, after whom Kitsilano is named. Hay-tulk’s son, August Jack Haatsalano, appears in canoe with his wife Swanamia, or “Marrian”; both splendid Indians. Qwhy-what is supposed to have buried gold and silver coins in iron box a few yards west of cottage. In 1937, summer, August spent much time digging, without success. Old beach reclaimed, 1913. JSM.

The boathouse on the beach had broken away from the little island at foot of Howe St. It belonged to the elder brother of E.A. Dickie in 1940 who as a boy of 15 helped to build it. The year is probably earlier than 1907.

Conversation with August Jack Khahtsahlano, who came to the City Archives, 14 October 1941, to talk about an old canoe which it is proposed to place in Stanley Park on exhibition, and to interest citizens and visitors.

“Jericho Charlie’s” canoe. Indian canoes. Chinalset.

Major Matthews: Tell me about the canoe, August?

August: “I got a canoe, very old one, it’s twenty-seven feet long and five feet beam. It was brought down from the west coast; get a map, I show you, here Cape Flattery, Neah Bay, rough water, in United States.

“Ten women brought that canoe to Victoria; they were looking for their husbands. Their husbands go out sealing in a schooner and they did not come back; they were drowned. The women sell the canoe, and my stepfather, ‘Jericho Charlie’” (i.e., Chinalset) “he bought it in Victoria for one hundred dollars; cheap because it was second hand. Chinalset was down there for a big potlatch on the Songhees Reserve, across the harbour from Victoria; he was there a month; potlatch all the time; I was with him, all one month potlatch. I was about nine year old then. My mother Qwhy-wat, and Willie Jack” (Khay-tulk, the second) “my brother, and old man Tom—white man call him Tommy, but he’s Indian name’s Charl-tun—and Charltun’s wife, and there were others; we all go over in ‘Jericho Charlie’s’ big canoe, the one he used to take the hay and barley from Hastings Mill Store out to Jerry Rogers’ camp at Point Grey. No kicker” (gasoline engine), “paddle all the way; take us three days False Creek to Victoria; cook our meals on the beach; dig clams. Finally, when we got there, lots of Indians; Chief Michael was giving a potlatch. We started from Snauq, False Creek; Chief George from Seymour Creek, and others from Capilano Creek.”

Potlatch.

“Then, after the potlatch, we come back, all the same people, but two canoes instead of one. Three peoples get in smaller canoe my stepfather bought, and the rest in my stepfather’s bigger canoe we go over there in; maybe six in the bigger canoe. ‘Big George,’ Chief at Seymour Creek, he was at the potlatch too, but he go in his own canoe. And Policeman Tom—his Indian name was Tah-hay; different Tom from Charl-tun. It took us four days to get back with the two canoes. The ten women not find their husbands; they had been drowned; so the women went back to their own west coast in a big canoe with others when the potlatch was over.”

Indian graveyards. Snauq.

“We use the canoe Chinalset bought to take some dead to Squamish to be buried; all graveyards got to be moved from Snauq, long time ago, after Vancouver burn; bury them again Squamish. Then the biggest canoe smashed up at Snauq; big wind, big wave, foot of Cypress Street; exposed place below Chinalset’s house; same place, but not same canoe as in your photo.” (C.V. P. In. 35, N. In. 17.) “A photo of the actual canoe Chinalset bought from the ten women is in Dunn and Rundle, photo supply store, Granville Street. After Chinalset smash his big canoe he never fix it again; all split up into kindling; no good, but the smaller west coast one, he use it to go Squamish, fish, carry freight to Squamish; twenty-five miles up river, pole it up the river.

“Then Jericho Charlie die, and we put the canoe away, keep it in boat shed up Squamish, keep it dry. Then fifteen years ago I bought motor boat engine; I have canoe, so I put engine in canoe. The canoe is now over at my home in Capilano.”

Major Matthews: What are you going to do with it?

August: “I was going to pull it out of the water and keep it, but the Parks Board want it, and I think I might sell it if they want to put it in the park for peoples to look at.”

Major Matthews: How old was it when your stepfather bought it from the ten Indian women?

August: “I don’t know; it was second hand then. Cedar canoe last long time; maybe two hundred years; it you paint them all the time they keep.”

Chinalset’s father. Bear.

“Jericho Charlie’s father was Chinalset, too; he shoot the biggest grizzly bear up at Squamish; the bear must have been twelve feet long; cut him in half across the middle, and use the hide to cover the frame door to the cedar slab house; long before whitemans come.”

Conversation with Capt. B.F. Dickens, 3582 West 14th Avenue, over the phone.

Note: Mount Dickens, North Arm, Burrard Inlet, is named in his honour; he was one of the principals of Wigwam Inn, Indian River; was secretary-treasurer of World newspaper about 1907. He is still very hale and hearty despite his years, and speaks clearly and hears clearly over the telephone.

“100,000 men in 1910.” “In 1910, Vancouver then, will have 100,000 men.”

Major Matthews, City Archivist: (after preliminary compliments) Mr. Dickens, do you remember the “100,000 Club.”

Capt. Dickens: “I should think I do; I organised it. I was secretary-treasurer of the World newspaper at the time; L.D. Taylor was editor. I read the clipping in the World; clipping from some newspaper in Texas, U.S.A.; there was some city down there which wanted to reach 100,000 by 1910; they had the idea first; we copied it because it suited.”

Major Matthews: Do you recall the exact words?

Capt. Dickens: “In 1910, Vancouver then, will have 100,000 men.”

Major Matthews: But there was an abbreviation of that we used to paint on the sides of “band wagons” at carnivals, or processions; the long form was too long, so we used “100,000 MEN IN 1910,” didn’t we? And there was a great big banner all across Hastings or Granville Street, “100,000 MEN IN 1910.”

“Move her, move her. Who? Vancouver.”

Capt. Dickens: “Yes, that’s right. And then we had another slogan, ‘Move her, move her. Who? Vancouver.’”

Major Matthews: Of course, I had forgotten that one. Do you remember how the hot headed young bloods used to hire a wagon and two horses, and decorate it all up with banners, paint on the banners, “100,000 MEN IN 1910” and “MOVE HER, MOVE HER. WHO? VANCOUVER,” and go up Granville Street shouting at the top of their voices, those slogans while they rode all packed together in the wagons, and we on the sidewalk laughed and pitied the fools as we thought them. Most of them are in responsible positions now.

Memo of conversation with Hugh E. Campbell, 2848 Birch Street, member of the Volunteer Fire Brigade, 1886, etc., 28 October 1941.

I had phoned him to come and see a small “silver” cup presented by the Alert Hose Team to their Captain, 1888-1894, T.W. Lillie, and re-presented to the City Archives by “Billy” Stark, son of James Stark, pioneer. Mr. Stark married a lady who had been a sort of ward of “Tom” Lillie.

First city clerk. Thos. F. McGuigan. First Council meeting.

Mr. Campbell: (looking at typed, bound copies of Minutes of First Council meetings, page 4) “I don’t care what those minutes record; I was there, and know what happened. It says here” (page 4, para. 37) “that ‘THE MAYOR STATED THAT JOHN ROONEY DECLINED THE OFFICE OF CITY CLERK.’ May 12th 1886.”

Police Station, 1886. Granville. Sunnyside Hotel.

“Rooney was not at the meeting; I was, and standing at the back of the little hall; it was a small hall, right where the first fire hall was afterwards on Water Street, but at that time it was the police station and everything else. There were three or four cells, not off the hall, but off a passageway from it; the cell doors opened on the passageway.

“I was just a young fellow, but I knew that Tom McGuigan would take the job; I knew where Tom was waiting; he was waiting in the Sunnyside Hotel across the street. So as soon as Mayor MacLean asked for McGuigan, I said, ‘Here,’ and then without waiting or making much noise, got up and moved towards the door, slipped across the street, got McGuigan who came right over with me. When we got in, Baldwin was sitting right up front as City Treasurer.”

Geo. F. Baldwin. First City Treasurer.

Major Matthews: How do you know as “City Treasurer”?

Mr. Campbell: “Well, he was there up in front sitting. Just as we got in the door, the Mayor asked—he was a blunt old fellow—‘What’s keeping McGuigan from coming up here,’ and McGuigan answered back that he was trying to get through the crowd. And McGuigan went up and took his position as City Clerk right then.

“Now, here is another thing; you’ve seen lots of Tom McGuigan’s handwriting; the minutes of the meeting are in his handwriting.

Major Matthews: Yes, may be, but how could he have the old minute book there; they did not buy any stationery until after; look at the old invoices.

John Rooney.

Mr. Campbell: “Well, Rooney, never worked as City Clerk; of course, he might have declined right there, but I always heard he was not even at the meeting.”

Major Matthews: How did you come to be messenger boy for Tom McGuigan?

Thos. F. McGuigan.

Mr. Campbell: “Well, Tom was a hail fellow well met, and had been in the old Mounted Police, and came down here; he resigned from the police, and was not doing anything. Mind you, he was only a young fellow then; that’s all he was, but Dr. McGuigan, his brother, was a doctor, and of course quite prominent.”

Conversation with Mrs. Capt. Percy Nye, 639 West 11th Avenue, who very kindly called at City Archives, 6 November 1941.

Alderman Francis Williams. Claude H. Williams. Water from creeks. McKie.

Mrs. Nye said: “Mother and I went to live at English Bay in the old Simpson shack at the foot of Denman Street, and after we went there the McKie family went to live in a cottage on Beach Avenue, just west of Gilford Street—right at the end of the old pier—but on the east side of the creek, because we used to go up to the creek to get our drinking water, and so did they. We just took a bucket at a time in one hand; there was a deepish hole where we dipped, or deep enough to dip without getting too many leaves in it. McKie built the cottage; the lumber came by a trail along Beach Avenue; the Smiths were further again west, but the Smiths did not come until after. We were the first residents after the loggers and the Simpsons, but McKie built the first house.”

East End school.

“Mr. McKie was janitor at the East End school, and I suppose it was too far for him to walk all the way to Dunlevy Avenue and Oppenheimer Street, so they moved away, and then the Williams occupied their cottage; one of their sons, John McKie, M.L.A. for Grand Forks-Greenwood, was blown up in a train by the Doukhobors many years later, somewhere up by Nelson, B.C.”

Cows at English Bay. Jericho. Kitsilano Indian Reserve.

“There was no milk delivery in bottles at English Bay in those days, but the Williams had a cow and a calf. One day I went to town; walked right around Beach Avenue and down Granville, and back the same way, and when I got back I got there just in time to see Claude’s calf finishing the last of my washing drying on the clothes line; all that was left was the pegs and bits of the washing too close to the clothes line for the calf to eat off. The calf thrived.

“Francis Williams was a tailor working in Clubb and Stewart’s men’s furnishing store. He resided at his little cottage, and used to go over to the Indian Reserve in False Creek, but we used to call across the water ‘Jericho’; it was all Jericho on the other side of English Bay, not just a little piece of it as it is now. Mr. Williams, his wife and sister-in-law, Mrs. Clarke, used to go over and preach to the Indians, and the way they used to let the Indians know they had arrived was that they would start singing on the beach, and the Indians would come out and join them. There was a man named Brown; he was a real estate man, and he started selling acreage over the First Narrows, back of the lighthouse on the north shore, this side of the Point Atkinson Lighthouse; and Mr. Williams bought some acreage there.”

Note by J.S.M.: According to Claude Williams, Water Department, City Hall, the location of his father’s (Francis Williams) place was twelve acres east of the present Altamont, and was to be a country estate. The proposal was abandoned.

Forest fire in West End, 1891.

“What made him move from English Bay was that the timber all caught fire around his cottage, so he got a scow and moved his furniture onto the scow, and saved it from the fire, and decided that he would take his furniture over to the north side, being that he owned the land there. The place where he established himself is a mile or so from Point Atkinson; the shack was back from the waterfront. They landed right on the beach; there was no float of any kind; there was a creek there for water; nice little gravelly beach. Anyway, Mr. Williams, rowed back and forth to Vancouver through the Narrows almost every day.”

North Vancouver ferry.

“Then his daughter used to take music lessons on the pipe organ at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian church, and they came over twice a week for that. She used to walk by the trail—I think it is seven miles—to Moodyville ferry when it called at North Vancouver; there was a float of logs at the foot of what is now Lonsdale Avenue, and they would not tie the boat up to the float—it might capsize it, so the prospective passengers had to jump on the ferry boat, and twice Miss Williams jumped in the water and got wet. Brown, who sold Mr. Williams the property, was supposed to have been drowned in the First Narrows, but some people say that he skipped; it appears he did not own the property he sold Mr. Williams, or did not have any authority to sell it. Miriam Williams married a Mr. Simpson; she passed away in Victoria last week.”

Trades and Labour Council. Labour Temple.

“Mr. and Mrs. Williams, their sons Claude and Alfred, all went to live out towards Point Atkinson, and after that the Williams took up a newer home in Fairview, next to the old Alexander Orphanage on Sixth or Seventh Avenue. Then after that he got interested and formed the Trades and Labour Council, and he was the one who got the building built on Dunsmuir Street, the Labour Temple, and then, while he was Alderman, he was the instigator for getting the most lasting piece of road in Vancouver, that on Sixth Avenue; that’s that brick pavement; he fought hard for that bit of road. Then he was defeated candidate for Labour member of Parliament. The son Alfred was a carpenter; I don’t know what became of him, but Claude joined the City Water Department.”

See also Early Vancouver, Vol. 2, McKie and Williams.

Conversation with Mr. George W. Jamieson, retired principal, Mount Pleasant School, now resident 368 East Seventh Avenue, 20 November 1941.

See Province, Thursday, 23 June 1921, “OLD BELL RINGS AGAIN FOR EX-PUPILS OF MOUNT PLEASANT.” This bell is now in City Archives. J.S.M.

Together with Mr. Kenneth A. Waites, editor, Vancouver High Schools—The First Fifty Years, I went to see Mr. Jamieson to ask him to identify the detail of a photograph printed from a 5 x 8 glass negative in City Archives, showing a Chinese funeral passing a building of one storey and three gables—actually three buildings; a fir tree or two also appears on print.

Mount Pleasant School. Mayor T.S. Baxter.

Mr. Jamieson: (looking at print, holding it to his glasses) “Well, well; my, I’m glad to see this.” (pointing) “This building here on the right was the first Mount Pleasant School they built; when I first went there I taught in this. Then afterwards they put up another, this one the same as the first almost, on the left; a Miss” [blank] “taught there; then afterwards the carpenters put a roof between the two buildings and made a third school room; T.S. Baxter—he was afterwards Mayor—he taught in that, the middle one. This little bit of a tower is out in front.

“Afterwards the children were so numerous we had to use a two-storey building; it does not show here; it was over to the right and north of these buildings; we called it Temperance Hall.

“Then we got four little shacks built off here to the left, the west; a little group, so that we were in eight buildings, but only for a short while. Then the School Board borrowed some money. I told them we were getting along all right, and that I could do very well as we were, but they borrowed the money, built the Dawson School, and the brick Mount Pleasant school, and twenty years afterwards they had not paid the money back. That started debt.”

Bears.

“You know, there were bears all around that school. One afternoon, after school, I went out, and there on the corner of the road, Westminster Road, were parents with lanterns and guns; they were waiting. I said, ‘What are the guns for?’ They answered, ‘Bears.’ Of course, I suppose the lanterns were for something else, but there was no electric light out in Mount Pleasant houses then. At night you carried a lantern.

“Then again, one afternoon the children all left school, as usual, and presently they all came back; they were whimpering. I asked, ‘What’s the matter.’ They said there was a bear up the road eating berries; up what we call Main Street now.

“Then, one day there was word that there was a bear up Westminster Road. So I got a gun, and went after him. I shot him square in the side; great big hole in his side.”

Major Matthews: There were cougars, too; the last bear I recall up on Mount Pleasant was where the car barns are now at 13th Avenue and Main Street; that would be about 1904. We went after him but he had gone.

Mr. Jamieson: “That time I have just been speaking about, when the parents came with the guns; the parents were on both sides of the road, and had guns. And there was another time I recall, going out and seeing one man standing waiting with a gun. As I passed, I remarked, ‘Why the gun.’ He replied, ‘Oh, bears.’”

Memo of conversation at the Vancouver Pioneers Annual banquet, 21 November 1941, held in the defunct Georgia Restaurant, Hudson’ Bay Co. store (opened for the occasion) with Frank Harris, for fifty-two years resident in the Water Works cottage at the end of the Pipe Line Road, First Narrows, Stanley Park.

Oak trees.

Mr. Harris said: “If ever a lot of oak trees grow up in Stanley Park, I’ll tell you how they came to be there. I met an old gentleman in Stanley Park the other day. He gave me his card with his name on it; I forget the initials, but the name was Chamberlain” (sic.) “He’s a nice old gentleman, and I think he is on Old Age Pensions, or ‘on relief’; something like that.

“He told me that each year for the last three years, he has planted ten pounds of acorns all about Stanley Park. A few which he must have planted earlier, he told me, are now about two feet high trees, oak trees. He has no permission; I don’t think the park people know he is doing it, and he plants them anywhere and everywhere. He told me that, in three years, he has set out thirty pounds of acorns, ten pounds each year, in the earth; just pushed them in anywhere.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_014

Summit Hill. Steep Hill. North Arm Road. Granville Street South.

Conversation with Miss M.E. McCleery, 26 June 1940: “Summit Hill was the highest; up hill, over the top, and down again. Steep Hill was a different place. Summit Hill was at 37th Avenue; Steep Hill starts at about 15th Avenue. These hills meant that the horses walked, and had to pull.”

Conversation with George Washington Jamieson, and Mrs. Jamieson, 368 East Seventh Avenue, who very kindly called at the City Archives this morning, and I typed as he talked, 15 December 1941.

Genealogy.

Mr. Jamieson said: “I was born near Bowmanville, Ontario, eighty-three years ago, in 1858, on 21st October; my father was James, and my mother Mary Jane; you see, I was brought up with my grandparents, but Father came from Waterloo, Ontario, where he had been a farmer; originally they came from England. There were five brothers and two sisters in the family; just one left now, brother, who lives in Seattle; retired, William, unmarried.”

Canadian Pacific Railway.

“I came up to Vancouver to teach, in 1888, part way by C.P.R.; I had an awful time getting here; the C.P.R., you know, they came so slowly that every day I walked half a mile and then jumped on the train, a kind of, it wasn’t a modern train at all, a little better than a freight train. I went to school at Toronto, went to Normal School, and the Toronto University; I helped another fellow through to get his B.A., and I did not go back. Not married at that time; I was thirty years old then.”

North Arm School, 1888. Municipal Hall, Richmond.

“Oh, say, that brings us to that point. Have you got a picture of that school in the mud hole.

“This picture here” (No. C.V. P. Out. 254, N. Out. 100) “this building is both Municipal Hall and School, But this is someone else here as teacher. That’s Mr. Kinney; I taught after him. He took ill, and he went down California; that would be pretty nearly the first of 1889. I had all these children, Sexsmith, Vermilyea, and Sweets, here in the photo.”

Sea Island. Sexsmith.

“The school went down a lot, and I went over to Sea Island and brought over seven or eight children, and at night took them home again in the boat; went over in the boat in the morning and got them at a bit of a wharf on Sea Island, and took them back at night. At the time I boarded with a family; you see, at that time Sexsmith had a lot of houses, and I forget the name of the family who lived in one of them.”

Slates. Blackboards.

“When we opened the school in the morning the first thing we did was, one of the pupils lit the fire, cordwood; you know we got our cordwood across the river; it was all bush then; you cannot hardly imagine what it was like, fir cordwood and a stove heater, and a fine lot of boys and girls. We had home made desks; two in a desk, and I had a very decent—for the time—‘throne’ to stand on. And the children all worked on their slates. No blackboards around the wall, not a blackboard in the place at first, but after a while I got the school board to put up a four by four blackboard on the wall. The youngsters used to drink their water out of the ditch; we did not have a well nor piped water; there was no one around there at that time; the nearest building would be a quarter of a mile away. The children came to school, say, do you know, between you and me, I had some of them come five miles. That five miles? Capital T E R R A capital N O V A; now this Terra Nova was a little village right down on the Fraser, and the children came up the river bank. I was the only teacher that could get them to walk that five miles, and they walked back again. The building was about, I imagine, about 300 feet from the river bank, and sometimes some of them did come by boat, but only sometimes.

“You see, there was nothing around there much; no wild animals, nothing but small brush wood.

“When we started in the morning I rang the bell on the school steps. The children were all around out in the grass playing, and, as for the mud, the mud on their boots, they had to carry it with them” (into the school.) “The first thing in the morning was the Lord’s Prayer. After that I don’t recall what we did, but I think we took arithmetic first; the children wanted to get the worst over first.

“About half the children went home to lunch, and the other half brought it with them, and, if it was raining, ate it in the school. And if it were not, in the yard, but the yard wasn’t fenced; they had the whole of Lulu Island for the school yard. Then we closed up about 3 p.m. and all went home.”

Municipal Council.

“The school in the mud hole on Lulu Island, it was afterwards used as a Municipal Hall at one end, and school at the other. And say, I’ll tell you a good one. The trustees were, some of them, members of the wonderful Municipal crowd, and every Friday afternoon I went in with the Councillors to help the Chinamen get their dykes. They, the Chinamen, paid the money for the dykes.

“I taught the other four and a half days, and on one half day, Friday, went into the meeting of the Municipal Council and helped them do their business; I did not take minutes; I just talked.”

Chinese. Dykes.

“About two hundred Chinese lived close to the school, down river; they were fishing for salmon at the Terra Nova Cannery. Say, do you know that this is fifty-odd years which we are talking about; all this happened fifty-odd years ago, and it is hard to remember.

“The Council meetings took place on Friday afternoon. Well, I used to go in and help them out. I’ll tell you, there was a lot of figuring to do that they weren’t too good at, and say, afterwards the Chinamen wouldn’t take a dyke until my name was on it, on the contract; you see, some of the Chinamen would contract to build two hundred feet of dyke, and some four hundred feet, and they wanted my name on the paper before they would accept the contract. We didn’t bother with law then, but the secretary and I would work it out how many cubic feet; you had to do that for the Chinamen, and then the Chinamen would accept it as settled and go to work.”

Major Matthews: Did you have any quarrels in the Council?

Mr. Jamieson: “No. We didn’t; always peaceful every time. I’ll tell you, between you and I, they did not talk much; they came in to do their business, and as soon as they did it, they went home.”

At this point Mr. Jamieson tired, said, “That’s enough for today.” So I read it over, while Mr. and Mrs. Jamieson listened, and at the conclusion, he exclaimed, “Good.” We gave him an 8 x 10 photo of his old school, and both departed smiling.

J.S. Matthews.

Conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Geo. W. Jamieson, retired school teacher, 368 East 7th Avenue, Mount Pleasant, who very kindly called at the City Archives this morning, Mr. Jamieson presenting us with an engine room wrench of iron, three inch jaw, from the Hudson’s Bay Company steamer Beaver.

S.S. Beaver.

Mr. Jamieson said: “This wrench, rusted a bit with salt water, I took from the S.S. Beaver as she lay on the rocks in 1888 or 1889; it fell off the steamer into the water, and I made three attempts to get it off the rocks covered with water; finally, I got it up. The captain told me it was the biggest wrench on the vessel.”

(Note: the wrench is eighteen inches overall, has two hexagonal jaws, one is three inch mouth, the other three inches and one eighth; the middle of the wrench is one inch round iron.)

Bears. Blackberries. Mount Pleasant.

Mr. Jamieson: “People nowadays cannot comprehend life as we knew it in those days. For instance, when I first taught school in Mount Pleasant there was only about one man lived west of Westminster Avenue, and one man east of it, figuratively speaking, of course. There was no such thing as Fairview as we know it today. And as I told you the other day, when I saw men with lanterns waiting for their children coming from school, I could understand the lanterns, to give light that they could see in the narrow paths and roots all about, but what I could not understand was the guns. So when I asked, ‘Why the guns,’ they replied, ‘Bears.’”

Trout Lake. Indian trails.

Major Matthews: You shot a bear yourself, didn’t you?

Mr. Jamieson: “You know, there were little trails leading down to Trout Lake; some of them were passable, but in places they were overgrown and one could not see ahead. I went down one on my bicycle one day, and before I knew it I ran right slap bang into a bear eating berries beside the trail. The bushes obscured him, and I was travelling fairly fast, and my bicycle tire hit him square in the middle. He went, ‘Woof, woof,’ and ‘beat it’ as fast as he could.”

Little Mountain.

“Then, another time, six or seven ladies went picking blackberries up somewhere—I judge it was up towards the present Little Mountain—and each picked about ten quarts in pails.

“One of the women laid her baby down, and nearby was a pan with berries which had been picked. When she turned around and came back to where she was assembling her berries, there was a bear licking the berries out of the pan, and he had it pretty well cleaned of blackberries, and the baby was right beside it of course. The bear had no taste for babies and just left him alone. But people of today cannot comprehend that these things actually happened.”

Wild cattle of Lulu Island.

“What you wrote me about the cattle brought from Portland, Oregon, on a schooner by George Black and Fitzgerald McCleery in the spring of 1864, and landing them at Garry Point, and some of them getting away, explains how those wild cattle on Lulu Island came to be; there were herds of about fifty wandering about together; all ages, old, young, everything.”

Conversation with Mrs. Charles Francis Mills, widow, 1645 West 11th Avenue, who, accompanied by her daughter, Mrs. Z. Diebolt, very kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon, and talked while I typed, 2 February 1942.

Genealogy. “Dad” Cameron.

Mrs. Mills said: “I have one grandchild only; she is two weeks old; but I had twelve children of my own; seven are living. My oldest girl is in Los Angeles” (Hollywood), “California; she is Mrs. George Boyer; she was Miss Laura. Mabel was my second child, Mrs. Arleigh Pilkey; she lives in Kerrisdale; the third is Miss Alma, now Mrs. Diebolt of Vancouver, and the next was Francis, a boy; Charles Francis, the same as his father; he is in Vancouver, the only son I have at home; William was next, William J. Mills, he is living in New Westminster; and Agnes, now Mrs. Robert Cameron, who lives in Kerrisdale; her husband is a son of the well-known ‘Dad’ Cameron of the Volunteer Fire Brigade, 1887, and the last is Florence, Mrs. Harold Wood, who lives in Winnipeg. And most important of all is Jacqueline, my granddaughter; two weeks old and the daughter of William Joseph Mills.”

C.F. Mills.

“Mr. Mills, my husband, was born in Halifax; his father’s name was Charles, too. My husband was a contractor, and I really don’t remember what his father did, but I am almost sure he was a stone mason. My own father was Peter MacKenzie, that is, a Scotch MacKenzie, not an Irish one, and my mother Mary Smith, born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia; but Father was born in Scotland, and came to Canada about 18—, anyway, he was married, I presume, I cannot say, in Nova Scotia, anyway, the records would show as it was in the Roman Catholic Church; we still belong to the Holy Rosary Church here, where I was married to Mr. Mills, in the little old first Holy Rosary, and by the Rev. Patrick Fay, the first Roman Catholic priest in Vancouver.”

Father Patrick Fay. Holy Rosary Church.

“The day we went to be married, we went about two o’clock in the afternoon and we could not see anyone there, and Charlie went out in the back to see where Father Fay was, and he was sleeping in the garden; he had forgotten all about the wedding. And that made us almost late for the boat, the old Islander, we were going to Victoria for our honeymoon. The wedding took place December 16th 1890. We had a hack; two horses, and white horses at that, to drive us to the boat, and not automobiles as nowadays, and all the trimmings, such as white ribbons on the whip, and on the door handles.

“The interior of the original Holy Rosary Church was very plain; there was not much to it; all my twelve children were christened at the Holy Rosary Church.”

Pioneer wedding.

“Then, Charles Francis, born 28th February 1901, was the first boy christened in the new Holy Rosary” (opened 2 December 1900.)

“But I forgot to tell you about this ‘Billy’ Edwards” (see that file), “he had an express rig; he decorated his horse with paper roses and coloured tissue paper, and followed us down to the boat in his decorated express wagon and horse. He is still living, and was up to see you the other day; he is 83 now.

“Mr. Mills, my husband, was a contractor. I don’t think he had anything in view to bring him here, but it was a new place, and he was young, and came west two years before I did. He came in 1888. We were engaged back in Boston, Massachusetts, and when he was settled, I came out to Vancouver.

“I cannot tell you how many places he built in Vancouver; there were scores of them; all houses as far as I recall, but I think one at Squamish, used for a store, but nearly all houses in Vancouver. All down Davie Street, Kitsilano, Point Grey. He was a great hunter; he used to go out with Mr. Abray, the first policeman; he kept the Cosmopolitan Hotel.”

Davie Street.

“I’ll tell you something. I have actually walked from Granville Street on a one-plank sidewalk, walking down Davie Street, and there was only one house, and that house still stands, owned by Mr. Wintemute.”

English Bay beach.

Major Matthews: What were you going to English Bay for?

Mrs. Mills: “To take a dip; go in swimming, of course; had a little grip with our bathing suit in it; they had more clothes on when they went bathing in those days than they do now. I knew old Joe Fortes.

“But I do like Vancouver, and I have always like it, and there is no other place I would prefer to live. With all its rain. The rain doesn’t bother me; I go out rain or shine, and I am now 75; born 29th March; I shall be 75 next March 29th” (1942.) “And I have always been blessed with very good health; never had any sickness to speak of. Hadn’t time to be ill with twelve children to look after. Our first home was on Seymour Street, 1300 block; from there we went to Mount Pleasant, corner of 11th Avenue and Quebec, next door to Mayor Bethune. In those days there wasn’t much up there. Mayor Bethune was on the corner; we were next to him.”

Conversation with Mr. Tada Ichi Nagao, Suite 4, 157 West 2nd, who kindly called, at my request, at the City Archives this morning, 8 April 1942, for a chat.

I offered Mr. Nagao a cigar, and said, “Smoke.”

Mr. Nagao: “Some time ago, Mr. Justice Morrison, he and I went to an assize court in Nanaimo. During the recess of the court, the Justice sent the sheriff to me to come to his private room. Well, he was smoking; he said, ‘Don’t you smoke?’ I said, ‘Thank you, my Lord.’ Of course, I expected him to give me a cigar. But the cigar was not forthcoming. The Justice said, ‘Why don’t you smoke?’ I said, ‘I thought you would have given me one.’” (Cigar.) “‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘I’m very sorry, but’” (holding up a cigar in his thumb and finger) “‘this is the only one I’ve got.’” (And Mr. Nagao laughed. But how like the kindly Chief Justice.) “I knew him pretty well. I liked him; nice old man. I often went into his room and chatted with him; knew him for a long time.”

Major Matthews: When did you come to Vancouver, Mr. Nagao?

Mr. Nagao: “November 1st, 1886. I came from Seattle, not from Japan. Washington was not a state at that time; Washington was a territory. I came to San Francisco from Japan in 1884. I was born in Japan, forty miles northeast of Tokio, October 4th 1866. My father and mother were samurai, that is the same thing in Japan as a soldier family would be in England. You see, we had a civil war in Japan, and that revolutionised the whole system of the country. Before the revolution, the shogun had the entire power to govern my country, and after the revolution, the Emperor was reinstated, and governs the country now. And his policy was to adopt the western ways, so young men who wanted education in a foreign country were allowed to go anywhere. That was why we came out. That was how it came that, about 1884, educated young men, students, came to North America; no labourers at all, and I came with them; I was one of them, and came to San Francisco on a steamer.

“When I got to San Francisco I went to school. We had a mission school there conducted by the Presbyterian Church. I stayed at the school about eighteen months, learning the English language and other things, and then I was sent by a Japanese exporting house in San Francisco to Tacoma, Washington with Christmas goods. We opened a store, and I was in charge of it. Mr. Kai, of Kai and Co., and the store was on” [blank] “near the Hotel Tacoma. I stayed there during the holiday season, and then closed up the store and the goods were sent back, and I went to Seattle, Washington. I stayed in Seattle for a few months, and then came to Vancouver, 1st November 1886.”

Hastings Sawmill. Trout Lake. Water from flume.

“Well, you know Vancouver, I suppose. The first place I went to when I got to Vancouver, I came via Victoria as there was no direct line here then from Seattle, I went to the Hotel Europe on Alexander Street. After a time I got a job to work in Hastings Sawmill, of course, it was 1887 when I joined the Hastings Sawmill. I was a young man, strong, and I was a lumber marker. I got a dollar a day with board, and the company gave us the shacks to live in, and we went over to the cookhouse for meals. There was no water works in those days; the company got water for the boiler from Trout Lake. The company built a small flume to get the water from that lake, and when we had it very cold, it was all frozen up, and in that case the company sent the water scow to Moodyville to get water. Trout Lake was much higher then than it is now. You see, they made a deep cut to run out water; that is why the level of the lake dropped. I was often up there, at the small lake near Commercial Drive. There was a winding trail, but the flume was already built, and we walked up the flume. We do not see any wild animals, but all kinds of fish, salmon, trout.

“You see, those days salmon were so plentiful in any creek about Vancouver. I don’t know just exactly how to describe it, anyway, well, but I have experience two seasons in fishing on the Fraser River for the Phoenix Cannery at Steveston.”

Shaughnessy. Granville Street South. “The Steep Hill.” Royal mail stage.

“I walked to Steveston; walked, all the way, by what is now Granville Street; no street car, no paving. The Shaughnessy Heights hill was then a very steep hill; they have cut it down a very great deal, it is nothing like as steep now as it was. Very dusty. When we came to the foot of the hill, about 16th Avenue now, where the shops are now, the old stage drive gave command to the passengers to get out; we all got out, and the horses drew the empty stage to the top of the hill.” (Looking at photo C.V. P. Str. 156, N. Str. 102) “I remember this. You see, every summer there was a fire in this forest from Point Grey to New Westminster. That destroyed so much valuable timber. But the people think nothing of it.”

Forest fires. Logging off the forest.

“Of course, timber was very cheap those days; there was too much of it, and people did not value it; only five dollars per thousand feet for logs delivered in the mill. In those days the measuring of logs was done by top measurement; that is, you see, the butt is bigger than the top; when you take the diameter of top you multiply it by the length of the log, then the content of the lumber would be very small comparing to what we do now. You see, what I mean is, the present way of measuring is not done by measuring the small top end. They do it now just about the middle of the log from both ends. That’s to be fair. But all the old measuring was done on the diameter of the small end; the large butt end was disregarded.

“You see, Major, the present way of measuring logs would give to the mill owner from fifteen to twenty per cent of board measure for nothing. I remember once, I was interpreter on the Queen Charlotte Island timber case. The plaintiff came from Japan, the defendant from the United States, and the case tried in a Canadian court; that is why it is very interesting; international interests, and it was proven by the evidence given by lumbermen that fifteen to twenty per cent of logs accrued to the mill owner for nothing.”

Japanese prisoners.

“I started as a court interpreter here a long time ago, first under Judge Bole, County Court, New Westminster, and I have been at it ever since; been on hundreds of cases. You see, queer thing was, the Japanese prisoners, nineteen in number, taken from Steveston to New Westminster about forty-five or fifty years ago, before the Steveston fish riots, the sheriff asked for their names but he could not spell them, so he gave each a number; they were tried by their individual number. In those days that sort of thing was allowed, but not now.”

Twelve Japanese here 1886. First Japanese woman.

“You see, when I came to Vancouver, there were just twelve Japanese here. One of the twelve was a woman, and was married to a Scotch engineer, George Taylor, who was engaged by the Japanese Government before they came here; she was Mrs. George Taylor. They went back to Japan, and both died. The other ten were mostly sailors and mill workers; none of them were educated men.”

Major Matthews: Are you a Christian?

Mr. Nagao: “Yes. I think I am. I’d better tell you how I became a Christian when I was young. I was baptised when I was fourteen in Japan. During the summer recess of high school in Japan, there came a strange missionary. He started a small mission station, but his Japanese speech was not very perfect, so he showed us what he meant to tell. Town people grew to dislike him; broke his windows, doors, with stones. But he stick to his ‘guns,’ and he found two or three followers, and I was one of them. I went to him every day, and he described us” (touching his chest) “how happy are Christians, and he described their way of living in his old country, France—he was French—and all Christian countries, and we believed what he told us. But my people, my father and mother, didn’t like to be baptised, but I was, and Father and Mother objected, and when I returned to the dormitory in the high school, my fellow classmates never spoke to me, yet I prayed to God as all Roman Catholics do. That was a hard thing for a young kid, only fourteen, to go through.”

Major Matthews: Are you a Roman Catholic?

Mr. Nagao: “Yes. Four years later, I left Japan for San Francisco, and I found the social condition of the American people, although they claimed they are Christian, were not so good as I was told by the missionary, and I found many points which were much worse than in Japan, so I had to change my mind. I have changed my mind altogether now.”

Mr. Nagao partook of such humble food and a cup of tea as I was able to offer from my luncheon parcel. We ate at my desk. I suggested that sometime, perhaps, long years in the future, the hatred which, due to war, existed between his nation and mine would disappear.

Mr. Nagao: (fervently) “I hope so.” Then continuing: “I came to North America expecting to find Christians living in peaceful happiness together, but I found out that what the French missionary in Japan had told me was not entirely true.

“There is much to be commended in the Japanese system of government, and some that is not, and the same thing here. My opinion is that it is about fifty-fifty” (equal.)

“I used to be a partner in a mine with Mr. Corbould, the lawyer, of New Westminster. I am in hopes they” (the B.C. Security Commission, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) “will leave me here in Vancouver. I like Vancouver. But, if I must go away, then—I must go, that’s all there is to say about it. I have not long to live. I am 75. I am not enjoying perfect health.

“Mrs. Nagao came from Japan; we were married here, no children. She has not been very well for nearly ten years, and does not leave our home.

“I am not a Japanese subject any longer. My sister in Japan is dead, and I have no other relative there.

“I have been away from Japan over thirty years, and am scratched off their records now. If I went back there, they would say, ‘Who are you?’ They would say, ‘We don’t know you. You are presumed dead.’ I should have to be brought to life again, to be born again, as it were, before I could be a Japanese subject.”

Mr. Nagao rose to keep an appointment downtown. And a very courteous kindly gentleman departed, promising to come again.

Memo of conversation with August Jack Khahtsahlano, son of Khay-tulk (“Supplejack”) of Capilano Indian Reserve, First Narrows, who very kindly called this noon, 15 May 1942, and shared my lunch with me at my desk.

Cedar bark rope, three eighths inch, three strand.

Note: I explained to August that, due to the capture of the Philippine Islands by the Japanese, there was a shortage of manila fibre for making rope, and that someone had suggested we make some in British Columbia from cedar bark as the Indians did before the whiteman came. That Mr. B.W. Leeson, formerly of Quatsino, now of Point Grey, had loaned me a twenty-five foot length, three eighths, three strand, and I got it from the glass case and handed it to him to inspect. I told him that we had had it photographed, that the negative was in the cabinets, and that it had been published as an illustration in the B.C. Lumberman monthly magazine a month ago. JSM.

Major Matthews: August. Who made this rope?

August: “Oh, women folks make it, make it fine, make it small, make it big, all sizes; it’s wet when they are working. Women roll the strand from cedar strips, roll it on their knee with the palms of their hands; just same you roll things.”

Major Matthews: Yes, but that’s the strand; there’s three of them; how do they put them together; doesn’t the strand unravel and get all over the place. Have they got a post or something they tie it to, to keep it tight so that it does not unravel.

August: “They’s got baskets; the” (rolled up) “strand falls into a basket beside them when they sitting down rolling it. Then they put the baskets over there, and they’s got a knothole high up above them, and they poke three strands through it, and it comes down onto their knee and they roll the three strands together just same way as they roll threads into a strand; they’s got no post; just a knot high up where the strands come through from the basket other side.”

Major Matthews: Well, don’t they keep the rope tight while they are rolling; doesn’t it all get messed up and tangled?

August: “Oh, the childrens keep pulling it away.

Major Matthews: Is it any good? Would it wear out if it was run through a block in a pulley, a pulley block?

August: “Indians got no pulley block.”

Major Matthews: How long do the women make the rope?

August: “As long as they want it.”

Major Matthews: How long is the thread; that’s the strip of cedar bark. When do they get the bark? In the fall or spring?

August: “The cedar strip may be eighteen inches, maybe three feet, maybe four feet; they get the bark in the spring when the sap is running; bark no good in the fall.”

Major Matthews: What did they use it for? To hang people with (joking)? Didn’t it wear out; it doesn’t seem it would wear very well, not like manila.

August: “What does anyone use rope for. Indians not use it to hang people with. It’s whitemans what hangs people; Indians don’t hang people. Use the rope for anything you want; tie canoe to beach. It not wear out if you are careful. Old Indians very careful. When canoe come near beach, bow man jump out, pull canoe on beach very carefully so as not to damage it. Same with rope. Old Indians awful careful with rope and canoe.”

Major Matthews: The Japs captured the Philippine Islands and we cannot get any manila fibre to make rope for ships. Some whitemans say, “Make cedar bark rope, same as Indians”; how about that?

August: “Where’s you going to get your cedar bark. Whitemans cut down all the cedar trees; all gone; no cedar trees.”

Indian law and order. Punishments. Hanging.

August: “Are they going to hang four young men for killing a Japanese?”

Major Matthews: I don’t know. When four men go into a store, and one has a revolver, if storekeeper gets killed, that’s murder; somebody going to hang.

August: “Indian not do that. Suppose two Indian fight; they’s quarrel first, then fight; one gets scratched nose, gets his hair pulled; other man gets him down, gets on top; Chief comes along and stops it. The man who wins got to pay. He’s got to give man what’s beat a present, maybe paint his” (the loser’s) “face for him. Man what wins got to pay” (the loser.)

Note by JSM: August is a splendid character, and that is about as fine a thing as I ever heard him say. He has not full command of English words, and the proper interpretation of his meaning comes by inference to those familiar with Indian life.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. Ruby M. Bower (or Bauer) who called at the City Archives, 17 June 1942, this afternoon to make some excerpts for an article on Burrard Inlet about 1882.

She is the daughter of Benjamin Springer, Esq., J.P., manager, Moodyville Sawmill Co., Moodyville.

An Indian retort: a woman’s.

Mrs. Bower said: “I must tell you a story. Mother” (Mrs. Ben Springer) “used to know all the Indian women; they used to do the laundry. The Chinamen” (household help) “did not like doing the household laundry, so the Indian women used to do it, and were up at the house when it had to be done. One of the women was Louise, a fine woman, and she had children, and sent them to the Protestant school.” (Note: I neglected to ask Mrs. Bower what “Protestant school,” but suggest that she meant Protestant Sunday school on Sundays.) “Louise was proud of her children, and looked after them, and did her best for them.

“Well, the Roman Catholic priest met Louise. Louise always called the priests ‘she’ for some reason, perhaps because they wore cassocks. And Louise told Mother what was said.

“It seems the Roman Catholic priest did not like Louise sending her children to the Protestant school, and shook his head; told her it was ‘bad’ business, and gently admonished her. And as a final argument added,” (Priest) “‘She say, “You know where you’ll go, Louise? You’ll go to hell, surely.”’

“So Louise replied, ‘Ah, ah; lots of nice people go to hell nowadays.’”

Note: the conclusion must be that the Indian klootch felt that a Protestant hell was preferable to a Roman Catholic heaven; there can be no other conclusion.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. John Louis Ployart, 1661 Harwood Street, who very kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon, 27 November 1942.

James Augustus Halliday. W.M. Halliday, Alert Bay. Simon Fraser.

Mrs. Ployart said: “My father was James August Halliday; he came to British Columbia from Ontario in 1873; he came part way by the Grand Trunk to Omaha, Nebraska, and then by Southern Pacific to San Francisco, and then up the coast to Victoria. Mother was with him and five children, myself, aged three, included. Two boys and three girls then” (added to afterwards, all still living.) “Mother was a Miss Henderson who came from Grimsby, Jane Henderson; she was born there, but Father was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and came to Canada when he was eight. He was born in 1838, so that he must have come to Canada in 1846. Mother and Father were married when they came to Victoria, and the eldest child was then, in 1873, nine years old. But where they were married I cannot tell you. My father’s uncle was a cousin to Simon Fraser.

“The first thing I can remember was in Yale. There was a snow slide, or there was a heavy snow storm, or something, and all the houses were covered with snow, and they had to dig from house to house; you know how children enjoy something new, even if it was horrible. We were living in Steve Tingley’s house. Mrs. Tingley had been killed in an accident with her husband, but he survived, and the children had been sent east to New Brunswick to be educated. One was only six months old. The elder one died this last summer in Vancouver. The two boys have lived in Vancouver for a long time.”

Steve Tingley’s accident. Camels in Cariboo.

“The cause of the accident which killed Mrs. Tingley was that she and her husband were driving on the Cariboo Road east of Yale and the horses shied at a wheelbarrow, and the horses went over the bluff, killing Mrs. Tingley. Steve Tingley’s second wife was Miss Laumeister, and her father was one of the early Cariboo men; he was the one who took the camels in there. Mrs. Steve Tingley is still living, here in Caroline Court.”

David Oppenheimer at Yale.

“Other notable residents of Yale at that time were David Oppenheimer and his brother, there were two of them, and the Leisers of Victoria, and Marcus Wolf—he committed suicide in Nanaimo—and there was Mrs. McMicking there too.

“I did not go to school because I was only three. I afterwards went to school in New Westminster. You see, Father went straight up the river to Yale from Victoria in 1873, and we did not leave there until 1874 and came down to New Westminster where he was again teaching, and stayed there for six years. Then in 1880 he went to Victoria.”

Indian canoes cross False Creek. Isaac Johns, first Collector of Customs. Bathing on False Creek before 1880. False Creek bridge.

“When we were living at New Westminster, we used to come out on a Saturday, because it was not a school day, and bathe in False Creek; just where it was I am not sure, but there was a bridge, a rickety bridge, a very rickety bridge which crossed False Creek; that was before 1880. The bridge was broken in places and they could not use it; they used canoes to cross. I have an idea—I seem to think—that when we went bathing we did not cross the bridge, but bathed on the south side of the creek at the foot of Mount Pleasant Hill. There was several of we girls. There was the daughters of Isaac Johns, the first Collector of Customs in Vancouver, that is, Maggie Johns and Jennie, the eldest Johns, and some friends of theirs. We bathed in the tide, and I remember the tide came in and took some of the girls’ clothing away altogether.

“Father died in Vancouver in the General Hospital, April 1, 1917; he was a great man to play pranks, and I could not help thinking, April 1, 1917. Mother had died the year before, the night before the Parliament Buildings were burned in Ottawa, February 3, during that terribly heavy snow storm. She died at Comox. Father is buried in Comox; so is Mother.

“We were living at Comox at the time. Father had retired in 1890. He took a small school after 1890, but he did not intend to teach; he did a little relief work. My two youngest brothers who were born in British Columbia had a thousand acre farm in the Comox district, on the Campbell River Road, about a mile and a half from Courtenay, and had an experimental farm of forty acres there. But Father was not living at the farm; he was living in Comox District.

“After Father and Mother arrived in B.C. three more children were born, making their total family eight, four boys and four girls. All are living still, all married, and all have children. Two of them just have one child.

The eldest, Mary, married George Smith, a government agent at Alberni. They had five children, and she is now a widow in Los Angeles, and four are living with them in Los Angeles, and one is married to the liquor commissioner in Quesnelle.

William, he married [blank] and they adopted two children, a boy and a girl, and his wife died four years ago in Victoria.

Ernest Augustus was third. He married a Lilly Kirby, an English bride, and they had seven children; two are dead.

Grace, that’s myself, I married Mr. John Louis Ployart, Canadian born in Québec; he was on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. We were married in Comox. He was Anglican; I was Presbyterian, so we were married in the Presbyterian church and attended the Anglican and my six children—all still living—were baptised in the Church of England, at various places.

Ida, became Mrs. Charles Moss, of Vancouver, and she had six children, but only four now.

Merle, a boy, he has the farm at Comox with Dick; he married an English girl, and they have three children, but only one living. He is six feet four.

Dick, or Richard; he married an English girl, too, and they have one daughter; he lives at Comox. He and Merle are partners.

Lucile—one L—a daughter, she became Mrs. Prendergast; likewise, an English woman, and they are in Victoria. They have four children.

“I was going to tell you that George Smith, my eldest sister’s husband, was born in the Manse at Thrums, in Scotland. Mr. Smith’s father was the Presbyterian clergyman of Thrums. Mr. Prendergast, his brother, was organist of Winchester Cathedral for about thirty years.”

Genealogy, Ployart.

“I have six children. Vivian, Athol, Louie” (not Louis), “a girl; Marjorie, Claud, and the last one is John.

Vivian is farming in Oyster River, married, and has one daughter, who also married and has one child, my great-granddaughter.

Athol is married and is living in Seattle, but there are not any children.

Louie married a Mr. Spaetgens, who fought in the Great War, 1914-1918 with the C.E.F. and went from Saskatchewan, and they have two children; the son in the Navy now, and the daughter is still going to school; she’s sweet; she’s a lovely girl. They call her Patsy but that is not her name.

Marjorie married an American gentleman, Mr. Rogers, and lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is without children.

Claud; he is a physician; he is overseas now with the 3rd Canadian Division as a medical officer, rank of captain. He used to be at Lillooet, and practiced there; was up at Atlin one time. He married an American lady, Deborah Paulson, and they have two children going to school.

John is unmarried; he is in the army here, office work up at the military camp on Little Mountain.

Conversation with William Brierley Shakespeare, son of Noah Shakespeare, Esq., M.P. for Victoria, B.C., of 1350 St. Andrew’s Street, North Vancouver, who kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon and remained for an hour’s chat, 29 April 1943.

Noah Shakespeare, M.P. Sir John A. Macdonald.

Major Matthews: Did you get those copies, photostatic copies, of the telegram your father sent to Sir John A. Macdonald, June 15, 1886, asking financial assistance for the people of Vancouver who had been burned out in the great Fire of June 13, 1886.

Great Fire, 13 June 1886. Ice cream.

Mr. Shakespeare: “Yes, thank you. I came over to Vancouver the morning after ‘The Fire,’ came over on the old steamer Amelia from Nanaimo. I was a very young boy then, about seven, and there was only one building left standing, just a temporary shack of new rough lumber, which had just been thrown up, and where refreshments were being served to those who came near it; it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of where Granville and Hastings Street meet now; somewhere there. There was not a building in sight other than that one; nothing but charred stumps. I was a boy, and accompanied Mr. Blakeway; he was a druggist in Nanaimo, and he volunteered to buy me as much ice cream as I could eat, with the result that I ate about, well, I should think I must have had twenty, more or less, with the usual results—I suffered; this was in Vancouver after we arrived. Mr. Blakeway afterwards moved to Vancouver and established a drug business here, and was burned out in the second conflagration” (1887.)

“You see, in those days, there was no such thing as ice cream factories; everybody made their own ice cream, and it was infinitely nicer ice cream in consequence. I am sure it was the day after the ‘Fire,’ but I am not so sure where the ice cream came from; it is possible that we brought it over with us on the Amelia; quite likely, or it might have come from the numerous parcels of stores which were rushed to the distressed of Vancouver from New Westminster, Victoria and elsewhere. I don’t recall the Amelia stopping in Vancouver long; just a few hours; there was no place where we could stay; there was nothing to do save stroll around, and no place to stroll; everything was black stumps; so we went back again to the Amelia. You see, the people at Nanaimo got word by telegraph that Vancouver had been burned, and next morning they were curious to see it, and I suppose, humanely, do their part in sending over food and stores, so they put the steamer Amelia on, and those who wished to, came over; the boat was crowded; she was only a small boat. You see, it was impossible to stay here; it was impossible to get anything to eat, so they all went back again on the boat.”

The first Hotel Vancouver. “Away out in the clearing.” Granville Street.

“One day, fully four years after—I was just a youth at the time—I came over again; got off the boat and went for a walk. I walked up Granville Street; it seemed an awful long way; Granville Street was a well-defined roadway with a wood plank sidewalk; anyway, I kept on walking and walking, when to my surprise right in front of me I saw the old, the first, Hotel Vancouver, and I said to myself, ‘Why on earth did they put this away out here?’ It seemed so far away from any other activity.”

Note by City Archivist: Memory is a treacherous thing. It was probably 1890 when Mr. Shakespeare came the second time, and, as for the ice cream, there is a possibility that the shack of which he speaks was in the hollow directly below the corner of Hastings and Granville streets, where there was a “draw” which came up from the shore, and it was in that “draw” that the C.P.R. contractors, who were making the first Cordova Street, sheltered their horses and wagons from the fiery blast; they were back of the Fire, as it were, and it may have been that they had a shack for their tools there, and, naturally, it would soon be converted into a food station. Or it may have been near Spratt’s Oilery, at the foot of present day Burrard Street, which had a wharf where a steamer could tie up, and which was being used as a shelter by the homeless people. J.S.M.

Sir John A. Macdonald. Noah Shakespeare.

“But, back to Sir John A. The first time I saw Sir John A. was in Victoria; it was several years after he was elected member of parliament for Victoria, and at that time my father was M.P. too. Sir John laid the cornerstone to the new addition to the Methodist Church—we were Methodists—on Broad Street, Victoria. Sir John had become a member of parliament for Victoria some years previously; he had been defeated in his own constituency of St. Catharines, Ontario, and the Victoria constituency had been ‘opened up’ for him, and he went in without even appearing in the constituency he was to represent. There were a great number of fine people in Victoria in those days; I often think about them.”

Noah Shakespeare.

“Father had one Christian name only, Noah. My second name is Brierley; that was the name of the place where he was born in Staffordshire, South Staffordshire. He came to British Columbia around the Horn in a sailing ship, and six months later arrive at Esquimalt, which was then a naval station, and at Victoria there was only a fort. I don’t recall the year or the name of the ship, but one way of finding it would be that Mother came soon after, and came on the same ship as Mrs. David Spencer, of the big department store.”

Nanaimo. Mrs. Shakespeare.

“Nanaimo was then the only settlement, so Father proceeded there and found employment at the Vancouver Coal Company; he was something above ground; he was not down in the mine, and then, in about a year, he sent for Mother and his only son, Fred, who died in Victoria about six months ago, aged 82. The home in Nanaimo where Mother was domiciled was constructed of logs; it would be, I think, on Chapel Street now, anyway, right near the water, not far north of the Court House, over the water where the C.P.R. steamers dock now. All the furniture in the home was made by Father; made it himself. Some years later, he moved to Victoria and remained there the balance of his life.

“At Victoria he went to work for some pioneer photographer, and after about twelve months, his employer visited the Old Country, and before going sold out to Father who continued the business of photography for some years; his photographs were mostly portraits; then he too sold out and entered the real estate business.”

Mayor of Victoria. Member of parliament.

“He was mayor of Victoria for two terms, then he was elected to the House of Commons at Ottawa, and after serving eight years, and passing through two elections, he became postmaster at Victoria for thirty years until his retirement in, I forget the year. He died at the age of 84, and is buried in the Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria.”

Mrs. Noah Shakespeare comes on sailing ship.

“Mother was Miss Eliza Jane Pearson, but I do not know much about her father except that she, too, came from Brierley Hill, same place as Father, and that they were married in Brierley Hill, and that she was Methodist, so that the records of that church would show. She, too, came on a sailing ship, with my brother Fred, who was then about a year old, and it must have been about 1859 or 1860, somewhere about there, anyway; it was the same ship that Mrs. David Spencer, of the David Spencer department stores, came.

“She went up to Nanaimo where Father had the house ready for her. Fred may have been two years old. Mother died about 1937, and is buried beside Father at Ross Bay Cemetery.”

Shakespeare family.

“After her arrival, six children were born; we were a family of seven, six sons and one daughter, and of these there are living today Maria, now Mrs. F.T. Berryman, of Vancouver, and Percy S. Shakespeare, of Victoria, and myself, of North Vancouver.

“The eldest, Fred, he died, as I have told you, about six months ago, leaving four children. The son is now resident in Seattle, Washington, and the daughters are Mrs. Patton, wife of a Victoria barrister, and Miss Hazel, who is in Victoria, and Miss Una, now on war duty in England.

“Harry, the next son, died unmarried many years ago; he was drowned in Seattle; and the others died young, almost infants, and then came Percy, now retired in Victoria. I was the sixth child, William; Percy was the youngest and completed the seven.”

William B. Shakespeare. John S. Shakespeare.

“I married Miss Winnifred Gertrude Raymond of Victoria, 1904, and at the Centennial Methodist Church, Gorge Road, Victoria. Miss Raymond was the daughter of John Raymond, also of Victoria, a London, Ontario family, who had lived in Victoria a number of years, but were not what Victoria people exactly call pioneers. Our family consists of two sons and one daughter.

“Raymond Noah Shakespeare, the barrister, is of the legal firm of Killam and Shakespeare, barristers, Royal Trust Building, partner of Cecil Killam. John Sidney Shakespeare is also a barrister, and practiced law for seven years in Vancouver with Griffin, Montgomery and Smith, then one year with the Toronto General Trust Company in charge of the estates department, and then became manager for Vancouver of the Montréal Trust Co., and was recently called to the head office of the company in Montréal, where he is now. Raymond is married but there are no children. John is also married, and has two children, Mary and Sydney, spelt differently to his father. John married Miss Marmo Cross of Calgary, a very old pioneer family of Calgary.

“My daughter is Betty, not Elizabeth but Betty, and strange to say, she never had a name until she was old enough to choose her own, which was when she was about twelve. Her birth was never registered, at least, not until her brother Raymond—he was a lawyer and knew about these things—he was astounded when he found out it was not registered, and he registered it. This is what happened.

“When she was a very small baby, when her brother Jack first saw her, he said, ‘Why, Mother, she’s no bigger than a bunny,’ and she went by the name of Bunny until she reached the age when she resented it; she didn’t like other girls calling her ‘Bunny.’ So the outcome of it was when it was registered she selected her own name, and she changed it herself, and Raymond registered it. Afterwards, she married John A. Coleman, partner in the Consolidated Coal Company, Vancouver, and today, Mrs. Shakespeare and myself, and Mrs. Coleman, that is, Betty, are all living together in the same big house at 1350 St. Andrew’s Avenue, North Vancouver.”

William B. Shakespeare.

“As for myself. I was educated in the public schools at Victoria, and afterwards spent a year in England at Prospect College, Storbridge” (sic) “I think it is in, or just out of, Staffordshire. My grandfather was alive at the time, and he was quite an old man, and he had never seen any of the family, and my people thought he would like to see me before he died. I was born January 24, 1877, and went over to England when I was fourteen. I came back and was apprenticed to the jewellery business, Pennock and Clayton, in Victoria, and afterwards opened up a business of my own in Victoria, and after seven years, sold out to W.H. Wilkerson. Then I came to Vancouver about thirty years ago—I am poor on dates—and took a position with W.B. Saunders, the jeweller, and after that, during the real estate boom days, went into the real estate business, ‘on my own,’ as they say, and finally formed a partnership with Arthur Nelson, and opened up a confectionery manufacturing plant, known as Nelson and Shakespeare Limited, Vancouver; it was at 149 Alexander Street, in a five-storey building. The business grew from a comparatively small beginning until it was employing more than sixty people; then we sold to the wholesale grocers, W.H. Malkin Co. Ltd., and they closed the business up. Finally, I became established in the general insurance business, and which I have followed ever since.”

Read and approved, 3 May 1943.

W.B.S.

Conversation with August Jack Khahtsahlano of Lower Capilano, North Vancouver, son of Khay-tulk, or “Supplejack” of Chaythoos (end of Pipe Line Road, First Narrows), and grandson of Chief Khahtsahlanogh, i.e., Kitsilano, of same place, etc., etc., City Archives, 9 July 1943.

August very kindly brought me a basket of blackberries.

Blackberries, 1943. West Vancouver.

Major Matthews: How much?

August: “Four pounds; all you’re going to get this year. No blackberries; all gone. I go all along West Vancouver, that’s all I could find. No more. No blackberries this year. And cherries. No cherries; just few.”

Making cedar slabs. Making cedar canoe. Falling cedar tree.

Major Matthews: August. Did Indian cut cedar slab without falling tree; cut cedar slab from live cedar tree?

August: “Sure they did.”

Major Matthews: How?

August: “Well. You see this” (taking pencil and drawing.) “They pick a good cedar tree, the one they want; it leans a bit. Well. They put in an under cut, like this. Cut about half way through to the middle, then they drive a small wedge; small wedges; yew wood wedges, or deer’s horn. The tree begins to fall; it splits right up.

“You see, it split open while it’s standing up, and then it falls. Drive in the wedges; then the tree split right up to top, and then it breaks when the split goes so far. It goes so far till it gets there, and then it breaks.

“Don’t you see? The whole weight of the tree is on the uncut half, the half they did not cut, and it breaks away. Then the piece the Indians want hits the ground. About half the tree; other half remain standing up, like spike. Then they cut the piece what’s on the ground just the length they want for canoe, for anything, for cedar slab, for what they want it for, such as shakes, cedar shakes.”

Indian canoes.

Major Matthews: First time I ever heard about this. Do they do that when they want log for canoe?

August: “Eh, eh. Yes.”

Major Matthews: Is it big enough?

August: “They’s always pick the right sized tree. The canoe is only half the log, and they’s got the best part of the log on the ground, and they’s cut off the part they want for the canoe.”

Major Matthews: How long would it take them to cut it down with a stone hammer and stone chisel?

Indian day of labour.

August: “Maybe one man one month and canoe finished—if he works every day from daylight to sunset. No eight hours in those Indian days. I remember, not my grandfather—he died before—but another man old enough to be my grandfather. I see him put a handkerchief around his head. Then he’s got a little basket like that, with all his little wooden wedges in it, and he go off to work.”

Indian tools.

Major Matthews: What sort of a chisel?

August: “Well, they’s used to use shale; like slate, it’s hard; but when I’s a boy they’s got iron.”

Major Matthews: Where did they make the canoes?

August: “Any place where there’s a good tree. When the canoe made, take it to the beach; not take the log to the beach. No horse, no mule, all hand power.”

Note by J.S.M.

Mr. Khahtsahlano (August Jack Khahtsahlano is his legal name, and as such is registered under the Change of Names Act, Vital Statistics Record Office, Parliament Buildings, Victoria) shows in his drawing that, after a suitable tree was selected, a cut was put in severing the trunk to a depth of about half way through or more. Wedges were then driven in at a point where the cut was deepest, on both sides of the trunk, with the result that, due to the weight of the leaning trunk on the uncut portion of the tree, assisted by the force of the wedges in creating the commencement of a split, the split ultimately ran up the trunk and this caused the half which had been cut through to swing out, at the bottom, and the top of the tree to lean still more until finally, it toppled over. The uncut portion broke near the top when the pressure and weight exceeded its strength to resist. At the conclusion of the operation, the log lay on the ground with most of the branches of the tree still attached, and the uncut portion still stood upright as a tapering spike broken at the top.

City Archives,	J.S. Matthews,

City Hall,	9 August 1943.

Vancouver.

Item # EarlyVan_v6_015

[photo annotation:]

Yew wood or deer horn wedges.

Under cut with stone chisel.

Outline of canoe.

Outline of log as felled.

Bottom end cut off.

Cut off.

Shape of finished canoe.

Cut off.

Top end cut off with stone chisel.

Indian method of felling cedar tree with stone axe and stone chisels; yew wood or deer horn wedges.

I asked August Jack Khahtsahlano if Indians cut cedar slabs from standing tree. He grasped this sheet of paper on my desk, and with a lead pencil, drew these few hasty strokes. After he had departed I traced over them with ink. August neither reads nor writes.

Sketch to go with conversation of 9th July 1943.

City Archives, Vancouver.	J.S. Matthews.

Memo of conversation, 12 July 1943, with Mrs. W.B. Irvine, of Montréal, who has been visiting at Sidney, Vancouver Island for three months, and is now spending a month in Vancouver before returning to Montréal.

She is staying at the residence of Mrs. N.F. Mussenden, 2915 West 37th Avenue, Kerrisdale, Kerr. 0725-R, and very graciously visited the City Archives today and remained for two or three hours conversing on old Vancouver, and looking at the Hamilton documents and paintings.

Note: Mrs. Irvine, née Bodington, is the daughter of Dr. George Fowler Bodington, M.D., pioneer physician of Vancouver, first honorary secretary of the Vancouver Reading Room, now Vancouver Public Library, and granddaughter of Dr. George Bodington, M.D. of Sutton-Coldfield, England, world renowned as the first medical practitioner to advocate the open air treatment for tubercular sufferers. About two months ago the Vancouver Daily Province, Saturday magazine section, published a half-page illustrated article on her grandfather and father. Her sister is Mrs. L.A. Hamilton of Toronto, widow of the late Alderman L.A. Hamilton of the first City Council, C.P.R. Land Commissioner who laid out the site of the City of Vancouver, upon whom the freedom of the city was conferred in 1938. Her son is Ronald Irvine, Esq., manager, Fairchild Aircraft (manufacturing) Company of Longueuil, Québec.

Vancouver, the beautiful.

Mrs. Irving said: “As I came west on the C.P.R. this spring, I was overjoyed to be back in beautiful British Columbia, and enraptured with Vancouver again. I was born in England, not far from Sutton Coldfield, and spent part of my girlhood in Vancouver. I was eleven years old when I left Vancouver to go to eastern Canada, and do you know I cried when we had to go away and leave it. I think Vancouver is the most beautiful place I know of, with its mountains and the sea and the green trees. Victoria is nice, very nice, but my heart is with Vancouver.”

L.A. Hamilton.

(After spending half an hour viewing the originals, in frames, of Mr. Hamilton’s watercolours, and the album of photographs of the same paintings) “My brother-in-law was quite an artist, wasn’t he? I sometimes wonder why he does not get more credit as an artist.” (Note: his other accomplishments overshadow.)

Item # EarlyVan_v6_016

“Mr. Hamilton was a very clever man, and full of humour. But just before he died, he grew very old. He ‘made’ Glen Leven at Lorne Park, Ontario; fixed it up, and just ‘made’ it nice. He used to be fond of chopping there, and would take an axe and chop logs, but, towards the last, he chopped very slowly and laboriously, quite a long pause between each slow stroke, and one day, as he slowly raised the axe and let it strike again, he remarked to me, ‘You see, I can still chop.’

“I remember him once wearing a long red coat; it was part of” [blank] “and he got it out and wore it. We teased him, and said, ‘Lockie’” (Lauchlan), “‘why the red coat?’ He replied that the British Empire was at war, and he had to wear a red coat.”

First rustic bridges. Stanley Park.

“Mr. Hamilton designed the first rustic bridges over the small streams in Stanley Park; they were made of small poles and branches of trees cut right at hand. You know what rustic bridges are like; something like this” (drawing.)

Item # EarlyVan_v6_017

“We charged him with including ‘H’ for Hamilton, his own initial, in them, and he was quite taken aback when he observed that, quite undesignedly, that was what he had done. It was all in fun, of course.”

Glen Leven, Ontario. Kissimmee, Florida.

“Mr. Hamilton felt the winter’s cold in Toronto; that was why he spent his winters at his estate, ‘Oak Tree House,’ Kissimmee, Florida. He owned both ‘Oak Tree House’ in Florida, and ‘Glen Leven’ in Ontario.”

Early Vancouver. Howe Street, 400 block. Sweet scented musk.

“Dr. Bodington, my father, lived on Howe Street between what is now Pender and Hastings Street, but it was all wild then. Mr. Abbott’s house” (Gen. Supt., C.P.R.) “was just across the way—on the angle—and Mrs. Abbott had a lot of hens in a run. All around was swampy, and I used to go out in the swampy ground and gather wild musk, such large plants, about eighteen inches high I should think, and so sweet smelling.” (Note: for some reason unknown, of recent years, musk has lost its aroma.)

Grouse Mountain. “The elephant.”

“My sister” (Mrs. L.A. Hamilton) “used to call that mountain over there, Grouse Mountain, ‘The elephant.’ Don’t you think it looks like an elephant?”

Major Matthews: (delightedly) Mrs. Irvine, you’ve just given me, unconsciously, an idea, one that I have been looking for for a long time. Do you see that peak over there, the most westerly, the part at the top of the long slop up from Capilano Valley; it’s part of Crown Mountain, but from here, it looks like a separate peak; actually, it is part of Mount Crown; it has been called the “Knees,” but I don’t think that a suitable name. With a little imagination you can see that it has the outline of the tail, back, head and trunk of an elephant; tail to the west, trunk to the east. Why not call that peak “The Elephant.” We already have “The Lions.”

(Note: it is quite possible that, as about 1890, the two peaks, known to the Indians as “The Twins,” and to pioneers variously as “The Sisters,” “Sheba’s Breasts,” but which in or about that year were christened “The Lions,” Mrs. Hamilton heard of the new name, and it suggested to her that “The Lions” west of Capilano Creek might have a counterpart in “The Elephant” to the east of that valley. JSM.)

Mrs. Irvine is an intimate friend of Mrs. (Capt.) Sutherland Horn, 5237 Dunbar Street. The Board of Park Commissioners have sent her complimentary tickets to “The Theatre Under the Stars,” now playing in Stanley Park. His Worship the Mayor has invited her to inspect the City Hall. The Women’s Canadian Club will have her as their guest at an early club meeting. JSM.

Item # EarlyVan_v6_018

[photo annotation:]

“West End,” Vancouver, autumn 1889, looking southwest across “Coal Hbr Bridge,” showing “Park Road,” entrance to Stanley Park before bridge built 1888, and arch erected for Lord Stanley.

J.S.M. Oct. 1889. Stanley Park Brewery is at foot of Alberni St produced. Big tree beside arch is well known tree at foot of Georgia St. See photo showing Indian huts on shore.

This was taken from a point about a few feet south of Queen Victoria’s monument in Stanley Park.

C.V. N. St. 41 P. SL 115. The house was built by George Grant Mackay, and was afterwards “Stanley Park Brewery,” Royal Brewing Co. Ltd.

Memo of conversation with Mr. W.A. Roedde, pioneer, of G.A. Roedde, Ltd., bookbinders, etc., Homer Street, who very kindly called at the City Archives this morning to discuss bookbinding matters, and subsequently indulged in our recollections of early Vancouver together, 3 August 1943.

Kitsilano Beach. Yew Street. Bears.

Mr. Roedde: (looking at the photograph of Vancouver from the air, a well-known photo taken by the Royal Canadian Air Force about 1931, and of which thousands have been printed in various forms, and at this moment, we are preparing coloured and framed copies for Lord Granville, and on the 26th July—a week ago—other copies were presented at the Mansion House, London, by W.A. McAdam, Agent-General for B.C. to the Rt. Hon. the Lord Mayor [Sir Samuel Joseph] who in turn presented them, by request, to Sir Gerald Burrard, and Lord Bennett replied) “There, right down in the corner of Greer’s Beach” (Kitsilano Beach) “at the foot of Yew Street, that was where I shot my first bear.”

West End. Nicola Street. Wild ducks.

(Pointing to West End) “And there I shot ducks, right in the wet below Nicola Street, among the willows. That would be about forty-four years ago; I’m 53 now, and then I was nine or ten.”

Major Matthews: How did you come to be with a gun at that age? (As boy of nine, Major Matthews had a gun—in New Zealand.)

Coal Harbour. Wild ducks. Ron Maitland. Lost Lagoon.

Mr. Roedde: “Well. We lived at 1415 Barclay Street; the house was built, I think, in 1891; I’m not sure, I think it was 1891; and I was always fond of guns; there was a gun hanging in the kitchen. It was an old double-barrelled muzzle loader which had been given me. I used to shoot ducks in Coal Harbour with Ron Maitland; he’s brother to R.L. Maitland, the Attorney-General, now. Here’s something that’s interesting about ducks, wild ducks. We used to shoot them down in Coal Harbour, and very frequently we used to go on the old Coal Harbour wooden pile bridge and shoot the ‘night flight.’ The birds used to fly over in the evening at what is now Lost Lagoon, and the interesting part is that if you go to the magnificent Causeway which has replaced the old wooden bridge, you can see the same night flight of wild ducks despite all the civilisation.”

Major Matthews: Why, even the wild ducks in False Creek are tame now; I used to shoot them at the foot of Ash Street, shot them off the cottage verandah. And today when the street cars cross the old Kitsilano trestle bridge, and rattle over with much noise, the wild ducks are just below, and don’t take any notice. In the old days you could not get within two hundred yards of them.

Mr. Roedde: “I used to do my market shooting…”

Major Matthews: What do you mean by market shooting?

Wild ducks. Westham Island. George Reifel. Duck sanctuary.

Mr. Roedde: “I did a lot of shooting at the mouth of the Fraser River—I still do, but not for the market, just for sport now—and in those early days there was no limit” (on the bag.) “You could shoot as many as you could pack home. Well, as I was going to say, I still shoot at that place; it is the mouth of the main river, south side, near Westham Island; a lot of that area has been reclaimed by George Reifel” (1920 Southwest Marine Drive.) “He has made a duck sanctuary out there. Those birds are just as wild as you know them when you were a boy. But outside the sanctuary” (they are wild.) “George used to feed them. Well, inside the sanctuary, those wild birds will come and land at your feet; they know they are safe in there; no one shooting at them. Some time you ought to get George to give you something on that sanctuary he has built there; he has spent thousands of dollars on it. It is a wonderful sight to see all those wild ducks that you couldn’t get within two hundred feet of outside the sanctuary—two hundred feet is about as near as you can shoot—but the ducks inside will land right down within ten or twelve feet of you.”

Beaver lake. “The Stanley Park Lake.” Indian canoe. Beavers and beaver dams.

“I used to have an Indian canoe hidden in the Stanley Park Lake.” (Note: unnamed in those days, now Beaver Lake, First Narrows.) “They call it Beaver Lake now. I had it hidden in the tall grass and bushes, and I had my decoys hidden there too. The Park Commissioners did not know, or they would not have ‘stood for it,’ even in those days.”

Major Matthews: Ever see any beaver there?

Mr. Roedde: “Oh, yes. Have seen them right at your feet; if you kept quiet and still, they would come right up to three or four feet of you, and nibble a piece of wood. If you made the slightest movement, would just dive off into the water.”

Ron Maitland. Beaver dams.

Major Matthews: How many were there?

Mr. Roedde: “Oh, I would say there would be three or four beaver there. I haven’t been there for years, but I have seen the lake plugged up with their dams, and all the marsh at the back flooded. But remember, even in those days it was illegal to shoot them. Ron Maitland used to go there with me to shoot ducks.”

Hon. F.L. Carter-Cotton.

“Talking about early newspapers. Father” (G.A. Roedde) “was a partner with Carter-Cotton once, away back in 1888; it was only about a year. The partnership did not last long; both men too dominant in their character.”

Peter Plante. Dedication, 1889, and rededication, 1943, of Stanley Park.

Memo of conversation, 4 August 1943, with Frank Plante, of Clarke Road, R.R. No. 2, New Westminster, (Clarke Road is on the way from New Westminster to Port Moody), where he resides with his sister, Mrs. (Captain) George Mayers. He called at the City Archives this afternoon, as he must have read in the newspapers of the proposed rededication of Stanley Park by Lord Stanley in 1889, which rededication is to take place near the Lumberman’s Arch on 25 August 1943, in the afternoon.

Stanley Park, dedication, 1889. His Excellency Lord Stanley. His Worship David Oppenheimer. Chaythoos (end of Pipe Line Road.)

Mr. Plante: “About the proposed ceremony soon in Stanley Park. The rededication of it. I drove Lord Stanley and Mayor Oppenheimer to the dedication in 1889, in a two-horse hack; the only hack in town then.”

Major Matthews: How interesting. I’m glad you came in. Tell me about it. Who was in the carriage, the hack.

Mr. Plante: “Well, there was Lord Stanley, and Mayor Oppenheimer, and there were two other men. I think one was the City clerk” (Thos. F. McGuigan) “and the other may have been an alderman; I think he was Thomas Dunn, but I’m not sure. I had the two-horse hack, and we started at the old Hotel Vancouver. Mine was the only hack in town, but there were other little carriages went out there with us.

“We drove off down Georgia Street to the Park, and then around the park to the platform out at the end, and Lord Stanley and Mayor Oppenheimer were on the platform. There were ladies there, too. Von Volkenburg” (sic) “the butcher had a four-horse butcher wagon all decorated up, and took out a crowd in it; John Murray of Port Moody, he’s dead now, was driving.”

Major Matthews: Was it raining?

Mr. Plante: “It was raining a little that day.”

Stanley Park christened. Wine.

“When we got out there they had a bottle of wine on the stand, or platform I suppose you would call it. I know I had the bottle in the hack, and after we got there someone came and got it from me. Afterwards I saw it on the platform; no, not on a table; I don’t remember a table on the platform, and as far as I could see from my high perch on the seat of the hack, which I had taken a short distance—a few yards—out of the way, the wine was used to christen Stanley Park by pouring it on the ground.”

Speeches.

“Then there was a speech by Lord Stanley, and the Mayor had made a speech, and the ceremony lasted about half an hour, and then, the same day, I had my photo taken by Harry Devine, who was in the photograph business then; I was dressed just as I am now, and my ordinary clothes on. I’ll let you have the photograph to make a copy of.”

Lord Stanley. New Park Road.

“After the ceremony, which lasted half an hour, we drove right back to the Hotel Vancouver; we did not stop anywhere; the Park Road was new and in good shape, and white; it was covered with white clam shells from the Indian midden at what is now Lumberman’s Arch.”

Major Matthews: How was the vice-regal party dressed?

Mr. Plante: “Lord Stanley was dressed with a top hat and frock coat, and Mayor Oppenheimer the same. No one was in uniform that I can think of. And the ladies were in old style dresses with long skirts and” (laughing) “a great big bustle.” (And then he laughed again.) “Do you remember Mr. Matthews, manager of the Hotel” (Vancouver); “he was manager then.”

Harry (H.A.) Berry. Bob Rutherford. The first C.P. Transfer Co. Mayor Oppenheimer. Post Office, Hastings Mill. Post Office, Carrall Street. Great Fire, 13 June. Alderman Robert Balfour. Balmoral Hotel.

“When we got back to the Hotel, Mayor Oppenheimer gave me a five dollar tip. Mayor Oppenheimer was all right; he was a good mayor.

“Before that I used to drive for Harry Berry and Bob Rutherford of the C.P. Transfer, the first transfer company in town, and I drove for the mail and express to and from Hastings Mill where the boats used to land at the mill wharf, and take the mail and express up to the Post Office on Carrall Street—before the Fire.” (13 June 1886.) “On the day of the fire I was picking up people at the Fire and driving them to the False Creek Bridge.” (Westminster Avenue, now Main Street.) “I also drove for Martin and Balfour of the ‘Balmoral’ on the corner of Cordova and Carrall streets.”

Genealogy of Plante. Peter Plante. Ada Young. Frank Plante. First marriage on Burrard Inlet. French John.

“I was born at Moodyville, 13th April 1868. My father was Peter Plante; my mother was Ada Young.”

Major Matthews: Was she half Indian?

Mr. Plante: “Her name was something, I cannot pronounce it properly, but it was something like ‘Deguin’” (daughter of Supplien Guinne, or “French John,” of what is now Marpole); “she was always called Young; we always called it John Young; her father was my granddad. He had been with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and came with them from Three Rivers, Québec. So did my father, Peter Plante. And landed at old Fort Langley.”

Supplien Guinne. Brockton Point Cemetery.

“The eldest child was myself, born 13th April 1868. Then next was my sister Lizzie, or Mrs. Ross. The third was my brother Jesse, who is dead; he died four years ago, about. The next was my sister Delia, now Mrs. Buck, of Monroe” (sic), “state of Washington, and the next was Peter, the boy, and my sister Zoe. Zoe and Peter are buried on Brockton Point by the Nine O’Clock Gun. The last of all is my sister, Lena, now Mrs. Captain George Mayers of New Westminster, so that altogether there were three boys and four girls. Jimmie Ross, my oldest sister’s son, lives in Vancouver, 12th and Collingwood, I think; he runs the Arctic Club, a restaurant downtown on West Pender Street. I was up the Cariboo when Father and Mother died, and I do not know where they are buried.”

Hastings Sawmill school. False Creek bridge. Early attempted suicide.

“I was at the Hastings School, here, this one in the photograph. And here, this old bridge, I remember that; the old False Creek bridge was rickety.

“I was driving south over it one day, and it was rickety, and I was watching, and just here, at the south end, I saw a girl coming along reading an open bible, and just when I got near her, she climbed on the rail, and with her bible open, jumped off into False Creek. But her skirts ballooned, and that kept her afloat. I shouted and hollered, and that man who kept the Bridge Hotel at the north end, he came; they got a boat, and saved her. It was her skirts full of air which saved her. I don’t know who she was; never found out.”

Further conversation with Frank Plante, of Clarke Road, R.R. No. 2, New Westminster (Clarke Road is on the way from New Westminster to Port Moody) where he resides with his sister, Mrs. (Captain) George Mayers, 9 August 1943.

Mr. Plante said that he had been to W.J. Moore, 420 West Hastings Street, as requested by me, and had his photograph taken. He also brought me, for copying, a photo of himself taken by the late Harry T. Devine, pioneer photographer, on 29 October 1889, the day he, Frank Plante, drove Lord Stanley and Mayor Oppenheimer around the Stanley Park for the dedication ceremonies.

I also read to him my account of his conversation of 4 August 1943, which he approved of as correct, except that the portion referring to Alderman Robert Balfour, alderman on the first City Council, 1886, needed amplification. JSM.

Alderman Robert Balfour. Martin and Balfour. The Great Fire, 1886. Balmoral Hotel.

Mr. Plante said: (after reading his conversation of August 4th to him) “That’s all right except here, where you have me saying: ‘I also drove for Martin and Balfour of the Balmoral Hotel’ at the corner of Cordova and Carrall.” (Note: the original Balmoral Hotel was at the corner of Columbia and Hastings; the second was at the corner of Carrall and Cordova.)

Mr. Plante: “On the night of the fire, the same night, 13th June 1886, Sunday night, I drove the Martin family, the Balfour family, and the waitresses of the Balmoral Hotel, over to New Westminster in an express wagon. There were thirteen of them all told, all in the same express wagon.”

Insley of Colonial Hotel. New Westminster.

“I took them to the Colonial Hotel, New Westminster; Insley was ‘running’ it. The only place they had to put them was in the parlour upstairs, so the whole thirteen of them slept on the parlour floor; it was the only place Insley had.”

The first rubber tire in British Columbia. The first traction engine in B.C.

On 11 August 1943, Calvert Simson, Esq., 1890 Barclay Street, Vancouver, formerly storekeeper (the second or third) at the Hastings Sawmill, and who came to Burrard Inlet about 1884, presented the City Archives with a piece of thick pure rubber, dark but not quite black, a cube roughly three and one half inches square, which he cut, himself, from one of the tires of the famous Cariboo Road traction engine, the traction engine which is well known in the histories of the Cariboo. It is in excellent state of preservation despite its age of approximately 75 years. The shape of a groove on it, which is one half of a hole cut through, evidently that of a bolt which at one time attached it to the tire, is sharp and distinct as though made last week.

This traction engine was used on the Cariboo Road during the Cariboo gold excitement, or soon after, but did not prove a success. It was afterwards purchased by Jeremiah Rogers of Jerry’s Cove, or Jericho, English Bay, and was used to haul out logs by that early timber and logging contractor from the forests of Point Grey and Little Mountain and Fairview and Shaughnessy.

Another sample of this rubber was, some years ago, presented to the City Archives by August Jack Khahtsahlano (Kitsilano), who, as a boy, cut a piece of rubber from the original tire and shaped it with a knife into a ball about the size of a tennis ball. He presented it to the City Archives some years ago. At the time he cut the rubber for the ball, the old tire was lying in the rubbish of a logging rollway about the foot of Trafalgar Street or Macdonald Street, English Bay.

J.S. Matthews

CITY ARCHIVIST.

City Archives,

City Hall,

Vancouver,

11 August 1943.

Conversation with Calvert Simon, formerly storekeeper, Hastings Sawmill, at the City Archives, City Hall, 11 August 1943.

Robert Knight of Knight Road.

Mr. Simson said: “Robert Knight was well known to me; I was the executor of his estate after his death. He had mined in the Cariboo, did not make any money at gold mining, and decided to ‘get out.’ He and his partners struck out for the coast on foot, and each day they walked as far as they could in order to conserve what little money they had; the farther they walked, the cheaper the meals got. At one place, the meals would be $2.00, at the next only $1.50; the nearer they got to civilisation, the lesser the cost of the meals, so each day they walked as far as they possibly could to reduce their expenditures as they had so little money.

“How Robert Knight came to locate at Knight Road, named after him, I don’t know. He cleared about five acres out there at Knight Road. He was single, and he left about twelve or fourteen thousand dollars to nieces and nephews at different places in the United States; Texas was one, I think. I wound up his estate. He died about, I should think, 1914, and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in a plot owned by me. Mr. Knight was a great walker, and used to live in Mount Pleasant; he lived with my wife’s family, the Blairs, on Ontario Street near 10th. The houses were built by Jimmy Kemp, who built the Badminton Hotel, and St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, and he sold one to my wife’s people. Kemp went down to Los Angeles, California, and made a fortune as a contractor.”

Joseph Huntly—jailer and first City Clerk. Jonathan Miller—Constable. Granville.

“Soon after I came here” (about 1884) “I remember seeing Joseph Huntly with a gang of prisoners on Water Street, or what is now Water Street, right out in front of Jonathan Miller’s cottage” (corner, Water and Carrall Street.) “There were about six of them, and they were doing some cleaning up; Joseph or ‘Joe’ Huntly was Constable Miller’s jailer, and was in charge of them; they were men from some sailing ship down at the Hastings Mill. Well, ‘Joe’ went and lay down; it was a hot day, and he fell asleep, and when he woke up his prisoners had gone.

“He married Constable Miller’s eldest daughter; he was her second husband. Her first husband was the Captain” (Trimble, sic, his name) “of a sailing ship, and he was lost at sea, and then she married Joe Huntly. They had one daughter, and I hear she did well, but who she is now I don’t know, but could easily find out; ask Mrs. Alex McKelvie; she’ll tell you.

“What became of Joe Huntly I don’t know, nor do I think anyone else does; he just disappeared and that is all I know about it, or him; we never heard where he went to.”

Frank Plante, Peter Plante, Ada Guinne, Ada Young.

First marriage on Burrard Inlet. 18 July 1868.

At the rededication ceremonies, Stanley Park, Vancouver, 25 August 1943, Frank Plante drove the hack, two white horses, which conveyed “Lord Stanley” and “Mayor David Oppenheimer” to the festivities. This followed several visits by Frank Plante to the City Archives from his home with his sister, Lena, now Mrs. Captain George Mayers, Clarke Road, R.R. No. 2, (Westminster to Port Moody), New Westminster. During one of these visits, at the request of Major Matthews, City Archives, Mr. Plante brought an old photo of himself. This photo has been copied on a negative together with a narrative of certain events, the negative being in the City Archives.

The print was read to Mr. Plante, and approved of by him as correct so far as he knew, and then a print was given him to take away with him. What he did comment upon was that it was the first time he ever knew that “Guinne” was the actual name of his mother, and not “Young.” He also said that he knew that his grandmother was Squamish Indian, but added, “That was not my fault; I had nothing to do with it.”

The photograph is of a three-quarter length man with dark moustache, watch chain, and coat buttoned with one button, and beside it the narrative reads:

FRANK PLANTE. Eldest child of first marriage on record on Burrard Inlet; that of Peter Plante and Miss Ada Young, or Guinne, at Moody’s Mills, later Moodyville, now North Vancouver. 18th July 1868. Peter Plante came from Three Rivers, Que.

Miss Ada Young, or “Addie,” half French Canadian, half Squamish, daughter of Supplien Guinne, known as “French John,” and “John Young,” of Three Rivers, Que., former Hudson’s Bay Company employee of Fort Langley, preempted D.L. 319, North Arm Fraser River, Oct. 30th, 1872, and was the first settler at Marpole. His farm was at south end of Granville street. His name was hard to spell and pronounce; he became known as “French John” and “John Young.” His Indian wife was Khah-my, daughter of Chief Khaht-sah-lanogh (Kitsilano), of Chaythoos, First Narrows, and “Addie” was their daughter. Khay-tulk, or “Supplejack” was a brother of Khah-my.

Frank Plante, eldest child of Peter and Ada Plante, was born at Moody’s Mills, 13th April 1868.

On 29th October 1889, Frank Plante drove the hack which conveyed Lord Stanley, Governor-General, and Mayor Oppenheimer to Chaythoos, an old Indian clearing where, beside “Supplejack’s” mausoleum of wood on posts, His Excellency dedicated Stanley Park to the use and enjoyment of all peoples for all time. Beside him stood his son, Hon. Mr. Stanley. Fifty-four years later, 25th August 1943 Frank Plante again drove a hack conveying David Oppenheimer, grand-nephew, to a re-dedication ceremony sponsored by the Parks Board; the aged Earl of Derby, (Hon. Mr. Stanley) sent his greetings, and City Clerk McGuigan’s place was taken by his nephew, W.J. McGuigan. This photo of Frank Plante was taken by Harry Devine, pioneer photographer, on the day of dedication, 29th Oct. 1889, and August, 1943, was presented by Frank Plante to City Archives.

J.S. Matthews,

17 Aug. 1943.

Note: at the reading to Frank Plante, August Jack Khahtsahlano, son of Khay-tulk, or “Supplejack” sat listening; i.e., white great-grandson, and Indian grandson of Chief Khahtsahlano.

Conversation with Hugh E. Campbell, 2848 Birch Street, who kindly called at the City Archives this morning, 19 August 1943.

Hugh E. Campbell. Vancouver Fire Brigade. Guard of Honour. Stanley Park, dedication. Lord Stanley.

Mr. Campbell: “My recollection is that Lord Stanley did not go out to Stanley Park in a two-horse hack as Plante” (Frank) “says. He went out there in a carriage drawn by four white horses; there were four white horses in town; two were heavy, and two were light, and they had the light ones as leaders.

“Then, when Lord Stanley came back the Fire Brigade acted as a guard of honour; that was the 29th October dedication.

“There was about twenty of us. We were wearing a blue uniform; it was then the paid fire department, not the volunteer fire department. We all stood, about twenty of us, in two rows, and Lord Stanley drove in between the two ranks. We were under Carlisle; no fire engine; the fire engines had been left behind in the Fire Halls in case of fire.

“We were not in our red shirts because in the paid fire department we never had red shirts. That was in the hook and ladder company, which were volunteers before the department was formed. The ‘hose’ men had blue shirts and the ‘ladder’ men had red shirts.

“Lord Stanley’s carriage drove between us, and then they got out and went into the Hotel Vancouver; he did not inspect us.”

The formal address of welcome.

“I don’t know who wrote or composed the formal address of welcome to Lord Stanley. It must have been Tom McGuigan, or the Mayor, or somebody.”

Memo of conversation with Calvert Simson, former storekeeper, Hastings Sawmill, who kindly called at the City Archives, this morning, 26 August 1943.

Lewis Colby, 1884. Moodyville ferry. Moodyville mail boat. Post Office, 1884.

Mr. Simson: “When I came here in 1884, Lewis Colby was the ferryman taking the mail by rowboat from Granville, Hastings Sawmill, Moodyville, to George Black’s at Hastings.”

D.L. 196. Hastings Sawmill Co. Ltd.

“Some time ago I was looking at some old documents in the office of Macaulay, Nicolls, Maitland Co., real estate, and took this note off them.”

D.L. 196. 234.92 acres. Purchase price 4/2, or $1.00 per acre, Nov. 30th 1865. B.C. & V.I. Spar, Lumber & Sawmill Co. [first known as “Stamp’s Mill”] bought by Heatley & Co. of London, and name changed to Hastings Sawmill Co. Ltd.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. Hannah Elizabeth Greatrex, widow of James Henry Greatrex, pioneer, Vancouver, 1888, 30 August 1943.

Mrs. Greatrex is now resident with her daughter, Mrs. C.F. Williams, 3615 Irving Street, Burnaby. She very kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon. I had first met her at the rededication of Stanley Park ceremonies, Lumberman’s Arch, 25 August 1943, where she spoke to the great assemblage of citizens, using the loudspeaker, and narrating to them her experiences when she attended the dedication of Stanley Park by Lord Stanley in October 1889, fifty-four years previously.

Establishment of Salvation Army, 1887.

Mrs. Greatrex said: “I have put down a few notes about the Salvation Army for you, as you asked. Well, we came here to open up; that is, the three officers of the Salvation Army; one officer came from Victoria; that made four. Capt. Mary Hackett, the officer from Victoria, she was the organiser; she had been sent out from the Old Country to organise throughout Canada. Then there was Lieutenant Iverack, a woman, and Lieutenant Tirney, another woman, and myself; I was Lieutenant Lynes—just one ‘s.’” (Pronounced Ly-ness.) “I had been in the Army at Winnipeg, Manitoba; I had lived in Winnipeg, where I was a soldier in the Army, but I was born in Hillsborough, County Down, Ireland, and came to Canada with my parents in 1881. I had been educated in Ireland, and was twenty-four years old when I came to Canada, and, of course, was single then. All of the family came together, eleven of us, six girls and five boys. They are nearly all gone now, but there are” (Ly-ness) “Lynes living; one, a retired conductor on the C.P.R. after forty-six years, is at Falkland, B.C. Both Mother and Father died in Vancouver, and both are buried in Mountain View Cemetery.

“Well, after we reached Winnipeg in 1881, Father took up land on the Pipestone Creek, south of Wapella, and he stayed there until 1910, when he came to Vancouver, and died here about 1933. I knew my future husband, Mr. Greatrex, in Winnipeg; he was an officer in the Army, and then he came west in 1888—after I came—as we were short of officers in New Westminster. I came here in 1887, so was here before he was.

“One day while in Winnipeg, Major Young, the Division Commander, told me I had been commissioned to go to Vancouver to assist in the opening of Salvation Army work in the new City of Vancouver, and he said Capt. Mary Hackett of Victoria would be waiting and would meet us.

“By ‘us,’ I mean Lieutenant Iverack and Lieutenant Tirney, who had been officers in other parts of the west. We travelled from Winnipeg on the C.P.R. line separately, all meeting together, and putting up in a room on Westminster Avenue, and cooked our own meals in our room. Capt. Hackett was with us; we were all together, the four women of us, and for a few days we all crowded in together in the one room, together with use of the kitchen, and did the best we could. Then later we got a house.”

First Salvation Army quarters.

“Then, later, as I say, we got a house; it was almost on the corner of Hastings and Westminster Avenue” (Main Street.) “It was near where the Empress Hotel is now, on Hastings Street, north side, just east of Main Street, on the northeast corner of Westminster Avenue and Hastings Street. There were four houses all joined together, with a downstairs and rooms upstairs. We lived in the house farthest east of the four. It was in that house that the Salvation Army in Vancouver started.”

(Note: for ground plan, see Dakin’s Fire Map, November 1889. Photograph of houses, see C.V. P. Trans. 17, N. Trans. 6.)

Salvation Army, 1887.

Major Matthews: Do the Salvation Army here now know this?

Mrs. Greatrex: “Some years ago, the Salvation Army in Winnipeg had a fire, and it burned all their records, and all that can be done about the start of the Salvation Army in Vancouver now is from memory.

“On the train we slept as train travellers usually sleep; we weren’t in the Pullman, I know that, but the Salvation Army pays all the expenses of its officers, and for salaries for ourselves, that is, for single officers, we got five or six dollars a week, and lived on it.”

Major Matthews: Did you keep fat?

Mrs. Greatrex: “Well, we got enough. But we did not have to pay rent; the six dollars was to pay for our food and clothing. We got along very well, of course. No, we did not go to theatres. I fear you don’t know very much about Salvation Army officers; the Salvation Army officer is the most self-denying and sacrificing person in the world today and always has been.

“Well, while we lived in the house on Hastings Street, well, we stayed there about four years. You see, we came in the month of December 1887, and we stayed there all of 1888 and part of 1889. After we got started, in about three months, Capt. Mary Hackett was moved; her health was very poor, and she retired, and I was promoted to Captain. Lieutenant Iverack was sent to New Westminster as Captain, and Lieutenant Tirney went to Victoria, I think as Captain.”

Hart’s Opera House. Carrall Street.

“During these years, 1887, 1888, we held meetings in Hart’s Opera House on Carrall Street, south of Dupont Street” (Pender Street), “and when the Opera House was wanted for theatricals, we went out in the street and held our meetings. Hart’s Opera House was a one-floor rude building of just rough unpainted boards; it would hold perhaps four or five hundred people, and there was a sort of gallery at the back, but the main floor was level, and the seating accommodations was benches; there were no chairs, and the floor was just rough boards. It had a low platform in front, or stage, and the interior was lighted with coal oil lamps. There were no decorations at all on the walls so far as I can recall. It was more like a barn than an opera house. And they charged us rent for it; not much, but some.”

Salvation Army meetings. Drum and flag. Street meetings.

“When we were holding a meeting, we had three meetings on Sunday morning, afternoon and night, and meetings every night in the week when we could get the building. At first Capt. Hackett took the meetings, and the other three assistants helped her. We would have Hart’s Opera House packed with men; no women at all, hardly; there were no women here, and there were no theatres, or anything else excepting the saloon bar where the men could go, and there were a lot of young men—and old ones—here, who had just arrived, and were strangers and were glad to attend our meetings. We always had a street meeting before we held the public meeting, and the men would follow us into the Opera House. When we paraded the streets before entering the Opera House we were led, well, at first we had nothing but the drum and the flag to carry before us. Lieutenant Iverack beat the drum, and Lieutenant Tirney carried the flag. I sang as we marched along, and Capt. Hackett was out in front. My husband, Mr. Greatrex, took part in the Opera House services; he came the same time as Mrs. MacGill, in 1888, who was out at the rededication ceremonies last Wednesday. You remember, she wore her poke bonnet, and had her tambourine with her. I borrowed my poke bonnet, the one I wore, from her.”

Capt. Mary Hackett. Capt. Hannah Lynes. Lieutenant Iverack. Lieutenant Tirney. Lieutenant Akenhead. Mrs. Thos. MacGill.

“Then, when Capt. Hackett was taken away, and Lieut. Iverack went to New Westminster, and Lieut. Tirney to Victoria, I was promoted Captain. I had for my first Assistant Lieutenant Laura Akenhead; she came, I think, from Minnedosa; she had been in charge of the Army there.

“She is now Mrs. Thomas MacGill, and lives in the 4500 block, Sixth Avenue West, and was at the rededication ceremonies with me in Stanley Park the other day” (25 August 1943), “when you will recall we both wore the old style poke bonnets with the hat band ‘SALVATION ARMY’ on the top of them, and I carried the old tambourine which I had borrowed from her for the occasion.”

Lieutenant Dinwoody. Lieutenant Shellvey. Adjutant Tom Scott.

“Then, still another lieutenant came, Lieut. Shellvey; she came, I think, from Winnipeg, and all three of us carried on in Vancouver. Then, sometime in 1889, Vancouver was made a divisional headquarters, and while we still lived in the house on Hastings Street, just east of Westminster Avenue, we were able to secure a hall on Water Street for our services, and Adjutant Tom Scott was sent to be Divisional Commander. He lived with us, that is, Capt. Lynes (myself), Lieut. Akenhead, and Lieut. Shellvey, and Lieut. Dinwoody, all in the same house. Lieuts. Shellvey and Dinwoody were from Winnipeg.”

Headquarters, Water Street. Divisional Command. Methodist Church. William Shannon.

“The quarters on Water Street. It was across Abbott Street from the old Methodist church, afterwards a feed store” (Allan’s) “on the north side, over the water, and there were stores downstairs, and we had the hall upstairs. A new block was put up east of Abbott Street, and William Shannon, pioneer” (Shannon Park), “was the means of getting us the headquarters. Mr. Shannon was not an Army man, but he was a great Methodist, and he kept up his interest in the Army all through the years.”

Capt. Laura Akenhead.

“I can not tell you how long the Army remained, not exactly, on the north side of Water Street, as, you see, I was moved away towards the end of 1889, and I went to take charge of Portage La Prairie in Manitoba, and I had there Lieut. Mary Colter for my assistant. You see, in those days there was no training school, as there is now. What they did was, they just gave you an experienced helper, and you did the best possible to train her. My place here was taken by Lieut. Akenhead” (Mrs. MacGill) “and she was promoted Captain. Down at Portage they had already organised, but I was the second officer in charge. Mr. Greatrex and I were not married at the time, and he remained on the coast.

“I stayed at Portage La Prairie for about nine months, and then I went to Brandon, and was there a few weeks only; then I went to Oxbridge, Ontario, to be married to Capt. Greatrex, and the ceremony took place in the Salvation Army headquarters at Oxbridge, but in those days the Army did not possess the privilege they now have of performing marriage ceremonies, and it was necessary to have clergymen present at the actual ritual; we had a Reverend Mr. Henderson of the Methodist Church. After the wedding. Mr. Greatrex and I remained at Oxbridge for several months; then we went to Sarnia, Ontario, in charge, and then Windsor, Ontario, and Chatham, Ontario, and Ridgetown, Ontario, and Galt, Ontario, and then back to Vancouver in November 1904, and have remained here ever since.”

West Fairview, 1904.

“After we came back to Vancouver, we went to live, first on Richards Street, and then at 1620 West 5th Avenue, and lived there for twenty-two years. You see, in 1904 all that land west of Granville Street South was just stumps, and a lot of timber there. We bought the property, four fifty-foot lots from the Canadian Pacific Railway, and we built three houses on it; two of them are still standing. One was built so that when the Canadian Pacific Railway ran a steam locomotive train, afterwards the B.C. Electric interurban, one of our houses was on the little corner in the way of the railway, and the B.C. Electric bought that corner from us for the right of way.

“After our return to Vancouver we still retained our interest in the Army, but not to the same extent of actual activity. Mr. Greatrex went to work at the C.P.R. roundhouse as machinist, and then a very beautiful thing happened afterwards; I will tell you about it; that is, beautiful for him—not for us—to be translated like that; no pain, no pangs of saying goodbye. Wonderful for him.

“Well, he was taking a meeting on a Sunday for an officer who was ill. No. Four Corps of the Army, and he was sitting in the meeting awaiting the proper amount to take charge. He was seated in his chair just in front of the platform, and in perfect health, and rose to take his place in charge on the platform. Then, just as he rose to his feet, he leaned forward and fell, and I was sitting beside him and saw him fall, and rushed to his aid, but he passed away without speaking. He never moved; just fell forward as he was sitting, and never spoke again. He was fifty-two. He died 19th March 1915.

“We had four children; three are living now.

Edith Gertrude Greatrex, born 17 January 1892 at Chatham, Ontario. She is now Mrs. A.P. Williams, at Los Angeles, California, and she has five children.

Henry Patterson Greatrex, born October 20th 1895 at Donald, B.C. He died on January 12th 1934 in Vancouver. He was a widower without children.

William Stuart Greatrex. Born May 6th 1901 at Vancouver. He is unmarried.

Charlotte Ruth Greatrex, born March 29th 1908 at Vancouver. She is now Mrs. Charles Frederick Williams, of 3615 Irving Street, Burnaby, and she has, they have, two children, Betty Lou, aged 12, and Charles Brian, aged eight. I live with them, and it is very pleasant indeed to be there.”

Divisional Headquarters. Salvation army. Adjutant Tom Scott. The first convert. Jacob Gunderson. Thomas Whipple. John Shouldice.

“I have told you about Adjutant Tom Scott coming in 1889 when the Army was made a Divisional Headquarters.

“Well. Our first convert was Tom Whipple. He became our drummer; he died in recent years, since 1936, and he stayed with the Army, more or less to his death. Then the second convert was Jacob Gunderson; he was a Swede, and could not speak English very well. After some years he became Sergeant-Major of No. 1 Corps, and he remained Sergeant-Major for forty years until he died. He had one of the largest Army funerals ever held in Vancouver; not two years ago as yet.

“Now. The day we had our third convert, was John Shouldice, and he carried our flag all during my term. Now I don’t know that I can tell you very much more.”

Laying foundation stone. Hotel Vancouver. Salvation Army band.

“There is one thing. When they were laying the foundation of the old Hotel Vancouver, we were invited with our band; we had a band of six instruments; our first bandmaster was Mr. Grant. We were invited also to the Moody revival campaign held on the present site of the Cenotaph; it was behind the old Court House. We closed our meeting to go to the Moody revival meeting.”

Hallelujah Point, 1889. Dedication of Stanley Park.

“I remember, clearly, going to the park in 1888. We went to Hallelujah Point. I remember leaving Carrall Street, Andy Linton’s boathouse and float, and rowing across to Hallelujah Point, where the Nine O’Clock Gun is now. There we had a meeting and a picnic; so far as I can recall, there was no shelter there of any kind at that time; just the open, and I suppose we took our drum with us” (laughing); “we took the drum everywhere we went.”

Hallelujah Lassies. Dedication of Stanley Park.

“Then, we were invited to go with the band to the christening of Stanley Park by Lord Stanley; that was in the fall of 1889. After the dedication of Stanley Park, after it was all over, we had a meeting, and we had a wonderful crowd; it was at Hallelujah Point. I think William Shannon may have had something to do with it; I don’t know, but what I do know is that it was called Hallelujah Point because we were called the Hallelujah Lassies, and that’s the point we arrived at when we left Carrall Street float in a row boat to go to what is now the Park. You see, the reason we went in a row boat was at that time there was no bridge across Coal Harbour, and to get to Brockton Point we should have had to go all the way around by Second Beach and back again; it was shorter and quicker to cross to Hallelujah Point in a row boat.”

Salvation Army on Pender Street. Salvation Army wood yard. “The Anchor,” Water Street. “The Shelter,” Water Street.

“You see, we bought two lots on Pender Street near Cambie Street for a building, and then it was opened up for a Salvation Army wood yard for unemployed to get work and sell wood, but they never built the building, and they never owned a building of their own until they bought the Victoria Hotel where they are stationed now; it is on the corner of Hastings and Gore Avenue.

“They had two places on Water Street; one was ‘The Shelter’; that was the outcome of the wood yard, for men in difficult circumstances to make a little money and get shelter. Adjutant Hay started it.” (See photo of “The Anchor,” C.V. P. Bu. 268, N. Bu. 166.)

“I think the Army has six or seven corps in Vancouver now, and one in North Vancouver. Now I think we had better finish up with this thought: the Salvation Army still retains that old fighting spirit, and while they keep up that spirit, they will bless the world; that’s all.”

Approved by Mrs. Greatrex, 9 September 1943. J.S. Matthews.

Note: as Mrs. Greatrex departed, she presented us with a song book, one of the earliest, in which she wrote in her own handwriting, the following inscription:

ONE OF THE FIRST SONG BOOKS USED BY THE SALVATION ARMY IN VANCOUVER FOR MANY YEARS. THE FIRST ONE WE SANG IN 1887 WAS 79, A COMPOSITION BY OUR BELOVED GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH. WE SANG ON THE CORNER OF CARRALL AND CORDOVA STREETS. DONATED TO THE CITY ARCHIVES BY ONE OF THE FIRST OFFICERS.

Lieut. Hannah E. LY-NES, now Mrs. H.E. Greatrex.

30th August, 1943.

Salvation Army, its first street parade, Vancouver, 10 December 1887.

Memo of conversation (over the phone) with Mrs. Hannah Elizabeth Greatrex, née Lynes (pronounced Ly-ness), who lives with her daughter, Mrs. C.F. Williams, 3615 Irving Street, Burnaby, and kindly telephoned me, 10 December 1943.

Salvation Army, first street parade.

Mrs. Greatrex: “We went on the corner of Carrall and Cordova Street and had an open air meeting, the first; today is the anniversary, 10th December. Captain Mary Hackett, Lieut. Iverack, Lieut. Tirney and myself” (Lieut. Lynes), “just the four of us, and our drum and flag. And then after the open air meeting—that was the first in Vancouver—we paraded down to the other end of Carrall Street, and the men all followed us, and we went into Hart’s Opera House and had another meeting in there.”

J.S. Matthews

December 1943

A remarkable visitor—Frank Plante. First white child born on Burrard Inlet, 1868.

In no other city in the world could such an incident as took place this afternoon, 7th September 1944, in the City Archives, City Hall, Vancouver, have taken place.

François Plante, commonly called Frank, the first white child born, 13th April 1868, on the site of Greater Vancouver, eldest child of Peter Plante, the first bridegroom, and his wife, Ada Plante, née Miss Ada Guinne, the first bride whose wedding at Moodyville, 1868 was the first marriage by Christian rite solemnised on Burrard Inlet, or Vancouver, walked into the City Archives carrying a small parcel, and remained, seated at my desk, smoking and chatting for an hour or more.

The parcel he carried contained four pictures, the two larger being black and white drawings from carte de visite photographs, the two smaller being actual photographs of carte de visite size.

One of the larger, a drawing, is of Supplien Guinne, commonly known in very early days as “French John,” the first preemptor and settler at what is now Marpole, Vancouver.

The other larger one, also a drawing, is of Peter Plante, the father of my guest, François Plante, and son-in-law of Supplien Guinne.

One of the smaller, a photograph, is the photograph of Supplien Guinne, and the original from which the larger black and white drawing had been made.

The other smaller one, also a photograph, is of Mrs. Peter Plante, formerly Miss Ada Guinne, daughter of Supplien Guinne, wife of Peter Plante, and mother of François Plante.

Mr. Frank Plante presented them to the Citizens of Vancouver, as represented by the Trustees and Governors, City Archives.

Mr. Plante, our first baby, is 76 years old, is very active, and a most agreeable personage. We gossiped for an hour.

About us, beyond, lies a great city, Vancouver, ten miles wide by five deep, with 150 churches, 100 parks, 70 large public schools, 90 private ones, monumental buildings, luxurious offices, beautiful homes and green lawns, all of which have risen out of the wilderness of primeval forest in the short span of a single life, the life of our first baby, Frank Plante, who honoured me with his presence this afternoon.

J.S. Matthews

CITY ARCHIVIST.

On my 66th birthday.

City Hall, Vancouver.

7 September 1944.

Conversation with Mr. W.A. Grafton, of Grafton Bay, Grafton Lake, Bowen Island, and of 542 West 6th Avenue, Vancouver, who very kindly called at the City Archives this morning, 7 September 1944—my 66th birthday—and stayed gossiping for an hour.

He is not very well; is suffering from some stiffness; I gave him a walking stick, one which once belonged to Col. J.W. Warden, D.S.O.

Point Atkinson Lighthouse. H.M.S. Egeria. Mr. and Mrs. Walter Erwin.

Mr. Grafton said: “The old lighthouse had two coal oil lamps; they ran eight hours; they were old-fashioned, with round wick, in a circle, and there were eight hundred pounds of lead to keep them going.”

Major Matthews: Did you ever see it?

Mr. Grafton: (astonished) “Did I ever see it? Why, I attended it. It was regulated with a fan. You see, those wings on the fan, you twisted them to regulate the light. They were very particular. The captain of the Egeria complained that the light was running three seconds slow, and made a special trip ashore to complain. I was alone; Mr. and Mrs. Erwin were up town. That was about 1888.”

Fog alarm. The light lamps.

“There was no fog alarm in those days, and the light would run for eight hours without winding; one winding did eight hours. The winding crank was in the tower. You see, that shaft was square, and ran all the way from the top of the tower to the rock below the house, and the eight hundred pounds of lead was in sections, sections of twenty-five pounds weight about, and slipped on the wire; had a slot in them. The weight was just the same as a clock; the weight kept the machine running. Then when the weight got to the bottom—about twenty-five feet—the machine stopped, and you went up to the top of the tower and wound it up again with the crank handle, and the wire wound around a drum. The two lamps were on a sort of table. The lamp was prevented from twisting by the square shaft right to the rock floor. The lamps didn’t burn much oil.”

The reflectors.

“The lights were set in a hood reflector of silver-plated copper; we polished them every day.”

The lighthouse. Fog alarm, circa 1889. S.S. Sir James Douglas. Original lighthouse.

“The lighthouse was a square tower; there were no other buildings except the cow shed and the boathouse, and the boathouse was in the same place as it is now. The square lighthouse tower sloped inwards to the top to where the light was, and the ground floor was the light-keeper’s kitchen and bedroom. Above that was another bedroom, and on top was the light. Pretty easy going those days. There was no fog alarm to look after, and so long as your lights were burning you did not have to go out in the rain. The lighthouse had a big wide verandah. I came to Vancouver in 1887, and was out there off and on after that. I forget what year the steam fog alarm was put in, but I think it was in 1889. Old Capt. Lewis used to come in now and again to see if the fog alarm was going; he came in the Sir James Douglas.

“This photo” (C.V. P. Out. 219, N. Out. 134) “of the Point Atkinson lighthouse is part of the original lighthouse. It is the same original tower; the only difference is that an addition has been built to the east end of it. At first there was just the square tower as shown, but later they added the living quarters with the two chimneys and three windows.”

Point Atkinson lighthouse. Water and wood.

“Underneath the big wide verandah was the wood storage, and the water storage tank. We saved the water from the roof; it ran through a big can full of sand, and on into the water storage tank below, and we had a hand pump to pump it into the kitchen.”

New Point Atkinson lighthouse. Light-keeper’s residence.

“Then, about 1911, they built the present lighthouse and pulled the old one down. And they built a residence for the light-keeper, but it is out of sight; that’s why it is not shown in this illustration in the Province.” (See file, “Point Atkinson Lighthouse,” undated clipping from the Province captioned “OLDER THAN VANCOUVER.”)

The City Council, 1943.

As described by R. Rowe Holland, Esq., Chairman, Parks Board, Governor, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Governor, City Archives, Vancouver, at a banquet tendered to Major J.S. Matthews, City Archivist, Stanley Park Pavilion, on the evening of his sixty-fifth birthday, 7 September 1943, and attended by about thirty of the eminent of Vancouver, including the Hon. and Mrs. Eric Hamber (formerly Lieutenant-Governor), the presidents of Vancouver Exhibition, Tourist Association, Women’s Canadian Club, University of B.C., Pioneers’ Association, Howard Green, M.P., Mrs. Tillie Rolston, M.L.A., etc.

Mr. Holland: “And the City Council, an aggregation of one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month men.”

(No one protested; some smiled.)

And to which Major Matthews, “under his breath,” added: “Masquerading under the misnomer of City Fathers,” so that, the full comment is:

The City Council, an aggregation of one hundred and thirty-five [not twenty-five] dollar a month men, masquerading under the misnomer of City Fathers.

There is no civic government in Vancouver. We have an administration, but not a government. We are supposed to have democracy; actually, we have a most vicious form of autocracy—because it masquerades as democracy and the electors cannot see that it is not. It is idiotic, not democratic. One hundred thousand electors are on the rolls, most of whom know nothing of civic affairs; they vote for representatives they have never even seen, whose names are frequently unknown to them until the ballot paper is before them. One hundred thousand have surrendered to eight aldermen. Council meetings are frequently held in secret, and when held in the Chamber—in the afternoon when business men are in their offices, and working men at their work—are rarely attended by more than two or three spectators.

Conversation with former Reeve Sam Churchill (of Churchill Street), Point Grey Municipality, at City Archives, 9 September 1943.

Chinese dead. Shaughnessy Heights, 1908. Granville Street South at 16th.

Mr. Churchill said: “One day, 1908, I met a C.P.R. foreman in what is now Shaughnessy Heights; it would be about Granville Street and 16th Avenue, just there, and lots of trees. He said to me, ‘Wait till I show you something,’ and I followed him from the” (North Arm) “road down a little trail into the woods a piece, just a little way. About a few yards from the road we came on two dead Chinamen lying under the big trees. They were fully clothed. They had poisoned themselves. The Chinese had a habit of doing that, when they became old or useless. The two Chinamen had just gone there and poisoned themselves.”

Fairview.

“In 1890 there was not a house west of Ontario Street until you came to Greer’s Beach” (now Kitsilano Beach.) (Note by JSM: Not strictly correct, but very nearly so.)

Note by JSM.

The disappearance of Chinese under peculiar circumstances is remarked upon by Dr. Langis, former C.P.R. doctor. In his conversations he speaks of it occurring, to his personal knowledge, at Kamloops and Port Moody, and gives his opinions. He refers to the Chinese doing away with themselves, or being done away with by their friends, when they have become useless by accident on C.P.R. construction.

Item # EarlyVan_v6_019I

Memo of conversation, 14 September 1943, with Mrs. James Walker, 721 Cambie Street, eldest child of Joseph Silvey, or “Portuguese Joe No. 1” and herself the first child of European parentage (half Indian) born on the site of the City of Vancouver, 4 July 186?

Mrs. Walker lives in one room, very neat; cooks her own meals on a small gas range; has lived there “for years,” and looks very well; a very gracious kindly lady. Her maiden name was Marian Elizabeth Silvey.

Joseph Silvey. Saloon at Brew’s Point. Saloon in Granville.

Mrs. Walker said: “The inscription you have written out to go under the re-photograph of my father” (Joseph Silvey) “is quite correct, except that you haven’t got that he had a saloon at Brockton Point, and he had one before that in Gastown.” (See evidence in “Streets Ends case,” 1905, red bound book.)

Origin of Silvey family. Steve Anderson.

“And about his mother, she was Scotch; they were British people; there was a war in Portugal, and the British soldiers were down there, and some of them liked Portugal and stayed there, and that’s how she was down in Portugal; I don’t know all the details, but my grandmother Silvey was Scotch; so was my father; yes, he had sandy hair, just as you say in your writing for the re-photograph. Father’s saloon at Brockton Point was where Mr. Brew, the Customs officer lived, nine o’clock gun. My sister Josephine died in 1935, but her husband, Steve Anderson, he’s living, but he is in hospital. I don’t know which one, but I think General Hospital.

“Father had a partner, Douglas; he had a schooner; and Douglas’ wife was Maria; she was half Indian and half Hawaiian.”

Marriage of Mrs. Walker, née Marian Elizabeth Silvey. Birth of Marian E. Silvey. First baby, European parent.

Major Matthews: The certificate of your marriage says you were 20 at the time of your wedding, 15th July 1883. If that is so, then you must have been born at Gastown July 4th 1863. That’s long before “Gassy Jack” came. “Gassy Jack” wasn’t the first to settle in Gastown. But what I want to find out is when you were born; what date, what year. You said you were only 16 when you were married, but the clergyman put down 20. If you were 20 then your father (Joseph Silvey) must have settled in Gastown in or before 1863, but if you were only 16 then he probably came later. I want to find out who was the first man to settle in Gastown. “Gassy Jack” wasn’t; do you suppose it was Joseph Silvey?

Mrs. Walker: “The minister said, ‘She’s not twenty; she’s just a child,’ when we went to be married, but James Walker’s stepfather, he said to the minister, ‘Yes, she is twenty,’ and the minister said he did not think she was that old, and I was too young, but Kern” (sic), “that’s James Walker’s stepfather, he said he had known me since I was a baby, which was a lie because he knew me only since I went to Reid Island.”

Birth of Mrs. Steve Anderson, née Josephine Silvey. Mrs. Peter Smith. Mrs. Harry Trim.

“The way I know how old Josephine was, she was born in Gastown too, and that when she was born I was taken out of the house by Mrs. Peter Smith and Mrs. Harry Trim. They took me out that night to stay at their house in Gastown, and when I came back in the morning there was a baby on the bed, a little baby, and it was Josephine. And I tried to pull it off so as to have it walk with me like a doll, and they told me I could not do that; that it could not walk yet. Then, just after, Mother” (Khaal-tin-aht) “died. Afterwards I asked my father how old I was when Josephine was born—he would tell me things—and he said, ‘You were three years old, my dear.’”

Saloon in Gastown.

“Father sold his saloon in Gastown to hand loggers.”

Note: a very good photo, not yet indexed, of Mrs. James Walker, was taken 20 August 1943 by W.J. Moore; negative in City Archives. Mrs. Walker has a copy; she is wearing an imitation pearl necklace, one long and one short loops.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. James Walker, 721 Cambie Street, eldest daughter of Joseph Silvey of Granville, “Portuguese Joe” No. 1, whom I called upon this morning, 30 September 1943.

Joseph Silvey. Lucy Kwatleematt, his second wife.

Major Matthews said to Mrs. Walker: The Vital Statistics branch, Victoria, have sent me a photostat of certificate of marriage No. 41329, dated October 1872, which shows your father’s name spelt as “Joseph Silvy,” Silvy, not Silvey, and records that he was born at Piepika Island, Portugal; was a fisherman, 38 years old in 1872, and was the son of John Silvy and Francesca Hyacintha, his wife, and at the date of his marriage to Lucy Kwatleematt at Shishels, which I suppose is Sechelt, he was living on Howe Sound, Pasley Island I suppose, as a fisherman. It says that Lucy Kwatleematt, I think that should be Kwatleemaht, was 15, and that her father and mother were Andrew Kwakoil and Agatha, and that the marriage took place at Sechelt on 20th September 1872, and Rev. Father Paul Durieu, O.M.I., was priest. What do you think of it?

Sloop, Morning Star.

Mrs. Walker: “I know. I was there. We went up in the Morning Star. I wasn’t at the wedding; I was too young and too small for that, but I was there and saw what was going on, and so was Josephine” (her sister.) “Josephine was just a little thing, about so high” (gesturing with fingers of hand and stooping to about eighteen inches off ground); “Josephine wasn’t a year old; that’s why Father got married again; two little girls and no one to look after them.”

Sechelt, B.C.

Major Matthews: (surprised) You say you were up at the wedding at Sechelt when your father married Lucy, his second wife. Can you remember as far back as September 1872; why, you must have been pretty small!

Pasley Island.

Mrs. Walker: “Sure, I can remember, I’ve got a good memory; my people think I have a wonderful memory and there wasn’t much to remember in those days.”

Major Matthews: Well, if your father married again in September 1872, and Josephine was less than year old—her death certificate says she died 27th March 1930, and was 57 years, 11 months and 27 days old then—then she must have been born on Pasley Island, 1st April 1872.

Presuming you were about four years old, then you must have been born in Gastown about 1868 (July 4th). How old were you when you held the hammer on the other side of the boards your father was hammering nails into when he was building the Morning Star at Brockton Point?

Morning Star.

Mrs. Walker: “I held a big hammer on the other side of the board for him when he was hammering the nails. Oh, I was a big girl, then, five or six” (years.)

Silvey’s saloon in Gastown (Granville). Hand loggers.

“Father told me that the day I was born he had a celebration. He got a bottle of brandy, and a big barrel of beer, and invited the hand loggers. It was an American holiday, July 4th, I think.”

Josephine Silvey. Charles Ralpe (sic.)

“When Josephine was first married she was Mrs. Charlie Ralpe” (sic); “he had a store at Chemainus; he died. Mrs. McDonald” (sic) “who lives out Trout Lake way, Grandview, she is Ralpe’s daughter; the oldest. Then when he died, she married Steve Anderson; he’s living in hospital now.”

Mrs. Steve Anderson, née Josephine Silvey.

The records of Mountain View Cemetery, City Hall, show that Mrs. Josephine Anderson died 27 March 1930, aged 57 years, 11 months, 27 days; was buried by the Vancouver Funeral Company (out of business, 1943), 29 March 1930 (heart failure) and her grave is in the 1919 Addition, Mountain View Cemetery (opposite old South Vancouver Municipal Hall), and it states she was “BORN IN VANCOUVER,” which is, obviously, a mistake, as there was no such place as Vancouver in 1872. She was born on Pasley Island. This indicates how unreliable such records can be.

Another instance. Her sister, Elizabeth, marriage certificate 37587, 15 July 1883, is shown as being born in New Westminster. Actually, she was born on Burrard Inlet, because at the time of her birth, there was no place called “Gastown,” Granville, nor Vancouver, so I presume they just put down “New Westminster” where she was registered.

See photo of Joseph Silvey, taken to be copied. 2 October 1943. J.S.M.

Memo of conversation with Mrs. James Walker, daughter of Joseph Silvey of “Gastown,” now residing at 721 Cambie Street, and who very kindly paid us a visit at the City Archives this afternoon, 12 October 1943.

Chief Ki-ap-i-la-no.

Mrs. Walker said: “I remember Chief Ki-ap-i-la-no. He was a great big man with a voice like a microphone on a loudspeaker; he spoke loud. Anyway, that’s how it seemed to me; I was little. And he had long white hair; it was bobbed” (gesturing with her hand to indicate that it was cut off straight all around the nape of the neck) “and white, and he always had a smile. He beckoned to me to come to him, but I would not go, but afterwards I did, and he took me up on one arm, and held me to his breast. Oh, he was a nice man; everyone liked him. He was not bald-headed; his hair was thick, and snow white, and that’s what I remember of him. I think that was at Brockton Point—you see, after my father sold out at Gastown we went to Brockton Point—I don’t remember us moving; I must have been asleep or something because I don’t remember us moving, but I remember after we got there. We lived facing this way” (towards the east) “and Chief Ki-ap-i-la-no used to come over to Brockton Point, and brought his little tent with him, and he had his wife, old lady, and they had a little tent by the beach, beside my father’s house. That’s the last time I saw him. We went away then; we went to Vancouver Island.”

Pasley Island. Whaling camp. Capt. Douglas’s schooner. Josephine Silvey.

“Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it was Pasley Island where Josephine was born, and now Bowen Island. I know it was a whaling camp. I can remember Capt. Douglas’s big schooner coming in. He had two boys, Georgie, and I think the other was Alfred; they were only tiny boys, but I think they were older than I was. I think they are living yet. It may be at Texada Island that one of them is logging, so my son was saying. This schooner was Capt. Douglas’s schooner. They used to use it at first for fur seals around Victoria.”

Whales. Pasley Island.

“I saw them bring one whale in. They were towing it. And all the people looked out and said, ‘Here they come.’ And they were towing it. We saw the schooner coming full sail, and they were towing something white. They were coming fast with all the sails. And they were towing this big thing behind the schooner. Yes. And when they turned it over it was black, and then when they turned it back again it was white. They had a little wharf, and the schooner docked there; it was piles, small piles, but a pretty good little wharf. And then they had a great big cable as big as my arm; the cable was rope. They lowered the whale boat; they always packed the whaleboat on the schooner, and then when they saw a whale they lowered the whale boat. And then had a big line, like a cable, and a harpoon. And then, finally, they had a big shed where they had the iron pots, you know, where they boil the blubber, the fat, and they had the harpoon on the whale’s head. And then they hauled it up to the shed. Listen. I’ll tell you the first. They had a big thing” (a windlass) “right on the shore, edge of the water, and two men kept going around and around, walking around the big thing. And the rope was coming in, and bringing the whale up; it was a slow job. And then they cut the whale up with a great big knife, ready to boil, all the fat. It was all chopped up in squares, and the fat was that thick” (gesturing to show a thickness of about twelve inches); “it was all fat, just excepting the ribs; very fat.”

Joseph Silvey marries Lucy.

“Then after that my father married again to Lucy at Sechelt and we came back again to Howe Sound” (Pasley Island), “and Father, he always used to go around fishing, and we stayed at home in the house he built; he built a little house. We did everything them days, including making money. It was the oil they were after.” (Mrs. Walker means that they had to do everything for themselves, did not spend much as there was nothing to spend it on, and were so industrious that they made money from the fish and the oil.)

Death of Joseph Silvey.

“Father died on Reid Island. He was a healthy man. He never was sick. So at last he took sick when he was out fishing; he was fishing for salmon with a net, in the fall. There was a good sale for salmon; they were buying all the salmon. And then he complained about his back first; he had got cold. He was living in an old shack at Chemainus, and had got cold. So he went home; he has some men working with him, but he went home to Reid Island and they never let me know.

“I was living at Ladysmith, three miles towards Nanaimo, right on the highway, on a little farm; that was where all my children were raised. I was there over thirty years. And then I said to my boy, I think it was Bill or Frank, my son, I said, ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I want to go and see Grandpa. I’ve been thinking about him all night. I can’t sleep.’ And then we got a little row boat.

“It is only ten miles from Ladysmith to Reid Island, and we rowed over. And then when we got there, there was my father still sick. He was sitting up in a chair and looked so well. He said to me, ‘My dear Elizabeth, Papa’s so sick. I’ll tell you later.’ Later he told me how could not make water. So I said, ‘Come quiet, and about four o’clock in the morning we will go to Ladysmith and see a doctor’—it was me who suggested that.

“So early in the morning we put him in one of the sail boats he had just built, and he lay in the bottom of the boat. He was talking, but he did not drink for three days; he dare not, he said. Then I had a call for Jim Walker, my husband; they were working right on the bay getting out some timber. I said, ‘Come right down at once,’ and he came down to the boat. So we sailed home where I lived on the highway. I hurried and got my husband to bring a doctor, and then we will send my father to the hospital. So he was back four o’clock that afternoon with Dr. Walkem.

“And there was a pool of water on the floor, and Father said, ‘Oh, doctor, that’s wonderful.’ It was the water the doctor had got out of him and it was three days’ water. And he said, ‘It was my daughter Elizabeth who brought me here.’ And the doctor said, ‘You’ll be all right.’ And then, it was not until a year or two after that that he died; it was the second attack that he died from. They had him at the Chemainus hospital when he had the second attack; at the hospital.”

Burial of Joseph Silvey.

“Father is buried on Reid Island; that was his wish. He is buried on his own property. His grave would be about a block or two from the house. There are some Silvey children buried there, and I think my half-brother, Domingo Silvey, who died two years ago, is buried there. No one buried in the little graveyard except Silveys, and of course, Lucy, Father’s second wife. I have not been there since 1902 when my father died, so that I do not know if there are any gravestones.”

Gold and silver coins. Granville, or “Gastown.”

“Father always had gold and silver. I’ve seen it in a little sack; no bills. That was when he had that little saloon in ‘Gastown.’ I saw it on the counter. And no one would ever touch it. He was putting out the rum, reaching up to the shelf for a bottle, and the men were all standing drinking in his saloon, and the money he was making change. Them days they had the gold and silver, no bills. And I asked my father how old I was when he had the baby” (Josephine), “and he said, ‘Three years old, my dear.’”

Silvey marries Lucy. Dogfish.

“After Father married Lucy” (in 1872) “at Sechelt, we left Brockton Point and went to Howe Sound, and then after we left Howe Sound, we went to Pender Harbour where they were fishing for dogfish, and Capt. Douglas was there, too, fishing for dogfish. And they sold their oil to Nanaimo and Departure Bay” (coal mines), “and before he went to Reid Island he was ‘all over.’ He was at Nanaimo for about a year, I think; he lived on Newcastle Island; there is a cottage there. They were fishing. He travelled around. He was on a bay by the lighthouse on Gabriola Island, perhaps a year or two.

“Oh, they made money fishing. And finally, we went to Reid Island, and he got a crown grant of the whole of Reid Island, all of it. There was some ‘outside’ land, but the eldest son, Domingo, got it. So now it is all ‘Silvey’ island. They are lazy devils, but there is one good boy, Henry; he’s the best. There was some good boys there, but two of them were drowned. Jack Silvey was drowned, and one in here, in the First Narrows; that was Manuel. They were coming in with a launch full of fish, and a tug was going out, and the tug boat passed them, and they were towing a scow, and did not have a light on the scow.”

J.S. Matthews

City Archivist

Typed as Mrs. Walker talked,

12 October 1943.

City Archives.

Item # EarlyVan_v6_020

[photo annotation:]

Across False Creek, now Mt. Pleasant, 1887. Probably April 1887. From top of tree, stump or pole at what is now the South East corner of Seventh Ave. and Main St. This is the “New Road,” formerly “False Creek Road,” latterly Westminster Ave. and Main St., but west of the present location to avoid steeper grade. Seventh Ave. crosses between two nearest poles, part of Seventh Ave. appears in lower right hand corner. House on right believed to be Blair’s, first in Mt. Pleasant. Cordwood stacked in tall trees, and beside big burned stump. Surveyors at work, perhaps fixing location Westminster Ave., or making contour map made about that date. Log (two white patches) of tree, fallen across road, cut away to permit passage, beyond which road is corduroy over swampy wet ground where skunk cabbage grows. “Bob” Spinks cottage (white lean-to) is on piles, and over water of False Creek, present location, 1605 Main St. (see photo P.G.F. 6, N.G.F. 1.) W.E. Graveley, conversation, 16 May 1933, says “Bob” Spinks, my partner, Graveley & Spinks, had a house on piles opposite the bivouac; we sold him the land before the “Fire” for $200. The bivouac was beside the road, east side, just across from Spinks’, and what was afterwards Front St. (First Ave.) Those who fled Great Fire, bivouacked here night of 13-14 June, and fed by New Westminster (sandwiches.) Photo illustrates how “The Kink in Main St.” originated in trail along top of projecting point of land (observe narrow sidewalk from bridge, south end). Bridge Hotel, north end.

Photo presented, 1940, by Mrs. John Leask, née Hamilton, Collingwood, Ont. (sister L.A. Hamilton.) City Archives. J.S.M. Long black and white building is on N.W. cor. Hastings St. City Hospital, and Regina Hotel immediately before Brockton Pt. Compare with photo Bailey Bros. X 608 “Vancouver from the South.” First Baptist Church (white roof) directly over Bridge Hotel.

Memo of conversation with Mr. Chris Winskill, 575 East 24th Avenue, who very kindly called at the City Archives—he was paying his taxes—this morning, 19 October 1943, and stayed to tell us, and laugh at, early days in Vancouver, especially in Mount Pleasant.

Bears in Mount Pleasant, 1896.

Mr. Winskill said: “I am still there, 575 East 24th Avenue, been there, well, I moved there 10th April 1896. Bought it in my wife’s name so that if anything happened to me she would have a home. Guess I wouldn’t have had it now if I had not done that.

“Talking about bears. She” (Mrs. Winskill) “was hanging out her washing on the line, and the oldest boy called her attention to the bear sitting on the stump watching her putting out the clothes, so she picked up a stick of stove wood, and threw it at the bear, and said, ‘Shoo.’ Then the little dog, the little Scottie terrier, he came out, and he went after the bear to heel him, and the bear went over the fence with the dog after him. It was a rail fence, a snake rail fence. Then the dog, he was heeling the bear, and was underneath him” (the bear) “and cutting the bear’s feet, so that the wife thought the dog might get hurt, and she went over the fence, the rail fence, too, after the dog. The wife was after the dog, and the dog was after the bear.” (And he laughed.) “Those little Scottie dogs are heelers, and she was afraid the dog might get hurt.

“Then, while she was going over the fence one way to assist the dog, the bear came back over the fence another way to go after her, she went back over the fence, but when the bear got on top of the fence and he found he was clear of the dog, he decided to stop there, on top of the fence. So the wife called the dog to come into the house, and she went to the window to see what the bear was doing. He stayed there awhile, on top of the fence, and found that the dog was gone, and he spied a hen and her brood of chickens on top of a stump. I suppose they had gone there because they were frightened; it was the highest place they could find, but it was not high enough. So the bear gets down off the fence, and sneaks over slowly and carefully to the stump, and reaches up. Bears go very stealthily, and can stretch and reach a long way.

“So he sneaks closer and closer to the hen roosting on top of the stump with her chickens—half grown little things—and then, like a flash, he shoots out his paw, opens his mouth wide and sweeps in a chicken; in goes a chicken, feathers and all. Then he did it again. He got three of them altogether. When I got home, the wife told me about it, and I laughed, and she got ‘mad’ at me.”

Bears. Beaver dams. Beaver. 23rd and 24th avenues east. Carolina Street. St. George Street.

“Later on, well, the dam, the beaver dam, was right down below the house, 500 block, between 23rd and 24th avenues, near Carolina Street, though at that time it was called Frederick Street. I think Frederick Street was one way and Edmonds Street the other; changed now, and St. George and Carolina streets and 23rd and 24th avenues. So one morning the bear came again after the chickens, and I heard him, but there wasn’t a gun in the house.”

Hatch’s, Mount Pleasant.

“So I went over to Hatch’s in the next block to get my gun, but coming back with the gun the bear heard me, but I saw him, but too far away to shoot with small shot, with a shot gun. So I sent word down town to Charlie Hoffman—I don’t know how you spell it; may be Haughman; anyway, a German name—to bring out the hounds—these fox hounds, you know they are used for timber wolves, spots on them—and he came out and put them on the trail of the bear. The bear had been seen that morning sitting on the beaver dam” (note: where the women did their washing) “and in fifteen minutes I got three bears.”

Major Matthews: What did you do with them?

Bear meat.

Mr. Winskill: “Took them down town to the butcher shops, down to McIntosh’s butcher shop on Cordova Street, and sold them for meat. They were good bears, not too tough, and at that time Vancouver people were not afraid of eating bear meat like I hear they are now.”

Wildcat. Herbert Gingell.

“Any wild cats. Sure, great big fellow; a wildcat is a big animal; bobbed tail. Lynx, I think they’ve got long tails; anyway, we always called them wildcats; bobbed tail. The wildcats used to get the wife’s chickens and ducks. Herb Gingell shot one within a block of the house one day, and wounded it, but he had no more shells so came over to my house to get a gun and some shells. Everybody was out, but the back door was unlocked, but he didn’t know it. So he tried the front door, and then he pushed on it with his shoulder to try and push it in, but the panels gave way, and he broke the door instead, and didn’t get in.” (Mr. Winskill laughed.) “So he went back to the wildcat, the cat, and found he had shot it over the small of the back; it was disabled, so with a dog and a club he managed to kill it.

“He was a big one; about four feet and a half from tip to tip, and mind you, the wildcat’s tail is short; it is a bobtail.

“My wife used to shoot at them with a gun and scare them away, to keep them from the ducks. I shot at one there one morning with a gun I was not used to, but I missed him; I was not used to that gun, so I went and got my own, and chased that wildcat; did not go to work that morning, not until 10 o’clock, but I didn’t get him.”

Grouse. Pheasants. (Mayor) Miller’s.

“There were lots of grouse around there. I got seventeen one day out in the old Tea Swamp, out in the marsh. There was a little knoll, a sort of mound, behind Miller’s place, about 17th and 18th avenues. I got seventeen grouse in an hour one day; I got them all in a bunch. Why, I’ve shot grouse from my house, sitting up in the tree from my house; it was all wild around there at that time.”

Major Matthews: Done the same thing, almost, myself. Down at the foot of Ash Street, just west of it, at the mouth of the creek; shot duck from the verandah of my little white cottage.

Mr. Winskill: “You see, I was always a hunter, always. I liked to be where the game were. I remember when the pheasants came. It was against the law to shoot them. The pheasants came to Mount Pleasant up the old North Arm Road, now Fraser Avenue, and got in the gardens. Herb Gingell had a partner by the name of Major, and he used to raise vegetables, and when he saw the pheasants, the birds, in his garden, he did not know what birds they were, so he came over to my house and called me over. So I took a gun.

“Herb Gingell’s dogs would put grouse up, but the dogs wouldn’t work on the pheasant scent; I suppose the dog thought they were chickens. So I told Herb there was nothing there, but he said there was. It was all bush, and the pheasants were in the edge of the timber. So I walked up, and up jumps a bird, and I shot. It was a hen pheasant” (and Mr. Winskill laughed.) “I saw the bird sideways and it looked like a grouse to me. I told Herb it was a heck of a thing to bring me over to shoot tame pheasants, so we had a bird on our hands. I took it home and my wife cooked it, and I told old Major he had better keep quiet about it, about me shooting out of season. It was queer, but the dogs wouldn’t work on that pheasant scent.”

Knight Road. Henry Street.

Conversation, 23 [or 26] October 1943, with Calvert Simson, third storekeeper, Hastings Sawmill Co., and executor of the estate of Robert Knight.

“‘Bob’ Knight, I buried him in my plot on Mountain View Cemetery. He was born in Scotland August 3rd 1829, and died in Vancouver April 21st 1913. Old Cariboo miner. Came to Canada via Panama, and walked across the isthmus—I think Bob said it was 29 miles—then up to Victoria.

“He had a clearing out in South Vancouver, 10 acre clearing. I used to go out there and visit him. He sold it to Henry, the nurseryman. Knight Road is called after Bob Knight, and I suppose Henry Street, the next street, is after Henry, the nurseryman” (Mr. J. Henry.) “Here is a photo of Bob, and his bushy white whiskers.

“And this is a tax notice for the land, Municipality of South Vancouver, 1895.

“‘Robert Knight. D.L. 391-2, Blk, 17, 10.4 acres, $200.00 per acre, Impmts. $600.00. Total $2680.00.

“‘D.L. 302 Blk. 60 Lot 6-11 $50.00 per lot, wild land $300.00.’”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_021

Memo of conversation with August Jack Khahtsahlano, who came this morning, 26 March 1944, to the City Archives bringing with him a painting on a piece of paper depicting “Chaythoos,” at the end of the Pipe Line Road, First Narrows, Stanley Park, the former home of his father, Khay-tulk, or “Supplejack,” and showing the cottage, barn, and Khay-tulk’s mausoleum of wood on cedar posts.

“Chaythoos.” “Supplejack’s grave.” Khay-tulk.

Major Matthews: What’s this, August? Did you draw it for me. Chaythoos? Fine. Very good of you; tell me.

August: “That’s my father’s grave at the end of the Pipe Line Road, at Chaythoos. This lean-to on the left here is the stable where we kept twelve cows and two horses, two pigs, no sheep. And in the middle is the house, our house, made of old fashioned boards, one by twelve” (inches.) “I suppose we got them at the sawmill; old boards from some sawmill. And this on the right here is my father’s grave.”

Stanley Park. Park Road.

“One morning, when we were having breakfast, somebody hit the outside of the house, and my sister Louise—she is older than I was—and I ran out and said to a whiteman, ‘What are you doing?’ I was quite a big boy then. The whiteman said he was going to build a road; there were two of them; they were surveying, and they had a surveying rod with them. They cut off the corner of our house, just a little bit, so that they could see where to put their survey line; you can see here, I have marked it in the painting, and here is the man with the thing he makes the survey with; they cut a notch in the corner of the house; you can see it here. And the man between the house and the grave is holding the survey rod. The man said that when the road goes by here you are going to have lots of money. They said, ‘Pay to go through your place.’ But they have not paid yet.

“The house was covered with cedar shake shingles, hand split. And the grave where my father was buried, it had a cedar shake roof, too. And it was on cedar posts. It was about ten feet long, and about six feet wide, and lots of room inside for a coffin. And there were glass windows all around. The coffin was covered with a red blanket.” (It is strange, but previously, August has always told me that his father was buried in a canoe.)

“I don’t remember them building it because I was born the day my father died. The road around the park did not touch my father’s grave, so they left it there, but when it came we had to move away. We had to move out of the house and they tore it down, but they left the grave for a long time, until after Lord Stanley named the park. Then they took the coffin up to Squamish.”

Reburial of “Supplejack.”

“They took the coffin up to Squamish, and he was buried at Brackendale, at first, and then we had to move him again to Pookalosum” (sic) “at Squamish. The reason was that the water came in and washed away part of the cemetery at Brackendale, and we had to rebury the remains at Pookalosum” (sic), “two miles above Brackendale.

“The red curtains on the windows of the grave at Chaythoos were blankets. You could see through the glass into the inside, but you could not see the coffin because the red blanket was over it.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_022

[photo annotation:]

No. X360 Prospect Point, Stanley Park. Neelands Bros. Nelson B.C.

Signal pole and road to beach, Capilano Water Works construction.

No telephone, “Boat wanted; come over.” Old spruce, standing 1937.

CHAY-THOOS, i.e., “high bank,” all Prospect Pt, Stanley Park. Ancient Indian clearing of half acre twixt towering forest and shore. Here beside Hay-tulk’s mausoleum, a canoe inside wooden tomb on posts, Mayor Oppenheimer opened park, Sept 27, 1888; here Lord Stanley dedicated, Oct. 30, 1889. “Park Road” surfaced with calcined white shells from Whoi-whoi midden.

Site—between benches—of Hay-tulk’s (Supplejack) tomb.

Site—on road corner—of Chief Haatsa-lah-nogh’s laam (Indian cedar slab house) shown in R.E. survey, Mar. 1863; creek in hollow beyond dark bush.

Perhaps “lost” stone of proposed cairn dedicated by Lord Stanley, Oct. 1889.

Pipeline Road ends.

Item # EarlyVan_v6_023

Item # EarlyVan_v6_024

Item # EarlyVan_v6_025

[photo annotation:]

Guerney Cab & Delivery Co Ltd Livery Stable. Abbott St. Vancouver Transfer Co. Ltd. & M.A. Harvey, circa 1890-1. West side Abbott St, north of Water St. Over old beach. At high tide the sea was under it. Wood plank street on piles. Single track C.P.R. main line on right. Claud Adolphus Ballahoola Corbett and Lord Killahoe Drummond out for a bit of an airing. “From Emile de Forest.” Presented, May 1938, by Geo. D. Brown, jr, Box 64, Kamloops, through Ald. A.G. Harvey. City Archives.

Conversation with August Jack Khahtsahlano (of Kitsilano), who kindly called at the City Archives, 8 May 1944.

Place of birth Chaythoos, not Snauq.

August came carrying with him his framed copy of his declaration of, I think 1938, anyway, before the “Change of Name Act” came into force, in which he renounces the name of August Jack, and assumes for himself and his descendants the name of August Jack Khahtsahlano, which name was formally sworn to under oath before a notary public, and lodged with the Vital Statistic branch, Victoria. It states that he declares that he was born at Snauq, an Indian village at the False Creek Indian Reserve. He now wishes to retract this, as he says, “Everybody tells me I was born at Chaythoos,” Stanley Park (an Indian clearing where his father lives, also known as “Supplejack’s Grave”; where Lord Stanley dedicated the park.)

I explained to August that he had sworn to a place of birth under oath, and it would take another oath to alter that, and that copies would have to be lodged at the record office in Victoria, and that our frames would have to be undone and fixed up again, and that I was not pleased with the prospect of proving that a man who was, in fact if not in name, Chief Kitsilano, was born in Stanley Park; it would be more in keeping if he was born in Kitsilano. Whether August caught that point or not I do not know, but finally he said, “Too much bother.” He decided not to have any change made.

Indian medicines.

Then I asked him to tell me about Indian medicines before the white man came. So he said:

August: “It depends upon the kind of sickness you have go as to what medicines the Indians took before the whitemen came.

“If it’s rheumatism, you use nettles’ roots, nice and clean. Get a hammer and smash them up, and boil them; don’t boil them too much; and wash your aching leg with the water and roots” (he indicated rubbing both hands up and down his thigh, as though rolling a poultice of hot roots and water.) “Wash the legs with the roots and water before you go to bed; hot, not cold. Rub them up and down, good rubbing, and rub, too, all over body, shoulders, sides, all over. It’s good for rheumatism.

“If you got cold, use vine maple and soft maple roots; the roots which go east are the biggest; maybe four inches thick, and use the bark; vine maple and soft maple bark off the roots, not off the tree. Boil them, strain them good. Put them in something to hold the liquid, and drink it. Drink it whenever you want; every four hours; any time you want a drink, drink it.

“If you got stomach ache, use devil club. Take the bark and boil him; you got to beat him all the time; keep the liquid. Throw away the devil club and keep the water. Then drink it. Lots of people, when they eat, everything too sweet. Cannot eat. Then they use that too, devil club.”

(Note: see Dr. Carter’s remarks.)

“If you got headache, and are too hot, jump in the cold water in the creek; that’s what the Indians do. If you go to a creek and get in, you get cold slow and easy, not fast like a shower bath. Jump in the creek, get in and get out again, put your clothes on, and go for a fast walk.

“Lumbago. I don’t know, but they’s got stuff in the mountains, hard to get, high up, it grows like corn, the leaves are just like corn leaves, but there’s no corn on the stem. Away up in the mountains.

“Dry it and use saw to cut it up, and it comes out sawdust from teeth of saw. One spoonful of that stuff. It has big roots bigger than your thumb, and they dry it. Don’t use the leaves, just the roots. Use a saw, have paper underneath to catch the sawdust, save the sawdust, and then put it in hot water; you don’t have to boil him. It’s poison; you cannot drink it; just rub it. I got it at home; my wife use it all the time for lumbago; use it for bruises. You remember, long time ago, they play lacrosse in Stanley Park” (Brockton Point Grounds.) “Well, you get hit. Rub him on; do good.”

Fish oils. Oils as medicine.

Major Matthews: Did the Indians use fish oils as medicine before the whitemans come?

August: “Never use fish oil; never in my tribe, the Squamish; never use fish livers. Up north the Indians use lots oolichan oil, but not down here with the Squamish. I cannot think of any part of a fish they use as medicine.”

Note: at this point I ‘phoned Dr. Neal M. Carter of the Dominion Fisheries Experimental Station and reminded him that some time ago—about a year—he asked me to find out something about Indian notions of the efficacy of fish oils as food. After some discussion, he asked me to ask August two questions.

Did the Indians consider that fish oil had any efficacy in the prevention of colds; did they take oolichan oil with the idea of preventing colds?

Answer by August: “No.”

Did he know what a rat fish was, and could he say if the Indians, before the whitemen came, used to rub it on their limbs, and so on, to relieve stiffness or bruises. (After some discussion as to whether Dr. Carter meant catfish, and August demonstrating with his hands a fish about twelve inches long, which he said was “pearly” outside, and Dr. Carter replying that it was “pearly” and had a little white bulb on its nose, which August said he did not recall on a catfish, and some uncertainty as to what Dr. Carter mean by rat fish.)

Answer by August: “No.”

Major Matthews: Then what do you put on when you get hurt, and when you’re stiff after long time paddle in canoe?

August: “I just told you; that stuff we get up in the mountains; that corn stuff.”

Note: years ago, August told me that when the first whitemen came they gave the Indians molasses, and the Indians, not knowing that it was good to eat, rubbed it on their legs to relieve the stiffness after long time paddle in the canoe. Which proves that August is like other men, and makes mistakes, forgets, and has all the weakness of Indians and whites alike and common, regardless of colour of skin. The Indians undoubtedly mistook the molasses for oolichan oil.

At this point, Dr. Carter asked me to ask him about devil’s club. So, as August has just been speaking of devil’s club, and I had typed what he said as he said it, I read the forepart of this where devil’s club is mentioned.

Dr. Carter replied: “Just exactly what I wanted, and with this advantage, that he has made the statement before my question was asked. You see, that condition of sweetness to the taste is a condition of diabetes; things taste too sweet, and here your Indian friend confirms something I’ll tell you about which may interest you. Do you happen to remember that some years ago two Prince Rupert doctors claimed that devil’s club was a good treatment for diabetes. That, apparently, is what the Indians asserted long ago; anyway, that, in effect, is what your Indian friend says by inference.”

Item # EarlyVan_v6_026

[Conversation with Frank Plante and Lena Mayers, 19 June 1944.]

Conversation with François Plante, commonly called “Frank Plante,” first child of European parentage born on Burrard Inlet, at “Moody’s Mills,” or Moodyville, 13 April 1868, and his sister Catherine Plante, commonly known as “Lena Plante,” born on Carrall Street, Vancouver, 18 November 1891, both children of the late Peter Plante and his wife, née Ada Young, or Ada Guinne, daughter of Supplien Guinne of D.L. 319, Marpole, commonly called “French John,” or “John Young,” whose marriage by the Reverend Edward White, 18 July 1868, was the first marriage by Christian rite solemnised on Burrard Inlet. Frank Plante is a widower, and is the eldest child of the marriage; “Lena,” his sister, is Mrs. Capt. George Mayers of Clarke Road, R.R. No. 2, New Westminster, and is the youngest.

Both called together, accompanied by a little girl of about five (not a grandchild) and remained in the City Archives for a couple of hours. They both seemed well pleased with what the Archives are doing to preserve the story of their family, and did not seem to mind in the least when we referred, repeatedly, to their partial Squamish Indian ancestry.

Peter Plante. Supplien Guinne. “John Young.” “French John.”

Major Matthews: Frank I have been to a great deal of trouble with this birth registry matter of yours. It is all ready to mail to the Division of Vital Statistics, Victoria, for registration. I want to read it over to you before it goes. (Takes voluminous papers from envelope addressed to J.D.B. Scott, Director, Vital Statistics, Victoria.) Let me read the whole thing, form 4, form 9, and my long statutory declaration.

(Reading) “Ada Young, born at North Arm, Fraser River.”

Mr. Plante and Mrs. Mayers: (together) “No; that’s wrong; born at Fort Langley, B.C. I think she was 66 when she died.”

(After much reading, and much explanation of what is in the statutory declaration by J.S. Matthews.)

Major Matthews: Well, what did you think of it.

Mr. Plante and Mrs. Mayers: “Very good; awful lot of it.”

Major Matthews: Shall I send it?

Mr. Plante: “Yes.”

Major Matthews: “While I am attending to those people, I wish you would look over this book of photographs of the rededication of Stanley Park last 25th August; you will see yourself in some of the photographs.

Major Matthews: (returning after ten minutes) Well, what do you think of it?

Mr. Plante: “Pretty good; there’s a good picture” (pointing to one of himself driving the carriage in which those acting “Lord Stanley” and “Mayor Oppenheimer” are driving, and laughing as he pointed.)

Major Matthews: You want something; tell me.

Mr. Plante: “Lena wants her birth registered, too.”

Major Matthews: Oh, so that’s it.” (Proceeds to get out necessary forms, etc., and after much typing of details from dictation of Mrs. Mayers, who says that her name is not “Lena” but “Catherine,” the form 4 and form 9 are finally complete.)

Major Matthews: But I have understood your name was “Lena”?

Mrs. Mayers: “I have always been called that; don’t know why, but it’s not my name; my name is Catherine; Catherine with a capital C. I was born on Carrall Street, by the Royal City Planing Mills; our house was the only one down in that direction which escaped ‘The Fire’” (13 June 1886.) “I am the youngest of the family; there were seven of us all told, but two died; there were five living at that time. I was born on the 18th November 1891, not 1881, but 1891, in the city of Vancouver, on Carrall Street. Frank was the eldest of the family; he was about 24 years old when I was born.”

Supplien Guinne. “John Young.”

Mrs. Mayers: “Yes, Supplien Guinne was my grandfather; he died in the Old Man’s Home, Kamloops, about 19 years ago; he was one hundred years old. But he always spoke to us of his name as ‘Sup-plee-on’; he used to say his name was ‘Sup-plee-on.’”

Frank Plante: “His papers are up in the Old Man’s Home; you ought to write and get them.” (Note: the same evening, Major Matthews wrote to Hon. R.L. Maitland, K.C., Attorney-General, Victoria, and a Trustee, City Archives, asking how best it would be to go about procuring custody of the papers.

Major Matthews: Fitzgerald McCleery wrote in his diary about 1864 or 1865, “The Frenchman got the horse.”

Frank Plante: “Not the same horse, I suppose, as the old man had, but years afterwards he had a little old sorrel, a little bit of a thing, and he had it for years and years, and used to ride over to Gastown—and get drunk.”

Mrs. Mayers: “Fitzgerald’s daughter, Greta McCleery I think her name is” (Margaret, the eldest daughter, living in 1944) “used to write his letters for him. He” (Supplien Guinne) “could hardly write his own name, and Miss McCleery used to write his letters for him, to some of his relatives back east” (Québec.) “You speak to her about him. Granddad worked for McCleerys years and years.”

Major Matthews: I was talking to her over the phone this morning; she is not very well.

Frank Plante: “We have photos of my father over at New Westminster.”

Mrs. Mayers: “And one of Supplien Guinne, too.’

Major Matthews: Amazing. I do hope you will let me copy them.

No doctor, no nurse at birth.

Major Matthews: Going back to your birthday, who was the doctor?

Mrs. Mayers: “No doctor; no nurse. Not in those days. Mother had seven children; I was the youngest; we didn’t have a doctor.”

“Supplejack” or Khay-tulk.

Frank Plante: “Supplejack was our uncle. He had a herd of cattle in Stanley Park; he must have had about thirty of them, all white-faced Herefords. I often wondered how he got those white-faced cattle. He had two bulls, twins. Supplejack sold one bull team for logging to Gillespie, the logger. I logged with a bull team all over here; out there” (pointing out of the window at Cambie and Ash Street.) “Hauled logs down from Little Mountain, and dumped them in False Creek at the foot of Ash Street, beside your” (Major Matthews) “old cottage, just east of the creek mouth at the foot of Ash Street.” (See photo C.V.P. Dist. 2 and 15, N. Dist. 1 and 15, Vancouver, Sc. 83, G.N. 812.)

Mrs. Allison Shotton. 1556 Venables Street.

Frank Plante: “An old lady spoke to me yesterday, and said, ‘Do you know how I am?’ I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘I’m Mrs. Allison Shotton; you drove the carriage the day of my wedding.’ I told her I had driven the carriage at so many weddings that I couldn’t remember them all, but I remembered hers, and couldn’t believe that the old lady was Mrs. Shotton; hadn’t seen her since. Her wedding was the day, the same day, that I drove Lord Stanley out to the Park, to the First Narrows” (29 October 1889) “when he dedicated it.”

Catherine, or “Lena” Plante. Delayed registry of birth.

The birth registry papers having been completed, and on phoning Mr. A.E. Lord, City Solicitor, asking if he was at liberty now to take Mr. François Plante’s oath to them, declaring that he well remembered his sister’s birth in 1891, we went down to the Legal Department, and Frank Plante took the necessary oath, and Mr. Lord attached his seal. The papers were forwarded to the Department of Vital Statistics, 20 June 1944.

After about two hours, Mr. Plante and his sister Mrs. Mayers and the little girl departed. Mrs. Mayers is a fine specimen of womanhood; good looking for her age; shapely features; her complexion shows no sign of any Indian blood; she is most kindly mannered, modest and somewhat heavily formed; she must weigh about 150 or 160 pounds, I suppose; by no means small, nor large, but is a very well-proportioned and motherly woman whom I surmise keeps a very comfortable home for those who look to her. Both brother and sister seemed to have enjoyed their visit, and were quite complimentary on the work being done by the City Archives.

J.S. Matthews.

20 June 1944.

From notes made last evening at the City Hall, immediately they left.

Survivors, 1944. Petition for incorporation.

On the afternoon of 11 July 1944, Mr. W.H. Chase, pioneer, last proprietor of the Deighton Hotel, Granville, otherwise “Gassy Jack’s of Gastown,” called at the City Archives, City Hall, accompanied by his daughter, Mrs. W.W. Hatfield, and enjoyed tea and cake with Major Matthews.

During the conversation the photostatic copy of the petition was produced, Mr. Chase found his own signature on it, and also that of his brother, Ben. F. Chase. And then the complete roll of names was slowly read out to Mr. Chase. He could recall all of them which most people can recall, and there were others he knew nothing about, just as the rest of us do. So that is fairly certain that a required number of signatures were necessary to the petition, and, it is probable, guests at the hotel were pressed into service to that end. Anyway, there appear to be ten or a dozen names which seem to be unknown to all of us.

And Mr. Chase and I came to the conclusion—and Mr. Calvert Simson, former storekeeper at the Hastings Sawmill, 1884, concurred—that with the exception of Mr. W.H. Chase and his brother Ben. F. Chase, now in California, none of the other signatories are now living.

J.S. Matthews.

Conversation with Mr. Herbert William Martin, pioneer, of 744 West 8th Avenue, who together with his sister, Mrs. J.M. Vye, very kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon, 17 July 1944.

I noticed Mr. Martin was wearing the lapel “button” indicating that he had served in the last war, 1914-1918.

Canadian Pacific Railway construction. Alderman Robert Balfour. Beavermouth. Stoney Creek bridge. Surprise Creek. Revelstoke. Sicamous.

Mr. Martin: “My father, with my mother and the rest of the children, and Alderman Balfour of the first City Council; my father was in partnership with him all the time, came over the mountains just ahead of the Canadian Pacific Railway grade. Father was keeping a boarding house at the end of the steel; we would be ahead of the grade, then when they came up to us, we would move on. Balfour was superintendent of bridge construction; he built the Stoney Creek bridge; at the time it was built it was supposed to be the highest bridge in the world. We started at Beavermouth, just west of Field, and the next stop was at Surprise Creek, and the next was Stoney Creek, and the next Revelstoke, and then where Sicamous is now, and then we stopped at Kamloops. Then we had to cross the river to the opposite bank to where the railway was being built. So we crossed and drove to Yale, and took the old stern wheeler Rithet, flat bottom, to New Westminster.”

Arrival at Granville, 1885.

“We took the boat from New Westminster to Victoria, but they did not like the place and came back to Granville, or ‘Gastown,’ arriving here October 1885. Then we went into the hotel business, and built the Burrard Hotel at the northeast corner of Hastings and Columbia streets, where the Broadway Hotel is now, and it was opened just one weeks before ‘The Fire’ came along and there were three men burned to death there.

“That, too, was practically the cause of my father’s death. He got all burned inside, and lived for six years after that. But after ‘The Fire,’ he and Bob Balfour, his son-in-law, built the hotel where the Ranier Hotel is now on the southwest corner of Carrall and Cordova streets. Father sold out to Allan and MacDonald, and after that it was called the Balmoral Hotel, and the Quann Bros. got it, and just how and when I don’t know as I was away.”

Canadian Pacific Railway construction.

“Nothing especial happened coming over the mountains. We were driving in a long covered wagon; making camp; in the height of summer it was lovely; rough, though, and you had to keep your ears open for them yelling, ‘Blast.’ We came down the old Indian tote road through the Canyon. You could get all the meat you wanted up there in the mountains; could buy it every few miles, get it from the Indians. My mother said that that trip was the best time of her life; she used to dote on that. In the wagon was my mother and three sisters and three boys. I rode a pony, rode a pony all the way. There was Mother and Adeline” (Mrs. Balfour) “and Maud, and Carrie here” (Mrs. Martin, who was standing beside him as he spoke) “and the three boys, Len, my eldest brother, and Ed. and Acie” (Asa) “all in the wagon, and Mother and Father and Mrs. and Mr. Balfour” (Adeline.) “There were camps all the way along until we left Kamloops, and then they were on the south side of the river opposite to the side we were travelling.”

Chinese.

“There were not any Chinamen until you got to Yale. I think the first Chinaman I saw—ever saw—was at Yale, and there were not any Chinamen until you got to Yale. I think the first Chinaman I ever saw was at Yale, and goodness knows there were plenty of them there. Onderdonk had them.”

Stoney Creek bride. Surprise Creek.

Note: at this point I got out some old photos and showed them to Mr. Martin.

C.V.P. Str. 99, N. Str. 64	C.P.R. Telegraph Office, Cordova Street.

C.V.P. Out. 185 and 346	Stoney Creek bridge

C.V.P. Out. 145, G.N. 291	Surprise Creek

Mr. Martin: (continuing) “that’s Stoney Creek bridge; we lived down here in the bottom, by the creek. And this is Surprise Creek. I think that is an old construction trail, and this here is the first C.P.R. Telegraph office in that block on Cordova Street, where I worked as messenger. Mayor George Miller says that he was the first telegraph messenger in Vancouver, but he was not. I was the first and he was the third.”

Canadian Pacific Railway Telegraph. First messenger’s uniform.

“The C.P.R. Telegraph Office was right across the street from the present C.P.R. Station.” (See photo C.V.P. Str. 99, N. Str. 64.) “There had been a telegraph office in Vancouver before that but they were without a messenger. I was the first telegraph messenger in Vancouver. At first I worked without a uniform, but they sent all the way to Montréal and got a uniform for me. It was the same kind of cloth as the cloth they made trainmen’s uniforms; cap and all; just the same as trainmen’s uniforms. And I got the big sum of ten dollars a month.

“If I had to deliver a message for Mr.” (R.H.) “Alexander, manager of the Hastings Sawmill, I had to walk there; there were no bicycles; no one could have ridden one of those high bicycles down there, and safety bicycles had not been invented. But what you did need was gum boots; everything was mud down there, down Alexander Street way through the trail. Until they built the C.P.R. tracks on a trestle out over the beach, and then I took to the trestle when I had a message to deliver to the mill.”

Volunteer Fire Brigade, 1887. Torch boys. The second fire of Vancouver, 1887.

“I was torch boy in the Vancouver Volunteer Fire Brigade. They took us on in the summer of 1887, after the first fire of 1886, and we were on duty for 36 or 48 hours at the time of the second scare in 1887. The fire was up on the hill, past Cambie Street, up Pender and Seymour Street way. There was a high wind, and there were sparks from the small fires. Of course, there were no buildings up there at that time; the buildings were all down on Carrall and Abbott streets, and they were fighting to keep the fire and the sparks away from them. It was just a bush fire—severe bush fire, of course—all around up there past Cambie Street was all logs and slash which had not been burned in the first big fire in 1886.” (Photo No. C.V.P. F.D. 21, N.F.D. 6 of Volunteer Fire Brigade, First Dominion Day celebration, corner Water and Carrall Street, is produced.) “But, about this old photo. You can see two boys standing behind the men who are kneeling and in front of the men who are standing, between the two ranks, two boys. Well, the boy on the left nearest the fire engine is myself, and the boy on the right furthest from the engine is Eddie Miller, Postmaster Miller’s son.”

Torches.

“The torches were just cans of coal oil with a big wick; just naked light; we carried it with a match, and used the torch as a flare, and carried it on the end of a long stick. Our duties as torch boys were to be right there when they were coupling or uncoupling the hose, and to hold the light so that the men could see what they were doing.”

Water from wells. Fire water from cistern. Woodward’s department store.

“When we were fighting the second fire of 1887, we got our water from a cistern opposite Woodward’s store, in the street at the northwest corner of Abbott and Hastings Street.” (Shown in Dakin’s Fire Map, November 1889, as “cistern.”) “We pumped water from that.”

Survivors of Volunteer Fire Brigade.

“I don’t know how many of the old fire brigade, the Volunteer Fire Brigade I mean, there are living now beside myself, but all I can think of is two, and they are Hugh Campbell and Fred Upham,” (NOTE ADDED LATER: “and J.A. Mateer.”)

At this point it was decided that we had talked enough, so Mr. Martin, and his sister Mrs. Vye, Mrs. J.M. Vye, went off, Mr. Martin carrying with him a print of the photo showing the Fire Brigade all lined up on the corner of Carrall and Water streets, Dominion Day, 1887, in which he appears.

J.S. Matthews.

[Letter from J.S. Matthews to Colonel J.P. Fell.]

22nd August, 1944.

Dear Col. Fell:

May I asked you the privilege of submitting certain matters to you.

About 10 years ago someone told me that some particular place in Vancouver had been named to honor some individual; I made a note of it, and later added other notes about other places in and about the city. The result has been that there is now in this institution a record of 3000 named places which, figuratively, can be seen from the City Hall tower, and how they got their names, when, and why. It has been a long task, is never finished, and has been done little by little. Among them are Lonsdale Gardens, Lonsdale Estate; Lonsdale Avenue. Among the many references to this property—going back to Alexander Merryfield, who pre-empted it, I note an item—just one—that in 1893 the North Vancouver Council ordered the setting out of

“LONSDALE AVENUE: from the waterfront to Keith Road.”

These place name records are in constant use; for instance, the “Province” of last Saturday, magazine section, published a half page on downtown street names; the writer, Rev. A.E. Cooke, spent four days in this office extracting his information, and, of course, we like what we give out to be absolutely authentic. We have here, too, a docket marked “FELL, Col. J.P.” into which we put such as newspaper clippings concerning your self; Fell’s Fill; the North Vancouver Engineers, and so on. And, we have another docket on “LONSDALE, Lord.”

There seems to be nothing definite here as to how Lonsdale Ave., etc., got its name; some say one thing; some another. The best way, if you would consent, is to have it down in writing from someone who knows just exactly who it was intended to honor; what relationship to Lord Lonsdale; when he was here, and who it was who applied the name. Then we make copies of the letter or document, and place those copies in the proper files so that when anyone comes in seeking information, the whole matter is there for them to see.

It would be very agreeable to us to receive the facts about the Lonsdale naming if you would be so good as to put them down for us.

With best wishes,

Most sincerely,

Colonel J.P. Fell,	J.S. Matthews

Vancouver.	City Archivist

[Letter from James P. Fell to J.S. Matthews.]

30.8.44

1598 Angus Drive

Vancouver, B.C.

Major J.S. Matthews,

City Archivist, City Hall,

Vancouver.

Dear Sir:

Reference to your letter 22nd inst. Some day convenient to us both I must drop and see you, particularly about North Vancouver.

The Moodyville Lands and Sawmill Co. were the first large owners of lands on the north shore, including the Moodyville Sawmill and a lot of crown granted and other timber up the coast. Arthur Heywood Lonsdale had a large blanket mortgage on the Company’s assets, and had to foreclose. He lived at Shanington Hall, Shropshire, Eng.

For some years he ran the mill, etc., through Wulfsohn Bewicke & Co; later through Robert Ward & Co. The exact date he (Heywood Lonsdale) took it over I can’t remember but it was in the 80’s. You can get that from the Land Registry. About the beginning of this century he sold the mill, timber, etc., to John Hendry who had previously bought control of the Hastings Sawmill. Shortly afterwards, he (Heywood Lonsdale) sold D.L. 274 to Hamersley, then City Solicitor in Vancouver, who sub-divided and sold it off, and really started the City of North Vancouver and the ferry service. Lonsdale Avenue ran through the property.

About 1907 William Bauer bought D.L. 273 from the Lonsdale Estate, sub-divided and sold it. Later the estate cleared, sub-divided and sold a lot of property in D. Lots 264, 265, 266, 552, 553, and 272. But most of this was taken over by the City and District of N. Vancouver for taxes.

Lord Lonsdale (whose family name is Lowther) never had any connection with this property, or any other in this province so far as I know.

Yours sincerely,

James P. Fell.

Memo of conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Reinhart Hoffmeister of Boundary Bay, and 1271 Granville Street, Vancouver, who very kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon and remained to chat for an hour or more, 28 September 1944.

Cariboo Cameron.

Mrs. Hoffmeister: “Cariboo Cameron was my cousin; my mother and his mother were sisters. My mother was Miss Jessie MacBain, of Bainsville, Glengarry, Ontario, and she was the daughter of Squire John MacBain, of the same place. Mother became Mrs. Dr. J.T. MacPherson, D.D.S., L.D.S., of Lancaster, Ontario” (in Glengarry.) “Cariboo Cameron’s wife was her older sister; her name was Margaret, but they always called her Peggy; there were two sisters. Cariboo Cameron’s mother dropped dead in Montréal the day D’Arcy McGee was shot. My mother died in Edmonton, Alberta, about 1918. Cariboo Cameron died out here, I think. I was just a tiny girl when Mother used to tell us about this. My sister is the widow of Rev. Mr. McGugan, of Chalmers Church, here in Fairview” (Vancouver); “she lives in Crown Crescent, Point Grey—her phone is Alma 0718-Y—she may have a photo of Cariboo Cameron. I can see him as plain as anything with his great flowing moustache.”

Hoffmeister Bros.

Mr. Hoffmeister: “There were seven Hoffmeister brothers; William was the oldest; all sons of Henry Hoffmeister and his wife Catherine, née Price; all the boys were born in Ontario. There was William, Harry, Fred, Reinhart, Louis, George and Jacob” (or Jake.) “Our home town was Clifford, Wellington County, Ontario. Father was of German descent. He came here from Hamburg when he was 14 years old; that is, he came to Canada. His father used to be an international lawyer, that is, my grandfather; he could speak six languages.

“The first one to come to Vancouver was Harry; he came here the year of the Fire, 1886; he just wanted to come to a new country. He followed the woodworking business; we followed the house building and contracting; we were brought up on that; Father used to make all the coffins for that district.

“Then, on April 1st 1888, I came here, single at the time, and I came from Port Sanlac” (sic) “Michigan, where I had been an engineer in a flour mill. When I was in the flour mill I started to study electricity; I used to take all the electrical newspapers I could get hold of.

“William, my eldest brother, was engineer on the Lake boats, and then he worked for the Edward P. Allis Co., at Milwaukee, installing machinery, and he built the flour mill at Port Sanlac, Michigan. Then he worked for the Pullman car works in Detroit for some time, too. Then he came out here about 1893; that makes three brothers out here, Harry, myself and William.

“Then I went off to the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893, and when I came back, Jake came back with me; that made four. Then George came. I think he came the same year from Wellington County. Fred must have come out here about 1890, and went down to San Francisco, and was superintendent of the San Mateo Railway for some years. He was slated to be the superintendent of the B.C. Electric Railway Co. here, but his wife died in the east, and he did not take that position. Then Fred got a position with the Canadian General Electric, and he installed the Soulinges Canal plant, Québec. Then he installed all that stuff down at Niagara Falls, for the Canadian Development Company. And then he had the Beauharnois plant.

“Then the next was Louis; he came out in 1894, and that is the lot. Mother came out and died here, and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery, and Father died down in Los Angeles, California. William died here and Harry died here.”

Hoffmeister Bros. Brigadier Hoffmeister.

“Hoffmeister Bros., who had the garage on Pender Street West, comprised Harry and George, and I think Fred had an interest in it, too. I think they were the first motor car dealers in the city; they handled the Marmon” (sic), “the Dominion, and the E.N.F.” (Flanders), “and the Detroit Electric.”

First electric motor car. T.A. Fee.

“They sold the first electric car sold in the city to T.A. Fee. Harry and George are dead; Fred is down at Niagara Falls now.

“Louis, at first, worked for Robertson and Hackett, sash and door, and then afterwards at the Rat Portage Lumber Co., and ran the planing mill there, and then he was with the False Creek Lumber Co., running the planers there. Louis died about a year ago.

“Louis is the father of Brigadier Hoffmeister, who has distinguished himself in recent months in Italy; he has command of a division.”

(Note: his rank is, I think, correctly, Major-General.)

“All that are living now is Reinhart, that’s me, and Fred and Jake. Jake is working for me yet, on Granville Street; he has been with me since 1903.”

Children and grandchildren.

“Harry did not marry; George did not marry; Fred has one daughter; Louis has a son, the general, and a daughter; she is Mrs. French, he is down with the fish company here. Jake has one daughter, she is married, too, Mrs. Thornloe, or Betty, of Portage La Prairie. And I have one son, Frank Cameron Hoffmeister, working at my place, 1271 Granville Street.”

Mrs. Hoffmeister: “I used to be up at Fort St. John.” (I think she said four years, but I was interrupted and did not catch it clearly.) “We did all kinds of things up there. You see, I am the second Mrs. Hoffmeister.”

First generator.

Major Matthews: What about the first generator, Mr. Hoffmeister?

Mr. Hoffmeister: “I’ve written it out for you. Here it is.” (Hands over a sheet written in pencil, as follows.)

Vancouver,

September.

Dear Major Matthews,

City Archives,

City Hall.

I received your letter August 21st 1944. In referring to A.W. Bullmer’s letter. I have some corrections to make.

The first generator I built in Vancouver was in 1888. I landed in Vancouver 1st April 1888. I started my electrical experiment when I was steam engineer in Riley’s Flour Mill in Port Sanelac, Michigan. I started to design the first 500 generator, and made the patterns, and had the castings made by the Gould Iron Works, Detroit. I also built my lathe to do the machine work. In March 1888 I decided to go west, so I landed in Vancouver. I brought the lathe and castings with me, and finished the generator here. I am keeping it as a souvenir.

The second generator I built for Sam Nixon; he was engineer at Robertson and Hackett Sash and Door factory on Seymour street. He used it to light up the engine room. When he went back to England he took it with him. Castings were made by Ross and Howard Iron Works.

After that, I designed a 500 watt D.C. motor for Trythall’s & Son printing shop. As his business expanded, I installed a larger motor. Now I have the original motor in the shop. I also built a number of electro plating generators.

White lead.

Then there was a syndicate formed to make commercial white lead.

This is the 1000 amp—10 volt generator Mr. A.W. Bulmer refers to.

Memo of conversation with Mr. R. Hoffmeister of Hoffmeister Bros., 1271 Granville Street, and Boundary Bay, at City Archives, 6 October 1944.

First dynamo in Vancouver. Early street cars.

Mr. Hoffmeister: “I went to school in Clifford, Ontario, but I left when I was 14. After that I got certificates for free hand drawing, for draughting, for mechanical drawings, and I got them by going to night school.

“Then, the way I got interested in electrical things was that they put in an electric street car system at Port Huron, Michigan, and it was a queer sort of street car with a sort of housing in the middle of the car, and the motorman was in the middle of the car. Of course, it excited a lot of interest to see this street run without horses or driver, and people went to see it; they came in from miles and miles in all directions; that would be about 1886 or 1885. I said to myself, ‘That’s the thing to get into; it’s the coming thing.’ Then I started to take all the electrical journals and papers I could lay my hands on.”

First generator in Vancouver. Howe Street.

“I designed it. I made the patterns myself, and then I built it. I used it down at a little shop I had, a little bit of a place on the southwest corner of Davie and Howe Street. The street wasn’t opened up at that time. When we built the place, that is, my brother Harry and I, we had to haul the lumber in on a sleigh from down a little mill at the foot of Granville Street, MacKay was the name; it was before Fader’s Mill; Fader took it over afterwards and built a new mill, right where Robertson and Hackett is now. Granville Street that time was just a trail up, and so was Davie Street, and Howe Street wasn’t opened up at the south end.”

Robertson and Hackett. Major Lacey R. Johnson. Vancouver Manufacturing and Trading Company.

“I think Major Lacey R. Johnson, the Master Mechanic at the C.P.R. roundhouse, was the first man to build a house in the West End, away down by the corner of Pacific and Beach Avenue. We supplied all the doors and windows. At the time I was superintendent of the Vancouver Manufacturing and Trading Company; we had a sash and door and furniture factory and made pails and tubs—we had a sawmill in connection with it too” (see photo C.V. P. Bu. 98 N. [blank]), “factory down there at the foot of Burrard Street” (see Goad’s Map, folio 23); “we had all that foreshore there between the C.P.R. railway and Granville Street.

“J.M. Browning was interested in the company, and so was E.H. Heaps; it was Mr. Heaps who brought the whole outfit out from Toronto. Then afterwards he went down to Cedar Cove on Powell Street and started a shingle mill. The V.M. and T. Co. had no electric machine or power; it was all steam. Andrew Wallace, the founder of the Burrard Dry Dock, was on the other side of Granville Street, but he had some part on the west side of Granville; we got a lot of stuff for him. He was a great hustler; he’d go to work and take a big piece of timber, and a broadaxe, and he would go at it, and nowadays they go to work and make plans and drawings, but Andy would have the mast made before they could draw their plans.”

Hoffmeister Bro. Wood pulp. Port Mellon.

“With that one exception, the Vancouver Manufacturing and Trading Co., in which I had a financial interest, I have never worked for anyone; the little place we started on Howe Street and Davie was our own business. We had lots of work; we used to do all the installations. For instance, for the Canadian General Electric, and the B.C. Sugar Refinery, and the Vancouver General Hospital in Fairview, and the second C.P.R. Depot which had its own electric light plant at the foot of Granville, and then the pulp company at Port Mellon when they first started and organised the company. I made some of the experimental equipment for the first wood pulp made in British Columbia. At first they had a little experimental plant down on Cordova Street, between Cambie and Richards Street. His name was” [blank]; “that’s a long time ago.”

Nanaimo.

“Then I used to do a lot of work for coal at Nanaimo, but we never did much in private houses; it was all in electrical machinery. It was in Nanaimo that I first met J.H. Cocking of the Pioneers here. You see, they had a little steam plant for generating electric current down close to the town. Then they put in a water power on the Millstream Creek, and J.H. Cocking had the work of moving the machinery from the old plant. We moved that plant; we started at 5 o’clock in the morning, moved all that machinery and had it in running order by 7 o’clock that night, and the town of Nanaimo was lit up, and the people never knew their electric lighting plant had moved. Bill Lewis was the manager. The people of Nanaimo had the light on after five o’clock in the morning, and had it on again in the evening at seven p.m. and in the interval the whole electrical lighting system of Nanaimo had been changed to a new location, and they were none the wiser.”

Nelson, B.C. Sandon, B.C. Trail, B.C. Ashcroft, B.C.

“My brother Fred put in the first lighting plant for the town at Trail; Heinz was the man who started the smelter up there. The C.P.R. took it over finally. Fred also put in the lighting for the town of Ashcroft, and pumping plant for the irrigation ditches there, and the C.P.R. water tower. And then at Sandon, we repaired their generators there; they could never get them to work right. And at Nelson, I looked over their plant, but did no work.”

First electrical firm.

Major Matthews: Who was the first to establish an electrical business in Vancouver?

Mr. Hoffmeister: “I was the first electrical man in the city, and my business was the first electrical business in Vancouver. But you must remember that there was a company organised before I was here; it was called the Vancouver Lighting Co. or something like that, and they had two little 25 kilowatt generators down in a little bit of a building, wooden, I think, at the foot of Abbott Street. They were Edison type generators. Run on a three wire system, 110 and 220 volts; you see, 110 and 220 volts, and with the three wires you could get either 110 or 220. The idea, of course, was that 220 you could run your wires further out into the city, or you could use it on a motor for work purposes, and the 110 was good enough for lighting dwellings. The street lights were carbon filament bulbs on 110 volts.”

Conversation with Calvert Simson, storekeeper, Hastings Sawmill.

Hastings Sawmill fire engine.

“I saw Arthur Hendry today” (13 October 1944.) “He says the old fire engine was broken up. And Harold Ridley told you he had a walking stick made out of it. So I suppose that was what happened to it. It seems one time, Arthur Hendry told me, they had it on a little trolley. But it wasn’t a fire engine; it was just a bit of a thing with hose wound around on it. And it certainly wasn’t the first fire engine north of San Francisco.”

Seymour Creek gold mining syndicate.

Seymour Creek.

Conversation, 23 October 1944, with A.A. Brookhouse, 1872 Parker Street, who is editor, Shoulder Strap, semi-annual journal of B.C. Provincial Police:

“We thought we had a gold mine up there; put in a lot of sluice boxes and spent a lot of money; had a timekeeper and seven or eight men. We formed a syndicate, and staked gold claims all the way up the Seymour. There were a few flakes of gold up there, but not enough to make your wife a brooch. Some Australian man came here, and he could talk better than we could, and we formed the syndicate and lost our money. Never got a thing out of it, and found just enough gold to show us what gold looked like. That must be thirty-seven years ago. The only man living now who knows anything about it—he was in with us—is a man named Loutet, or Lewtet; he’s over in North Vancouver; he was in the real estate business; I think he was Reeve of the District of North Vancouver one time.”

Memo of conversation with Colonel George E. Walkem at his residence, 5775 Sperling Street, Kerrisdale, where he spends his afternoons away from the office, resting, 17 November 1944.

He came here in 1898, and is not as young as he used to be. Mrs. Walkem received me graciously on arrival. His home is just such as one would expect; the Union Jack flying in the garden, the drinking pool for birds on its pedestal, and the flowers just as he surrounds his offices at the Vancouver Machinery Depot on Sixth Avenue, and the Gulf of Georgia Towing Company’s office at the foot of Granville Street, False Creek. I received from them two large parcels of papers, books and photographs left to be given me by Mrs. Colonel L.W. Herchmer, R.C.M.P., and later Mrs. Walkem brought us tea and toast beside a blazing open fire place. We talked a lot.

Colonel Walkem: “Before I came here, 1898, I was down in Tacoma, Washington, working for the” (I think he said the Tacoma and Columbia River Railway.) “I worked for them for three months at ninety dollars a month, that was two hundred and seventy dollars, but I never got it. So I came up to Vancouver. I had relatives up here, two of them, but I didn’t want to bother them. All I had was about two dollars.

“So that evening I had dinner at the Hotel Vancouver—seventy-five cents—and next morning I had a twenty-five cent breakfast, and nothing to eat the rest of the day. Thank goodness, that was the only time ever in my life I had to beg for a meal.

“So I went into that restaurant on Cordova Street run by Boehlofsky” (F.A. Boehlofsky, of the Boulder Salon on the corner of Cordova and Carrall Street) “and as I went in there was a waitress at the door with a napkin over her arm, and I asked her where I could find the proprietor, and she pointed to a man. I went up to him, told him I was without money, wanted something to eat, but I suppose he had dozens of such applicants and he did not grant my request. So as I was going out, dejected, the waitress at the door said to me, ‘What did Father say,’ so I told her. She replied, ‘You go and sit down there at that table,’ and I did, and she brought me as fine a meal as one could wish for, and after that she took one of those tickets for 21 meals and punched it for one meal and gave it to me.

“So the next day I got a job in the machine shop of the B.C. Electric Railway at three dollars a day, and after working two days I asked for my time, and got my time check for six dollars. The office of the B.C. Electric Railway was then on the corner of Cambie and Cordova Street” (see photo C.V. P. Bu. 171, N. Bu. 104) “and I went up there and a man came to the counter and took my time check. It was Charlie Rummell, afterwards well know in the B.C. Electric service. He looked at it, asked some questions such as, ‘What’s this; this is only for two days,’ and wanted to know why I was quitting after two days. So I told him I did not want to owe for meals, and got my six dollars. He told me to go back and work, and I stayed with the B.C. Electric for three years, and had my meals at Boehlofsky’s all that time.”

J.S. Matthews,

17 November 1944.

Conversation with Mr. Thos. P. Wicks, Box 248, Nanaimo, now resident with his son, John Wicks, 406 East 45th Avenue, who kindly called at the City Archives this morning bringing with him a brown paper parcel, which he opened, and put a small copper kettle on my desk, 21 November 1944.

Judge Begbie’s kettle.

Mr. Wicks: “This little kettle, according to the best information I have, belonged to Judge Begbie.

“You see, Judge Begbie was the only judge in British Columbia, and he had to travel long distances in horse-drawn vehicles, and they were slow, and sometimes when he was travelling on his way to hold court at some remote place, he would stop on the roadside and have a cup of tea, or a meal. He used to travel all the way from New Westminster to the Cariboo, and there were places where it was a long distance between stopping places.

“Judge Begbie did not travel alone; he had with him a constable by the name of Kirkup, a sort of sheriff, and I think he also acted as Clerk of the Court. Well, when they stopped by the roadside they had to make a little fire, and in bad weather, rain or snow, and everything on the narrow trail through the west forest was soaking, there was no dry material to start a fire. And further, there was no coal in the interior of B.C. at that time, but there was lots of charcoal. There were blacksmiths with forges to shoe horses, or oxen, or to make any other iron work, and they used charcoal; there was plenty of charcoal in the blacksmith’s shops at stopping places. So the two men, Judge Begbie and Constable Kirkup, carried a little sack of charcoal with them, and when they stopped they would put the little kettle on a little brazier, which I have not got yet, and put in a little charcoal, and in no time had a cup of something warm ready.

“Well, up at a place about three miles east of Chilliwack there lived an old friend of Judge Begbie’s called Kitchen; he lived near the river, and they named the road he lived on after him, ‘Kitchen Road,’ and as Begbie went by he would stop with his friend Mr. Kitchen. Kitchen had come out to the gold mining in California over the Panama route, and there was some close friendship between Begbie and Kitchen. And so on one of Judge Begbie’s trips, he left the copper kettle and the brazier with Mr. and Mrs. Kitchen, because settlement had got thicker, and he did not want it any more. I knew old Mr. Kitchen, but I knew his son and his son’s wife better because I worked for them, especially in the flood of 1894 when I helped to clean up his farm after the flood had destroyed his rail fences. I worked, voluntarily, to put them up; we all turned out in New Westminster to go up and straighten the farms out, and I was one of the volunteer workers. Mr. Kitchen, junior, was afterwards a member of parliament somewhere.

“So one day, about 1927 or 1928, Mrs. Kitchen—she had become a widow in the meantime—she was a very fine woman; well, I hauled her a fine load of vine maple wood, all split up and ready for the stove. She paid me for it, but she said that I charged her only such a small amount, ‘I’m going to give you Judge Begbie’s little copper kettle.’ I was living in a little shack by myself at Vedder River, and she thought I could make good use of the little copper kettle.

“And that’s the end of the story.”

Memorandum of conversation with Samuel G. Churchill, former Reeve of Municipality of Point Grey, and of “Churchill” Street, Kerrisdale, who very kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon and sat down to rest himself, 6 December 1944.

Municipality of Point Grey. First Council meeting. First Municipal Hall. First election.

Major Matthews: Where did the first Council of Point Grey meet, Mr. Churchill?

Mr. Churchill: “In the red wooden building across the interurban track at Eburne; it’s Marpole now; in the hall upstairs at the back. You know where the interurban car stops at Marpole; used to be Eburne. Well, across the track, that is, on the south side of the track, there used to be an old building, and a grocery store in front of it. Old Man Higgins had it, and there were two brothers bought it, and a man named Porter was afterwards in it. It was only a few feet from the track, and faced west. Wilby’s bought it, and pulled it down and built a new one.”

Reeve Ben Cunliffe.

“Well, at the back of the old building was a store room, and over the store room was a hall. It was just an old hall, that’s all; wood stove and stove pipe. Ben Cunliffe, he was Reeve afterwards, was Returning Officer; he was Municipal Clerk afterwards, too. There were sixty-two votes cast. But there was a small polling booth up at District Lot 472, adjoining Sixteenth Avenue in Fairview, just south of Sixteenth West. The old hall at Marpole is gone now.”

First Municipal Hall.

“The old hall was just boarded up inside, unvarnished, and the floor was just common floor. And when the Council met, they met around a table provided by themselves, and some cheap chairs, and I think there were some benches for the spectators.

“I don’t know how long they stopped there, but not very long, and then they moved down the same side, nearer the bridge about one hundred and fifty feet where they established in a new store. So we took what we had in the way of furniture and possessions—not much—and went to the little store which had just been built. It is still standing and they call it ‘Fred’s Confectionery’ store now. It is on Hudson Street.”

Municipal Hall. Kerrisdale.

“Then in 1909, we bought the property from the Canadian Pacific Railway, up on West Boulevard, Kerrisdale, and built the Municipal Hall, now used as a kind of public hall and library; the political parties, lots of them, meet there.”

First election in Point Grey.

“In the first election, Foreman ran against Howe for Reeve. There were five Councillors; the election was a quiet one; there were not many people around to make it anything else. Then, in fall of 1908, I was up at Bowen Island for the Provincial Government, and I got several letters to come home as they wanted me to run for Council in 1909. I got the letters in 1908, and they kept on writing for me to come home. A man named Otton ran against me; the two of us were nominated for the Council on the ward system. After all the votes had been counted I had a good majority. The policeman—what is his name?—he lives in Chilliwack now; I forget. So after the election was over, a group of us were walking up the track. We heard a noise, a racket, and presently we came on Webster and the policeman having a fight. The policeman had been supporting Otton, and Dave Webster supporting me, and they had got into an argument; I think Dave held his own.”

Shaughnessy Heights. Granville Street paving.

“It was in 1908 that the C.P.R. started clearing up the west side of Shaughnessy and built the roads. They put the streets in themselves; did everything, and not only that, but they even paved Granville Street—and it is an eighty foot street—all the way from 16th to 25th Avenue. The Council graded it for them, and the C.P.R. put in the concrete pavements, and all the sidewalks and sewers and waters for Shaughnessy Heights.

“Then, when they extended Shaughnessy out to the east, out to Oak Street, and south to 33rd Avenue on the east side of Granville, and 40th Avenue on the west side as far as the interurban track, they did the same thing; that is, paved the streets, put in the concrete sidewalks and laid the sewers and water pipes.”

Shaughnessy wants to secede.

“Then, when I was Reeve, that is, 1913, they applied to the Provincial Government to form a municipality of their own—the Municipality of Shaughnessy—and leave Point Grey Municipality. The C.P.R. took a special boat of citizens down to Victoria to lobby for four days. They were sure they were going to be successful, but the Select Committee adjourned until next Monday, and when they gave their decision it was in favour of us, that is, not to allow the severance of Shaughnessy from the rest of Point Grey.

“Well, the controversy was finally settled, and I’ll tell you how we did it. We allowed a reduction on the taxes of those people who were actually living in Shaughnessy, of $10,000 a year for ten years. You see, there was no question that the residents had paid for the improvements of the district in the price they paid for the vacant property, so we did not consider it fair for the residents of Shaughnessy to make them pay for the cost of developing—in their taxes, of course—of other parts of the municipality which were undeveloped.”

Memo of conversation with Mr. F.J. Burd, President, Vancouver Daily Province, Ltd., (over the phone), 15 December 1944.

Victory Square. The Cenotaph. Fred Southam.

Major Matthews: Mr. Burd, Rowe Holland made such a splendid address at the Cenotaph last Remembrance Day that I got a copy and am going to print it in pamphlet form so that people can read what is said on such occasions. Then I started to put an illustration on the outside of the folder, and wrote a small inscription beneath it, but the inscription grew bigger and bigger until I had a whole sheet of typing, and then I saw I could not do it fully unless I wrote a bit about Victory Square, and that grew into two sheets of typing, and now I have so much I am going to complete all three, Mr. Holland’s address, the Cenotaph and Victory Square, and when people want—or children—I can just give them the booklet, and they can read the story themselves. I thought to print one thousand. What I should like to know is the part the Province paid in landscaping the Square. How much did it cost you?

Mr. Burd: “Over eleven thousand; we agreed at first to five thousand; then it grew to ten thousand, and after that we put the railing and the cement around the Cenotaph, and that cost more; it ended with over eleven thousand five hundred as near as I can remember.”

Major Matthews: Well, how did it all come to be?

Mr. Burd: “Fred Southam, he is President of Southam Newspapers, son of William Southam, the founder; he and I were passing there one day, and the whole of Victory Square was rubble—untidy, disorderly and unsightly—and Fred Southam said to me, ‘Why don’t you get the City to fix it up?’ So I replied that we had; we had done editorials on it, but did not seem to be able to get anything done.

“So Mr. Southam said, ‘How would it be if I gave you $5,000?’ So we took it up with the Parks Board, and they said it would cost $5,000 and then W.S. Rawlings, the Park Superintendent, he designed the landscaping, the walks and flower beds and the five thousand was not enough, and it ran into ten thousand, and then, after that, we found” (I did not catch what Mr. Burd said) “and so we put the iron railing around the Cenotaph, and the concrete pathways around it, and that cost over one thousand; the whole thing cost about eleven thousand dollars and a little over.”

Major Matthews: Well, rumour is that Mr. Fred Southam did it as a sort of memorial to his father, William Southam?

Mr. Burd: “No, that’s just a rumour; nothing to it. People said that we did it to improve our property” (the Province Building) “and, of course, it does, but that was not what was in” (Mr.) “Fred Southam’s mind when he said, ‘How would it be if I gave you five thousand?’”

City Archives, Vancouver,

15 December 1944.

J.S. Matthews.

City Archivist.

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Memo of conversation with Mr. A.P. Horne, who—after two years—is still confined to his bed in St. Paul’s Hospital. I took with me a large bunch of grapes, and went to wish him Christmas greetings, 23 December 1944.

Dr. Beckingsale.

Mr. Horne: “Dr. Beckingsale went to Vernon; then his wife died, and then his daughter died, and then he died himself. Dr. Beckingsale was a little man; Mrs. Beckingsale was a big woman; she swamped him; she was a bit of a social climber.”

Father Patrick Fay. Holy Rosary Church. Sir George McLaren Brown. Johann Buntzen. Williams Bros. surveyors. New York Block.

“Father Fay was a fine fellow; he was popular; he could sing; had a good voice. Williams, of Williams Bros. and Dawson, surveyors, had a flat in the top of the New York Block; the Canadian Pacific Railway offices were below, and Sir George McLaren Brown was in them. Williams used to give parties in his flat, and Father Fay used to come and sing. Mr. Buntzen could play the piano in those days, and so could Mrs. Buntzen; play it well; and we used to have parties up in Williams’ flat.”

Memo of conversation with former Reeve S.G. Churchill, who very kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon, 5 January 1945.

Water in Point Grey.

Mr. Churchill: “You see, when I first sat on the Council as Councillor, that was in 1909, and afterwards in 1910 and 1911, there was no water in Point Grey; the people got their water from springs and wells. So, first of all we had a connection at 22nd Avenue and Heather Street with the City water mains, and it supplied D.L. 472 and also Eburne, now Marpole, and Kerrisdale.”

Shaughnessy water reservoir. Shaughnessy Golf Course.

“Then, in 1910, we built a reservoir on the top of the hill where the Shaughnessy Golf Course is now, and got the water from the City of Vancouver. We built it in three compartments, all covered over with concrete and sod, and it is now in grass. The reason for three compartments was so that it could be cleaned out, and hold water in the other compartment while they are doing it. Then, afterwards, we negotiated with the City of Vancouver for a joint water main from Capilano, in partnership. And in 1913, we had our own water from Capilano; the City of Vancouver ran their share up to the reservoir on Little Mountain; the Municipality of Point Grey had their share in the reservoir on the Shaughnessy Golf links. Then all settled districts had private water to their homes; we even ran water out to the tip of Point Grey and supplied Dr. J.M. Lefevre, and E.P. Davis, the lawyer, at their homes away out on what is now about Chancellor Drive and Marine Drive.”

Sewers.

“Then in 1910 we arranged with the City for the sewers from the northern side of Point Grey, and, up to 1914, we had six big sewers on the southern slope; they emptied into the Fraser River. One was at Dunbar, one at Macdonald, one at Angus, one at Granville, and two sewers at Hudson; we put one at Hudson in for the lower levels, and put in a tank with a flood box on it so that the tide could not enter; the tank held the sewerage until the tide went out. The other sewer on Hudson was for the high levels.

“Then we had one at Shaughnessy; that took the eastern part of the municipality; that is seven sewers in all. Shaughnessy Street, I mean. That took care of all the southern slope, and all districts which were settled were connected. The northern slope was taken care of, as I have said, by our arrangement with the City of Vancouver. West Point Grey was served by a small one which emptied into the Imperial Street sewer.”

Streets.

“Miles and miles of streets were cut out of the bush. Old Granville Street was a twenty-four foot street south from 16th Avenue, and it was cleared to eighty feet in 1910, and graded by us, but the C.P.R. paved a portion between 16th and 25th to the full width of the street, and we put in a twenty-four foot pavement as far as the south end of Granville Street. Marine Drive, at that time, was just a crooked trail, and through the bush, all the way from Granville to the Musqueam Indian Reserve, and we opened it up. We opened it up from the east to the west and paved it, that is, Marine Drive. And we paved Hudson Street from the river to 70th Avenue. And at the same time we paved 49th, and Arbutus from Kerrisdale to 16th Avenue, and we paved Heather Street from 16th Avenue to 22nd Avenue, and we paved 4th Avenue from Alma to Imperial Street, and that was all the pavements there were in Point Grey Municipality in my time.”

Fire halls.

“In my time, that is, up to 1914, we just had two fire halls. One was at 38th Avenue, just east of Granville Street; that was the first one; there yet. And the other was out at West Point Grey in A.W. Cruise’s garage, on 11th Avenue not far from Imperial Street. Then it was moved from there into a store. We never had horse-drawn fire engines in Point Grey; they were all motor driven. At first we just had a hose and ladder, at the first station on 38th, and then afterwards they bought a big ladder and a pump, about 1914; the ladder was a long one. There was about five men in the Fire Department, and the first fire chief was” [blank]; “he was killed here, just a few months ago.

“Then, the end of it was that at amalgamation in 1929, the City of Vancouver took over the whole Fire Department.”

Memo of conversation with Mr. George H. Miller, of Hugh M. Fraser and Co., real estate, finance, etc., West Hastings Street, a member of the Vancouver Pioneers Association, etc., 10 January 1945.

I see the last recorded conversation I had with Mr. Miller was when he gave me a priceless lot of old directories, 19 June 1933. That lot of dirty old directories started what is now the best collection of directories on the mainland of British Columbia.

Dow Road, Burnaby. Alexander Dow.

Major Matthews: Mr. Miller. Do you recall the time you gave me those old directories, and they were so dirty I carried them down the lane; at that time all I had was an old room in the tower of the Westminster Avenue City Hall; no light, no typewriter, no desk, or cabinets, and no shelves, and no salary; do you know that now we have one whole floor of the City Hall.

I was reading in the newspaper, and saw that a place was for sale on Down Road. At the same time that you gave me the old directories, I started a recording system of how streets and places got their names, first on the back of an old envelope. Well, things have changed since then, and now I have for an archives the whole of one floor in the new City Hall, and our directories are now the finest collection in Vancouver—started with yours—and I have a record system of at least three thousand street and place names, all in and about Vancouver. I used to be pleased when I had the record of one name; now if I find I have not got a record of a name, it annoys me.

How did Dow Road get its name; had it anything to do with Mr. Dow?

Mr. Miller: “It was named after Mr. Alexander Dow. It was Dow, Fraser and McTavish at first; then Dow, Fraser and Co.” (and now it is Hugh M. Fraser Co. Ltd.) “They are all dead now. But Mr. Dow, he had a little subdivision and a road was put through and called Dow Road. and he had a nice little home, square place, on the corner of Dow Road and the interurban railway tracks. His house was on the north side of the track, east corner; he had above five acres; the house is there yet.”

Memo of conversation with A.P. Horne, Esq., who for the last two years and a few months, has been confined to his bed in St. Paul’s Hospital. Pioneer. Sunday afternoon, 14 January 1945.

General William Booth. Salvation Army. H.J. Cambie of Cambie Street.

Mr. Horne, after we had been chatting for some time, and I had been telling him of General Booth’s visit to New Westminster, where, as report goes, he was entertained at dinner by Mr. and Mrs. James Cunningham, together with a small number of the eminent and that, during the dinner, he played with his meat on his plate, and then ejaculated, “Mutton!! Mutton!! Call this mutton. You ought to taste the mutton we grow in England.” The story is vouched for by Rev. G.H. Raley, D.D.

“When General Booth was here he stayed with Henry Cambie” (H.J. Cambie, C.P.R. Engineer) “and they tell the same sort of story about his visit to them. He is supposed to have been having afternoon tea, and burst out with, ‘Call this tea; this is only coloured water; I like my tea strong; bring me some strong tea.’”

A. St. George Hamersly. Rudyard Kipling.

“But,” continued Mr. Horne, “I tell you one in which I was directly concerned, and this is not hearsay.

“St. George Hamersly, he was City Solicitor, but in those days the City Solicitor did not have his office at the City Hall; he has his own private practice, and acted as City Solicitor when they wanted his services. Well, Hamersly had his office on the north side of Hastings Street, between Seymour and Richards, where the Spencer Department Store is now. And it wasn’t a very pretentious office. In the outside office he had a sort of bench for people waiting to see him to sit upon.

“I wanted to see Mr. Hamersly, and went into his office. When I entered there was a man sitting up the bench reading a book; he was all crouched up, and had a sort of inconsequential look about him; I sat down beside him and waited. Presently the door opened, and a client of Mr. Hamersly’s walked out, and Mr. Hamersly close behind him. As soon as he saw me, he exclaimed, ‘Hello Horne, hello Horne, how are you, Horne?’

“So I arose and pointed to the man, who was there before I was, but Mr. Hamersly beckoned me into his office, and I went in and left the man sitting there. Mr. Hamersly said to me, ‘I don’t know that man; I don’t know who he is. Suppose he’s someone from the City Hall to bother me.’ When I went out, afterwards, the man was still sitting there.

“Next day I was on Hastings Street, and Hamersly called to me across the street; there were not many people on Hastings Street in those days. ‘Oh, Horne, Horne. Horne, I want to see you,’ called Mr. Hamersly, so I went across the street towards him. When we met, do you know what he said? He said, ‘Who do you think that man was yesterday? Rudyard Kipling! He had a letter of introduction to me.’”

Thomas Laing of Sea Island.

Conversation with Mr. Thomas Laing, formerly of McRoberts “Richmond Farm,” Sea Island; now of 8809 Montcalm Street, Vancouver, who very kindly called at the City Archives, 21 January 1945.

Thomas Laing. Sea Island. Hugh McRoberts.

Mr. Laing: “I was born in West Hartlepool, Durham; some of my brothers are there yet; all coal mines in that country. I came to British Columbia to make my fortune; you see, there were ten of us in the family; we were a farming family from a way back, and to cut up a farm into ten wasn’t enough room. So, when I was nineteen, I came to Canada, at first to Ontario in 1884, and I stayed there until 1893. I was single. I hired out to a farmer in Grey County, and stayed with him seven years. In the meantime, after four years, I went back to the Old Country with the intention of staying, but after two months I decided I liked Canada better.

“Then I came C.P.R. to Vancouver by myself, and did better in British Columbia than in Ontario; British Columbia is a great country. I went straight to work on Lulu Island for Mr. Shaw; he was a farmer right at Terra Nova, at the west end of Lulu Island, close to the Terra Nova Cannery. I was with Mr. Shaw a year; he had about two hundred acres of dairy farm, and had thirty or forty cows, and the milk came right into the city and was sold to the Valley Dairy on Seventh Avenue, Fairview, and then.

“Then I got married to Miss Marian Mackie, sister to William Mackie, who was nephew to William Mackie who preempted D.L. 472; Bill Mackie is living out on Marine Drive now and grows roses.”

McRoberts’ Farm. Christopher Wood.

“At first I leased a farm from Fitzgerald McCleery; it really belonged to Christopher Wood, but Fitzgerald McCleery had a power-of-attorney, and finally I bought it. It was 110 or 112 acres on what is now known as the Grauer Road.”

At this point Mr. Laing had to hurry away, as he had an appointment.

As told to me,

J.S. Matthews, 21 January 1945.

Mr. Thomas Laing, who owns a portion of the old McRoberts “Richmond Farm” on Sea Island, and himself a pioneer of Sea Island, having given me an old snapshot photograph, I submitted it to Miss Margaret McCleery, youngest daughter of Fitzgerald McCleery, when she called at the City Archives, 30 January 1945.

Hugh McRoberts. McRoberts Island. Sea Island, first house.

Major Matthews: Miss McCleery. Thomas Laing gave this to me; he said it was the first house on Sea Island.

Miss McCleery: “Sure it is.”

Major Matthews: Whose is it?

Miss McCleery: “Hugh McRoberts; he built it. Christopher Wood, or Robert Wood, I don’t know which was first, whether Christopher bought and sold to Robert, or Robert bought and sold to Christopher; one or the other, from Hugh McRoberts.

“The house was on the river, just inside the dyke, about a mile and a half west of Eburne’s” (Marpole.) “On McRoberts Island. It is now owned, that is, the farm is, by Thomas Laing; the house is not standing; they pulled it down. I don’t know who did.”

Major Matthews: Well, when did McRoberts build it?

Miss McCleery: “Well, Mother came out with her sister, Mrs. Christopher Wood, and Amy Wood, and Hugh Wood, who was a baby in long clothes. The house was on Richmond Farm; it was the first milk ranch on Sea Island. Hugh McRoberts’ milk customers were in New Westminster. I have his old milk route book with the list of customers yet. But he raised his cattle on the island, and his beef. He had his slaughter house down there. He had a little boat house right on the river bank, and used to load the beef onto boats—and in a canoe—and take it up to New Westminster.

“There is another picture of this first house on Sea Island in that little booklet on the history of the Presbyterian Church on Sea Island. I took the photo they made it from. But this is a good photo of the first house on Sea Island.”

Mr. Laing told me that McRoberts built the house in 1862.

Conversation with Mr. Thomas Laing, formerly of McRoberts “Richmond Farm” on Sea Island, now of 8809 Montcalm Street, Vancouver, who, together with William Mackie, nephew of William Mackie, who preempted D.L. 472, Fairview, Vancouver, in 1874, very kindly called at the City Archives this morning, 1 February 1945.

Mr. Mackie, despite his great age, 87, is quite active, though very deaf, but can hear with a speaking tube.

McRoberts Island. Sea Island. McRoberts House. “Richmond Farm.”

Major Matthews: (exhibiting a photo) What is this photo of?

Mr. Laing: (through a tube to Mr. Mackie) “That was the first house on Sea Island, wasn’t it?

Mr. Mackie: “Yes.”

Mr. Laing: “Where did they get the lumber for it, Mr. Mackie?”

Mr. Mackie: “From New Westminster, I suppose; it was the only place they could get lumber from.”

Mr. Laing: “Who else was on Sea Island beside?”

Mr. Mackie: “McRoberts was first; Kilgour and Hugh Boyd were next. Boyd and Kilgour located on Sea Island at the same time as McCleery on the mainland. Boyd and McCleery came to the country at the same time.”

Mr. Laing: “Do you remember McRoberts living in that house; this one here in the photo?”

Mr. Mackie: “McRoberts lived in that house, but he got half of Sea Island for clearing a trail from Point Grey to New Westminster.”

Mr. Laing: “When you visited Sea Island in 1882, who was living McRoberts’ house?”

Carscallen of Sea Island.

Mr. Mackie: “Carscallens. McRoberts had gone. I forget exactly who was there after Carscallen. I have an idea that McRae was in the house after Carscallens, but I am not sure.”

Major Matthews: Mr. Laing. When did you go there?

Mr. Laing: “As I told you the other day, I went to Lulu Island first in 1893. Then the next year, 1894, over to Sea Island. McRae had a lease on McRoberts’ old place, and I took over the lease from McRae. McRoberts sold to Wood, through Fitzgerald McCleery, who had his power of attorney. Wood was up at Greenwood, where he started the town named after him, ‘Green,’ ‘Wood.’ Bob Wood got Christopher Wood to invest in Greenwood, and” (ominously) “Christopher Wood lost everything at Greenwood.”

Mr. Laing to Mr. Mackie: “What were the Carscallens doing on the place?”

Logging camps.

Mr. Mackie: “They were farming in the ordinary way. You must remember, in those days all the hay and crops went to the logging camps on the river; all the barns were on the river bank, North Arm, Fraser River, for that especial reason; the boats came up the river, right to the barn on the river bank; the steamers came right up the river and took the hay right out of the barn on to the logging camps.”

False Creek trail. North Arm Road.

Major Matthews to Mr. Mackie: Was there a trail from where Marpole is now right across country, over Little Mountain, to False Creek at the present Main Street?

Mr. Mackie: “The only way to get from Sea Island or McCleery’s was to go up the trail until you got to the North Arm Road—they call it Fraser Avenue now—and go up that until you came to the present Kingsway. It was the only road—unless you came through the bush. It was down at the corner of Fraser and Marine Drive where I met the bear, right on the trail, and it was narrow, too. I picked up a rock and threw it at him, and then ran. What the bear did I don’t know; that was sixty years ago.”

Jerry Rogers’ logging roads.

Mr. Laing: “How could you get through the bush?”

Mr. Mackie: “Jerry Rogers’ logging road. At the junction of the logging roads there would be pieces of wood laid crossways on a stump, or something, and marked; otherwise you would get lost. Signs, pieces of stick crossed to tell you, at the junction, which logging road to take.”

Mr. Laing: “But wasn’t there a trail from Marpole cross-country to Gastown; or was there more than one. What Major Matthews wants to know is how could you get from Eburne’s” (Marpole) “to False Creek by coming through the bush.”

Spars. Cariboo tractor.

Mr. Mackie: “It was only logging roads that went from what is Marpole; it was logging roads; there were logging roads all through. Jerry Rogers was taking out spars; there was a fine patch of spars. William Mackie, my uncle, was going through up there, Little Mountain and Shaughnessy up there, and found a fine patch of spars; they were up on the summit; I came through them. I went through them and came back and told my uncle, and my uncle said, ‘You be careful, or you’ll get lost in there.’ I did not get lost, and the spars were right on the summit. What did Jerry Rogers do with them? I could not tell you; I could not tell you how many he took out; they were shipping them all the time; they were shipping shiploads of them; whole cargoes. He hauled them down the skid road with an engine which ran on rails a foot square and were raised up, and the wheels had a flange on them. But it was all cattle when he first came.”

False Creek Trail.

Major Matthews: Well, there must have been some sort of trail from False Creek. When you went up from the False Creek bridge to your uncle’s place on D.L. 472, you went up a …

Mr. Mackie: “Skid road, on a skid road. There was no other way. Unless you went out the Westminster Road and went down the North Arm Road” (Fraser Avenue.) “If there was any other trail, then I never knew of it.”

(Note by Major Matthews: He says “he never knew of it.” Here is a man whose first visit to his uncle’s place on D.L. 472 [bounded by Oak, Cambie, 16th and 25th avenues] whose first movement after arrival in Granville or Gastown in 1882, was to go to his uncle’s camp, now Douglas Park, and who created the first garden in Fairview on that area, and who worked in the woods for months, knows the Kilgours, Boyds, McCleerys, etc., etc., and Garripie and his wife at Garripie’s, now Marpole, who says that, if there was a trail cross-country, “he never knew of it,” which is a very fair intimation of what it was like. Undoubtedly he travelled it, but thought it was a logging road of Jerry Rogers, or part of one. I have travelled these trails, and it is hard to tell what an old trail through the forest was used for previously if it has been abandoned a year or so.)

McRoberts Farm. Thomas Laing.

Major Matthews: Mr. Laing, will you please tell me about McRoberts farm?

Mr. Laing: “When I first went there we were married; we went there right after the wedding; we were married right over at McCleery’s farm on the mainland, in the house that they lived in when they first went there; afterwards they built a house further up the hill. The house we were married in was ‘quite a house’; the Rev. James Buchanan, Presbyterian, married us, and then we went right over to McRoberts’ place at once. My wife was Marian Mackie, sister to Bill Mackie here.

“When we got over there the place was not very well improved, and we signed a lease with McCleery, attorney for Christopher Wood, that we would bring all the unbroken country under cultivation in a workmanlike manner, that is, clean the farm right up, and we did it, too. We had to pay a rent of one thousand dollars a year to Fitzgerald McCleery, and at the time we had about one hundred and ten acres.”

McRoberts Farm. “Richmond Farm.”

“When we took it over from McCleery, we had five head of stock, all heifers, and that was the nucleus of our stock. There wasn’t anything else; McCleery took the rest of the stuff away, but we bought the heifers. We continued along until we were able to buy the place. We worked very hard and cleared up the farm, and McCleery said we were the best tenants he ever had. We took over from McCleery in 1895, and bought the place about thirty years ago.”

McRoberts house (inside).

“The McRoberts house, inside, was very plain; there was a passage way from the front door to the back, and the lean-to at the back was the kitchen. There were two bedrooms, and the house was papered—on the walls—inside. When we went there first the kitchen was papered with newspapers. It had a brick chimney; we built the brick chimney; we put up some studs about six feet high, and built the chimney on that of brick. I suppose, but I forget, that before we built the brick chimney it was stove pipes and a tin collar where they went through the roof.”

First water on Sea Island.

“Water? I’ll tell you what we did. We were carrying water from the river for household purposes, so I built a tank, six feet high, six foot wide, and six foot long, and we caught the river water for chores, and the rainwater for household drinking. Then, after a while, when we got to sending milk to the City every day, we got the man to bring us back a can of water every day in the milk can.”

Firewood.

“Firewood? I’ll tell you. For a number of years we got it all out of the river; for quite a number of years there were quite a number of logs in the river, floating, or they would catch in the bank, so I took a saw and cut them up.”

Butter.

“Butter? We made butter for quite awhile; we have made as much as one hundred and twenty-five pounds a week, and, in the early days, we had our own name on the packages, and sold it with our name on it, at Woodwards and Webster Bros., the grocers on Granville near Drake Street; I mean, the Woodwards now the department store. We never kept bees, we did not try ducks nor geese, but we had a few chickens for their eggs. And on Sundays, we went to church. The old church was burned down, but the manse is there yet.”

Murder of McRory.

Major Matthews: Do you remember the murder of McRory?

Mr. Laing: “I’ll tell you about Jim McRory. He lived in a shack, just off what is now Granville Street South; his shack was right on the Shannon farm, and he was keeping batch in it; he was working on the road” (Granville Street, then North Arm Road.) “The Indian came around begging, and Jim gave him a sort of a rebuff; I suppose told the Indian he did not want any Siwashes around there, and I suppose that made the Indian angry, and he went off and found a sharp axe, and when Jim was asleep, he went in and just about severed the head from the body. I saw the body; sure I did. The axe must have been real sharp, and it is supposed the Indian cut him while he was asleep in bed, right across the back of the neck. The Indian was tried and found guilty, but he died in jail before he was executed. The shack was on the west side of the road on the Shannon property; it must have been about 1898. I was not on the jury; did not give evidence; and saw the body at Eburne as they were taking it away. We were friends of Jim, and as soon as we heard of it, we hitched up the buggy, and went right up to see if we could be of any use. Jim used to help Bill Mackie here to make hay.”

William Mackie. Preemptor, D.L. 472. Mackie Street.

Mr. Mackie: “I’m going to give you this photograph. It is of William Mackie, my uncle, the preemptor of D.L. 472. It was taken at Agassiz.” (Note: D.L. 472 was bounded by Oak and Cambie streets, and by 16th and 25th avenues, and was preempted by William Mackie, 19 June 1874. It was an “Island” in the extensive C.P.R. Grant of 6,000 acres.)

Indian customs. Rabbits.

“Uncle told me he was up in the Peace River prospecting, and had an Indian boy helping him to carry his stuff, and the ground was all covered with pea vine and full of rabbits. The Indian set fire to the pea vine, and Uncle asked him what he was doing that for, and the Indian replied it was to drive all the rabbits towards his illahie” (village.) “The photograph was taken at Agassiz by a Frenchman named Bishieu” (sic.) “Uncle was born at Dundee, Scotland, in 1928.”

Laing genealogy.

Mr. Laing: “We have five children, and seven grandchildren now. Three boys and two girls. One of our sons, Richard, he is on the McRoberts farm now; he has it leased from me, and he has a boy and a girl. Arthur, another son, is living in the city and works for Buckerfield, and he has one little girl, and Tommy, the eldest boy, he died when he was nineteen, and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery. And of the girls, the eldest is Rachael, Mrs. Moodie; she lives with us at 8809 Montcalm Street, Marpole, and she has two daughters; then the other daughter, also Mrs. Moodie—the two girls married two brothers—she has two boys.”

At this point the two old gentlemen felt we had done enough for the morning, and after the usual courtesies, disappeared as the elevator doors closed.

As told to me, 1 February 1945

J.S. Matthews.

McRoberts house built in 1862.

Mr. Laing told me that “McRoberts built the house in 1862.”

Conversation at the City Archives, City Hall, Vancouver, 1 February 1945, between the Reverend John Antle, retired, formerly of the Columbia Coast Mission, and now living on his yacht, Revere, anchored at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club float, Coal Harbour, Vancouver, where he has been for some years.

Mr. Antle is now approaching 80 years of age (exact age not available), is a very active man for his age; came by street car and returned that way after spending three hours going over a docket referring to himself and his ship in the City Archives.

Columbia Coast Mission established 1904.

Question: (Major Matthews, City Archivist) Mr. Antle, will you please tell the story of the start of the Mission.

Answer: (Rev. Mr. Antle) “When I resigned from Holy Trinity Church—as rector—my intention was to start the Columbia Coast Mission; to visit, and to establish hospitals and hospital vessels along the northern British Columbia coast; the Mission now extends from Pender Harbour to Seymour Inlet, and includes three hospitals, one each at Pender Harbour, Rock Bay and Alert Bay.”

Rev. John Antle, originator.

“I started it in 1904; I was the originator of the whole movement. I laid my plans before the two dioceses, the diocese of New Westminster and the diocese of Columbia, and, do you know, it took me two years before I could get them to acknowledge that they were in duty bound to take the matter up. The bishop of New Westminster was Bishop John Dart, and the bishop of Columbia was Bishop W.W. Perrin. The boundary of the diocese of New Westminster is not very definite, but afterwards a boundary was established in order that the Columbia Coast Mission might know which diocese they were working in. In a general way, the diocese of Columbia is Vancouver Island, and the diocese of New Westminster is the mainland, but there are a lot of islands, large and small, so that, in a general way, the boundary line between the two dioceses is the main channel north.

“Afterwards, when the Mission became incorporated, the Bishop of Columbia became president of the Columbia Coast Mission, and the board consisted of an equal number of clergy and laity; I forget the exact numbers now.”

Rev. John Antle built Laverock. The first Mission boat.

“I was rector at Holy Trinity Church in Fairview” (Vancouver), “and while in that incumbency I built a small boat in my back yard at Eighth Avenue and Spruce Street, which I called the Laverock, a sixteen foot open boat, no cabin, with a strip of decking around the gunwale. In June 1904, together with my son, Victor, nine years old, I made my first trip in the Laverock; it was up the coast as far as Alert Bay and back, calling at camps, logging camps, fishing settlements, etc., of approximately five hundred miles. We did our own cooking, of course, slept on the boat, that is, slept on the boat twenty-seven nights—we were away a month, about—and returned to Vancouver. The little boat was yawl rigged—one mast and a jigger—she had been a cutter, but I changed her to a yawl rig for the trip, and she had a three-quarter horse power gasoline engine, installed by LePage marine engineers of Vancouver, of the make known as Springfield Bull-pup.”

Rev. John Antle reports his proposals, 1904. Log of the Columbia.

“On my return, I reported to the joint committee of the two dioceses, and outlined the plan of work, including vessels, and even a magazine publication, still published, and called the Log of the Columbia. We had been away a month, and stopped at many places. Lund, B.C. was our first ‘port of call,’ and then followed Quathbaski Cove, Rock Bay, Granite Bay, and Alert Bay was our northern terminus. Then we turned around and came south, calling at Shoal Bay and other places. My report to the joint committee of the two dioceses contained the plan on which the Mission has worked ever since. It was printed, and I think the Head Office of the Mission has it still; that was in the summer—June—of 1904.

Rev. John Antle resigns Holy Trinity Church. Mission boat Columbia is built, 1905. Dr. W.A.B. Hutton, M.D., first doctor.

“Then I resigned from Holy Trinity Church—about November—and the following year, 1905, spent my time raising money for the first Mission boat, the Columbia, and raised enough money to build her. I went east as far as Toronto to try and raise her cost, and got a special grant from the M.S.C.E., that is, the Church of England Missionary Society. The plans for the Columbia were drawn by a Mr. Trist, one of the finest marine architects who ever came to Vancouver. He happened to be in touch with the Wallace Shipyards” (the origin of the huge Burrard Dry Dock, North Vancouver) “and the Columbia was built down at the south end of Granville Street, on False Creek, just beside the old Granville Street bridge. She was sixty feet long, with a beam of fourteen feet, and carried a crew of three, myself, the doctor and a deckhand. She was launched in False Creek in 1905, and she had two hospital cots beside staterooms for myself and the doctor. The first doctor was a Dr. W.A.B. Hutton, M.D., at one time a very prominent medical man in Winnipeg.

“We started out on our first voyage for Victoria, where the dedication ceremonies were performed by Bishop Perrin, and then went north and called in at Nanaimo. At Nanaimo, a Mrs. —” (Mr. Antle could not recall the name, but thought it was Schetky) “had a Girls’ Club, and came on board with her girls’ club, and installed two very comfortable hospital cots in the main cabin; they were curtained in. I don’t think they were collapsible at the commencement, but they were after we had made them so.”

First trip north. M.S. Columbia, 1905. Eighty camps to serve.

“Nothing very exciting happened on our first trip. Our first call was Rock Bay, where, in the meantime, a small hospital was being built for us at Rock Bay by the Hastings Sawmill Company. It was Fred Beecher’s father who was responsible for that; he was one of the Sawmill Company. Rock Bay was the first hospital of the Columbia Coast Mission. The hospital building was one of those ready-made buildings which comes in parts all ready to put up, and it was capable of providing accommodation for about a dozen patients, though there used to be twice that number sometimes. You see, we had eighty camps to serve, logging camps and so on, and when we came back with the Columbia from a trip those requiring attention would be waiting for us, lying on the sofa, everywhere, waiting for the doctor on the Columbia to come.”

The first nurse, Miss Sutherland.

“I don’t recall how Miss Sutherland, our first nurse at Rock Bay, go there, but she reached the Rock Bay Hospital somehow, and had a little room there for herself. She was our only trained nurse, but she had to help her a woman housekeeper and a man as orderly. She did not last long. She was a wonderful nurse, probably the finest we ever had, but she was not strong, and died as a result of overwork; there is no doubt about that; it was overwork that killed her. She is buried in Vancouver, Mountain View Cemetery, I think.

“There is an obituary of Miss Sutherland in the Log of the Columbia.”

The second hospital. Alert Bay, B.C. Miss Monk, nurse. Miss Motherwell, nurse.

“The second hospital was at Alert Bay, and was started with two nurses. Miss Monk was the senior; she came from Ottawa, and was a very well qualified nurse who had been head of hospitals in the east. The second nurse was Miss Motherwell, sister of Major J.A. Motherwell, Chief Inspector of Fisheries here.” (Note: Miss Motherwell is, we think, the same Miss Motherwell who is now head of the Provincial Infirmary, Marpole, Vancouver.)

The three first nurses. Miss Sutherland. Miss Monk. Miss Motherwell.

“These three nurses are the three outstanding nurses which I spoke to you about, which might perhaps be considered worthy of a place in the book” (proposed history of Canadian nurses, being compiled by John Murray Gibbon, Esq., Montréal.)

The third hospital, Van Anda.

“The third hospital was at Van Anda, Texada Island. It was provided by the Marble Bay Mines; the Tacoma Steel Company owned the place. I forget the name of the first nurse there.

“That’s enough for today.”

As told to me as I typed,

CITY ARCHIVES,	J.S. Matthews

City Hall,	CITY ARCHIVIST

Vancouver,

1 February 1945.

Conversation with Mr. F.C. Grantham, of Grantham’s Landing, Howe Sound, and of 535 West Fourteenth Avenue, Vancouver, who, in response to my invitation, very kindly called at the City Archives this afternoon, and remaining an hour or so, 7 February 1945.

During this time, Mr. Grantham, a very kindly quiet gentleman, slightly greying hair, presented us with a photograph of himself taken when he was very much younger by Secourable of Peckham, London, S.E.

Grantham’s Landing. F.C. Grantham.

Mr. Grantham said: “Claude Wainwright invited us to his summer camp on Bowen Island. They had a summer camp, and we enjoyed ourselves so much that I wanted to get a place like it for myself. I hunted around, but could not find anything which suited, but, finally, heard that there was land up at Gibson’s Landing. So in 1909 I went up to Gibson’s with a friend, but the place I went to see wasn’t suitable, and I spent the night at Gibson’s as there wasn’t a boat to Vancouver until the following morning.”

Grantham’s Landing. Mr. Glassford of Gibson’s. George Gibson. D.L. 687.

“The following morning I met Mr. Glassford, son-in-law of George Gibson, and he said I had just time, before the boat” (steamer) “came to see the prettiest spot on Howe Sound. He took me—we just walked through a trail in the standing forest, that is, through the Indian Reserve—until we stood on what is now Grantham’s Landing. He had crown granted D.L. 687 some years before, and used it for hand logging purposes. He told me it was for sale, about seventy-five acres, eight hundred feet waterfront. There was more land than I wanted for my summer cottage, so I had it subdivided. I got a crew of men up there and built a floating wharf; cleared all the roads, and put in sidewalks and the water system. We got the water from a spring in a ravine close by; the finest spring water on Howe Sounds; that was what the engineer from Victoria told me last fall, that it was the finest water on Howe Sound.”

Glassford goes east.

“The following year, Mr. Glassford went east, so I bought the twelve acres which he had been given by his father-in-law, Mr. George Gibson, and on which he and Mrs. Glassford resided and raised their family. I bought more acreage from George Gibson, subdivided the Townsite of Gibson’s, and ran a water system from my spring in the ravine to Gibson’s Landing.”

W.W. Wynn.

“Well, after that W.W. Wynn, he moved up there, bought the store at Gibson’s, and later they formed a municipality. There are now about sixty-five or seventy cottages at Grantham’s Landing; some are permanent residents and some are summer camp cottages.”

Genealogy.

“I was born at Peckham, London, S.E., June 10th 1871, son of William and Eliza Grantham, originally from Lincolnshire. I was one of four brothers and one married sister. Three brothers survived, one in England, one in Vancouver and one in New Brunswick. I went to Manitoba in 1881, and came to Vancouver in September 1905. In 1897, at a private home in Glasgow, Scotland” (Wesleyan Church), “I married Miss Elizabeth McQuillan, daughter of Thomas James McQuillan, of Larne Island, north of Ireland. There are not any children, not of our own, but the name is perpetuated in Vancouver in Herbert Harris Grantham, my brother’s son. He is a high school teacher in Vancouver, and he has two children, my nephew Peter, now aged 13, and Sallyann” (one word), “my niece, aged 11.

“I was formerly owner of F.C. Grantham and Co., beverage manufacturers, lime juice cordial, but I sold my interest last year, 1944. I still spend my summers at my Howe Sound cottage.”

Howe Sound Post Office. Howe Sound Beach.

“At the time I subdivided Grantham’s and Gibson’s, the official map called it Howe Sound Post Office, so at first I called it Howe Sound Beach, but the steamboat people always called it after the person who built the floating wharf—that’s me—and that is how it got its name, ‘Grantham’s Landing.’”

Before leaving, Mr. Grantham very kindly presented us with a photograph of himself, taken, presumably, in 1881. I think he told me he is now 74.

J.S.M.

Memo of conversation with Mr. A.P. Horne, patient, St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver (a patient for two years or more) over the telephone, 22 February 1945.

Mr. Horne is a pioneer of Vancouver, came here November 1889, and has resided here since. He is not related to Mr. J.W. Horne, M.P.P.

James Welton Horne, M.P.P. Presbyterian Church.

Major Matthews: Mr. Horne, you remember Mr. J.W. Horne. The question has come up as to who gave the organ to the first Presbyterian Church; it is said a Mr. Horne gave an organ to the first Presbyterian Church. Mr. Horne, the member of the Provincial Parliament, he was a wealthy man and a Presbyterian; do you suppose he gave it?

Mr. Horne: “I don’t know. But I’ll tell you about Mr. Horne; he was a good deal older than I was; I was just a youth. You know I have a nickname, ‘Joe.’ Well, someone sent him a bill for $5.00 for whisky, and he called me up, and I said I would go down and get it, so I did. Then, after a while he got another bill for whisky; it also was made out to ‘J. Horne,’ and again he ‘phoned me, so I said to him, ‘Mr. Horne, you are a wealthy man; why don’t you pay it for me.’ I was only joking; I liked him. In those days a case of a dozen bottles of Scotch or rye whisky cost you $10.50 for the case, and California claret was twenty-five cents a bottle. Mr. Horne did not smoke or drink; it was queer for them to be sending him bills for whisky.

“Mr. Horne lived down on the corner of about Pender and Howe Street, and used to take his meals at the Hotel Vancouver. So one day I met him at the Hotel Vancouver; he said, ‘Good evening’ as I passed, so I sat down and we talked. He was a fine man. I think Mr. Horne was mixed with Mr. McKee in the street railway, what we call the B.C. Electric Railway now, and there were a lot of IOUs when it got into financial difficulty, and some of them were not Mr. Horne’s, but, as I understand it, he paid the whole lot of them.

“Anyway, we sat on the verandah of the Hotel Vancouver, and we were talking and he told me that he thought a lot of us young Englishmen. He said he didn’t play cricket or football or baseball, but he thought a lot of the young Englishmen who did. He was a very quiet man, I don’t think he belonged to any club; he was so busy looking after his financial interests. I think he married a” [blank]; “they did not live together and I think had agreed to separate.

“He said to me as we sat there that he had no ‘vices.’ Did not smoke or drink; collected his own rents, and had a rule that if the rent was not paid, he would collect 10 per cent extra when it was overdue. So I said to him that he was full of vice; that to charge 10 per cent extra interest was a vice; to collect interest on rent was vice. So I told him how much better it would be if he stopped charging that ten per cent extra on the rent. He told me that evening that he thought he was worth three million. He was in the Provincial Parliament. He was a good representative, and a good alderman at the right time; I liked him.

“The last time I saw him before he died he was all doubled up, and I just stopped him bumping into a telegraph pole; he did not see it.

“Mr. Horne was a just and upright and honest man.”

Excerpt from conversation with Mrs. Robert Donald Smith, née McCord, 914 Pender Street West, 20 July 1936.

Ben C. McCord. Margaret McCord.

“My father” (Mr. McCord) “came to British Columbia during the gold rush to Cariboo; then he too came to Burrard Inlet and went logging for Jerry Rogers at Jericho Beach. He was married to my mother by the Rev. Thos. Derrick at the little church on what is now Water Street; I think you know it as the Indian Church, or Wesleyan Methodist Church; anyway, it was the first church we had in what is now Vancouver. I am their only child, and was born on the 1st October 1877. Subsequently I was christened in the same church. Mother died 26th April 1925 and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery; Father went over the Skagway Trail in 1898, died the following year, and was accorded the first Masonic funeral in Dawson City. My first recollections of the little old church are that the Indians used to come to it as well as whites; I was in it many times. It was just a little old building, about as big as these two rooms” (16 x 19) “and only now and again would the minister come. The back” (north end) “of the little building protruded a little over the beach; it was to the west of the ‘Parsonage.’”

Death of Mrs. R.D. Smith (Minnie McCord.)

Mrs. R.D. Smith, née Minnie McCord, died on or about 3 September 1937, and was buried from Armstrong and Co. Undertaking Parlours on Dunlevy Avenue. Her husband was present at the funeral. I also attended.

J.S. Matthews.

Item # EarlyVan_v6_040

[photo annotation:]

First train in Vancouver.

Canadian Pacific Railway. Vancouver, 23rd May 1887. Arrival of first transcontinental passenger train at foot of Howe St. Locomotive No. 374, wood burner, cordwood, in two feet lengths. Engineer: —Peter Righter; Conductor: —Peter Barnhardt. Welcomed by H. Abbott, General Superintendent, C.P.R., and His Worship M.A. MacLean, first Mayor of Vancouver; the band and volunteer fire brigade. Locomotive, 57 feet long, cut blue ribbon as she passed through arch of greenery. Observe that railway ties are not ballasted. Planked approach with gin pole on left leads down to scows bringing lumber for planked streets from sawmills. Bridge is at exact foot of Howe St. Roadway up to Cordova St passes between station building and cliff, but does not show distinctly. Observe big stump of tree clinging to cliff, an indication of the steepness of “The Bluff,” and the consequent deep water for big ships, which was the reason for locating the precise terminus at this particular place. Observe the shallowness of the shore beyond. The top of pile driver on left is about Granville St produced. The big dark shed on right is “Local Freight Shed,” and above it can be seen hose tower of Fire Hall on corner of Water & Carrall St. The City Hall, on Powell St appears as a large white building above left pillar of arch. The large dark building to left of City Hall is Keefer’s Hall on Alexander St. To the left again are the railway trestle bridges and on extreme left, the white store and white cookhouse at Hastings Sawmill. The forest edge is along Campbell Ave, and on south to False Creek. The Presbyterian Church is behind Fire Hall tower. St. James’ church is behind City Hall. A tiny tall building, on top of hill, over end of small wharf is “The School” on Powell St. The Volunteer Fire Brigade have two hose reels. The arrival of first trans-Canada passenger train was re-enacted with much ceremony, on the same ground, 22 Aug. 1945, and Locomotive 374 presented by the Canadian Pacific Railway to the Citizens of Vancouver to be placed in a park. From original glass negative, No. 460.

City Archives. J.S. Matthews

Memo of conversation with Mrs. Donald Robert Smith (née Minnie McCord, born Coal Harbour, 1 October 1877), 914 Pender Street West (Sey. 53930), at City Archives, 8 February 1937.

Arrival first train Vancouver, 23 May 1887.

Mrs. Smith said: “My half-sister and I went down to see the train come in; we were just grown up girls. They had a great big arch at the foot of Granville Street” (erected by the C.P.R.); “evergreens” (see photo in album of arches, or well-known photo of arrival of train) “and I said to my sister, ‘Let’s get beside this big arch; we’ll be safe here; they won’t knock that down; we’ll be safe here in case the engine goes off the train, and they won’t run over us.’ To recall it now, it’s too funny for anything, but then, well, we had seen lots of work trains, but it was the first passenger train we had seen, and we hardly knew what to expect.

“So we got under the big evergreen arch, and peeped through the evergreens at the train coming in.”

Early cemeteries at Brockton Point. Hallelujah Point.

“My sister, Maud” (McCord) “is buried at Brockton Point; I can just remember her funeral. I was then about four years old, so it must have been 1881. Father put a little picket fence around her grave, and he made a little head board, with a round” (half circle) “top; it was painted white, and must have had my sister’s name on it because I remember one day when I was at school down at the Hastings Sawmill school, a girl said to me, ‘I see your name’” (McCord) “‘on a grave board in Stanley Park.’”

Peter Plant’s boy.

“There are quite a few buried at Brockton Point, quite a few; Peter Plant’s little boy—not girl, little boy—is buried there. My father made the little coffin. We used to go over there in a boat, and put flowers on the graves; it was quite a climb up the bank from the beach, because I remember thinking, ‘What a funny place to put a graveyard, so high up, and all trees.’” (Note: actually childish imagination because the bank there cannot be more than 10 or 15 feet high.) “Mother and Mrs. Plant went over there the day of the big fire” (13 June 1886) “to put flowers on the graves; then we came back to look at the town which had all been burned up. There were quite a few buried on Deadman’s Island, too.”

Deadman’s Island. Cummings of Stanley.

“Cummings’ people are living in Stanley Park yet, in the little cottage where you short cut from Coal Harbour to the Narrows, near Brockton Point, after you pass the entrance to the athletic grounds. Cummings was Scotch, with long whiskers down to his middle; he married an Indian woman from Cape Flattery” (no; from Bella Coola); “they had three girls and a boy.”

David Callao.

“There was a man who worked down at the Hastings Sawmill; we didn’t know his name, but we knew he came from Callao, Peru, and he had a little son who went to the Hastings Sawmill school, so we just called him Dave Callao, and that might be his name yet.”

Kanakas.

“There was a Kanaka, a Hawaiian, who worked at the Hastings Mill; his name was Keamo; don’t know how you spell it, but it was pronounced Kee-am-oh. Well, I guess they couldn’t pronounce his name properly, or couldn’t spell it if they could, so one day they said, just offhand and as though they were irritated, to him, ‘Oh, we’ll just call you Campbell.’ He married a half-breed; one of the boys lives near Clinton Hall out Hastings Street East, about Clinton Drive, just before you come to Garden Drive; the family are all Campbells now. Of course, they show their colour.”

“Approved, after being read to me, 2 April 1937.

“Mrs. R.D. Smith.”

Hallelujah Point.

914 Pender Street West

Vancouver, B.C.

9th February 1937

The Board of Park Commissioners

Stanley Park,

Vancouver, B.C.

Sir:

May I call your attention to the old graveyard at Brockton Point, now obliterated.

Years ago, when I was a little girl, my sister died, and I afterwards saw her lowered into the ground in that little graveyard. My father made a small head-board, round at the top, painted white, and put a little picket fence around the grave, and others were nearby; we used to go sometimes and place flowers upon them. Many of the pioneers of Burrard Inlet are buried there. It was in 1881 my sister died.

For those whose loved ones are buried there the spot is as hallowed as any graveyard elsewhere is to others; it is the last resting place of the pioneers of Burrard Inlet to quite a number.

Would it not be possible to enclose the small area with a fence, and erect a granite obelisk to mark the spot, and have an inscription stating why it is so enclosed and marked.

Yours faithfully

Mrs. R.D. Smith

[née Minnie McCord]

Item # EarlyVan_v6_041

[photo annotation:]

Hastings St and Carrall St 1898. South west corner. Now, 1945, site of B.C. Electric Railway Co’s Burnaby & Central Park interurban station and General Offices. The photographer stood about 40 feet east of north west corner of Hastings St produced.

Taken during Klondyke Rush excitement. Express wagons standing in front of small office used in common for individual businesses, W.C. Marshall on left, Fred Steel on right. Street is paved with California bituminous rock, rolled flat with hand rollers. Street car line not in use, merely extension of interurban tracks on Hastings St east of Carrall St (no city street cars on Hastings St west of Cambie St). Wood plank sidewalk, planks rotted and grass or weed growing in cracks & at edges. Shadows indicate bright winter’s day. Store with awning is Sinclair Marcus, fruiterer, on s.e. corner of Hastings & Carrall Sts, for many years, approx. 1888-1904. Ideal Grocery (McMillan’s) nearby. Small building is expressman’s common rendezvous and office. Board fence used by bill posters to paste printed signs, as “GORDON DRYSDALE, DRY GOODS, 150 Cordova St.” Tall electric light poles lead to power house (steam) on Westminster Ave. Royal City Planing Mills (sawmill) and Chinatown at end of Carrall Street. Tall shed with chimney was where kettles for heating bituminous rock, to make it plastic, were. It was the first material, other than planks, used for paving; first in 1891, on Cordova & Alexander St by Donald (Dan) McGillivray. W.H. Armstrong & Alex. Morrison (Armstrong & Morrison) were his assistants. Photo presented by Mr. Frederick Steel, Aug. 1945.

This scene or place, now, 1945, now one of the busiest corners in all Vancouver, was once a short crossing, through the forest, from Burrard Inlet to False Creek. Indians crossed, Royal Engineers, when making first survey, 1863; then, in 1885, C.P.R. surveyors dragged their boats across to save long row around by water. Originally the sea was at Water St and also at Pender St. On 13 June 1886, the Great Fire burned it to the bare black earth. City Archives. J.S.M.

In 1863, the Royal Engineers, when making the first survey of Coal Peninsula (Vancouver) divided the land at Carrall St, i.e., “Government Reserve” to the west; privately owned property to the east. The reserve became, 1885, the “C.P.R. Townsite.” In the litigation to establish who was, and who was not a squatter, the Canadian Pacific Railway denied the claim by Wm Mashiter that he was pre-emptor of the land on the corner, now B.C.E.R. station, but recognised the claim of John Brun to the land on right of this photo, and claim of John Whipple, pioneer, 1881, to the third lot, west of Carrall.

Conversation with Mr. W.C. Ditmars, pioneer, of 744 West Hastings Street, for many years with the pioneer contracting firm, Armstrong and Morrison, 28 August 1945.

Ross and Howard. Armstrong and Morrison. B.C. Electric Railway Co. Fred Steel, pioneer.

Major Matthews: Mr. Ditmars, a pioneer, Mr. Fred Steel, and his daughter, Mrs. Boardman, called this morning and left me, for copying, a photo of the southwest corner of Carrall and Hastings streets. It shows a well-paved street, a row of express wagons, horse-drawn, a small shack used as an office, a high building of boards and a sort of smoke stack, apparently on Pender Street. Did Armstrong and Morrison ever heat bituminous rock (asphalt) there?

Bituminous rock paving, 1891. First asphalt paving. First paving, 1891. Cordova Street. Alexander Street.

Mr. Ditmars: “They did; it was heated in a kettle out in the yard, against a board fence on Carrall Street, on the site of the present B.C. Electric Railway Building, southwest corner of Hastings and Carrall. It was the first material used for paving streets in Vancouver other than wood planks. I remember them tearing up the wood planks on Cordova Street in readiness for bituminous rock—the first paving in Vancouver other than wood planks—1891, from Granville Street, eastwards on Cordova Street.

“The bituminous rock came by a small sailing schooner from San Louis Obesto” (sic) “in California. It was asphalt mixed with sand, and was put in the top of the heating kettle and pulled out of the bottom and shovelled by hand into two wheeled hand dump carts, and taken to the site to be paved, where it was rolled by hand rollers. The heating in the kettle made it plastic.”

Donald (Dan) McGillivray. W.H. Armstrong. Alex. Morrison. Armstrong and Morrison.

“Dan McGillivray was contractor and W.H. Armstrong” (“Fatty”) “was superintendent and Alex. Morrison was foreman. I cannot recall all the streets which were paved, but Robert Armstrong, brother to W.H. Armstrong—he lives at Sardis now—he would know.”

Ross and Howard.

Major Matthews: Mr. Ditmars. Whose building would the tall one be; it looks as though it was on Pender Street behind.

Mr. Ditmars: “That would be Ross and Howard’s; at first they had a place down on Alexander Street where Simson, Balkwill and Co. were afterwards, and then they moved over to a place beside Armstrong and Morrison on Carrall Street. I recall, too, that there was a man named Campbell; he had a cobbler’s shop on the southwest corner of Carrall and Hastings streets.”

B.C. Electric Railway. Harry Hemlow.

“At that time, 1891, the first tram station—red brick one which was pulled down to make way for the present one—had not been erected. The interurban had a little office on the south side of Hastings, just east of Carrall, and Harry Hemlow was in charge.”

The name Deadman’s Island. Jericho. Jerry’s Cove.

Report of address of R.H. Alexander, manager, Hastings Sawmill, before Canadian Club. 23 February 1911, Canadian Club Printed Report, 1910-1911, page 14.

“I was somewhat amused lately to see a legendary Indian story as to the origin of the name ‘Deadman’s Island.’ It has no such poetic origin. The fact is there was no cemetery nearer than New Westminster, and occasional waifs and strays were buried on the island, and from that the mill hands gave it that name. What is known as Jericho, where the Country Club is located, was so called from ‘Jerry’ Rogers, who had his house and camp there; someone called it Jericho in fun, and the name stuck.”

Note by JSM: In isolated Burrard Inlet, they had to make fun somehow. Sobriquets was one way, so nearly everyone had a nickname; there were very few who had not.

Item # EarlyVan_v6_042

[photo annotation:]

Narvaez, first visitor, saw this, 1791.

Pilot Commander Don Jose Maria Narvaez, Spanish explorer, anchored his vessel the “Santa Saturnina” under the cliffs of Point Grey, 1791, and was the first whiteman to see the site of Vancouver, Canada. His sketch, the first chart of Burrard Inlet, now the port of Vancouver, indicates that he saw—perhaps visited—the Indian village of Eyalmu, now called Jericho, and the coast line beyond trending into False Creek, here in this photograph, taken ninety-eight years later, portrayed.

Entrance to False Creek from low cliff at south entrance to Stanley Park, showing, on the left, a forest clearing, now “West End,” and below, the beach on which John Morton, first settler, and his Indian companion, landed, October 1862, now English Bay bathing beach. The bridge spanning False Creek leads to the Pacific terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway—across Canada from the Atlantic—at Greer’s Beach, now Trafalgar St, Kitsilano. A depot of the Royal Canadian Air Force has replaced the village of Snauq on the False Creek Indian Reserve. On the high ridge to the left—between the two tall trees—a towering City Hall, a General Hospital, and educational institutions of Fairview and Shaughnessy Heights. Photograph by William Tinniswood Dalton, pioneer, presented, 1942, by his son, Arthur Tinniswood Dalton, F.R.G.S.

Item # EarlyVan_v6_043

[photo annotation:]

NORTH ARM, FRASER RIVER, 1911, from Eburne bridge. Narvaez, Spanish explorer, 1791, probably ascended thus far in small boat, and returned down middle arm, invisible on left, to his anchored schooner “Santa Saturnina.” Fraser, British explorer, 1808, descended in a canoe to Musqueam Indian village, in distance beyond Richmond Id. This photo partially illustrates what both saw. On Richmond, or Horseshoe Id. stood Todd’s Horseshoe brand salmon cannery (concealed behind bushes), and drew its fresh water by pipe under river from Garripie’s Pond on north bank. River water was tidal. The distant clump of trees is on D.L. 317, farm of Samuel McCleery, first settler in Vancouver, 1862, and now Marine Drive Golf links. On right is George Garripie’s, now Marpole, D.L. 318, and at foot of Granville St.

Cedar, hemlock, spruce, alder, yew, crabapple, willow, elderberry, and cottonwood grew in large and small clumps of varying widths all over Lulu and Sea Island; in the peat bogs there was bull pine, blueberry, cranberry, reeds, cat-tails and tall grasses. On Sea Island a large patch of spruce timber, half a mile long, on the south side, and smaller one on the north side—last remains shown herein on left bank of river—together with a great profusion of wild roses festooning trees to great height, obscured the vision of explorers passing beneath in boat or canoe at water level.

Photo by Dodge, Sydney, N.S. 1911.

City Archives. JSM.

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