CHAPTER VIII.
VICTORIA IN 1859–1860.
I have before me an old picture of Victoria as it appeared in 1860. It is a watercolor sketch, drawn and colored by H. O. Tedieman, C.E., and artist. For me this picture has a great fascination, because it reminds me of those days gone by—"those good old days," as an old friend of those pioneer days remarked to me recently. A prettier place could not be imagined, with its undulating ground covered with grass relieved by spreading oaks and towering pines.
By the aid of this picture and information furnished me by Colonel Wolfenden and Mr. Harry Glide, I am enabled to give a pen-picture of the Queen City of the West forty-four years ago. Colonel Wolfenden says that when he first remembers James Bay he saw a gang of Indians—it may be one hundred—under "Grizzly" Morris, a contractor, and superintended by H. O. Tedieman, with pick, shovel and wheelbarrow making Belleville Street along the water and in front of the Government building. The sea beach then came up in front of the large trees on the Government grounds, about eighty or one hundred feet further inland. All this space was filled or reclaimed from the sea by the Indians. I might say that Chinese were almost as rare in those days in Victoria as Turks. Indians performed all manual labor—in fact were to that day what John Chinaman is to this. James Bay bridge, which was just built, looks a very frail structure in this picture, and must have been, as Colonel Wolfenden says, intended for passenger and light vehicular traffic, there being nothing to cause heavy traffic over the bay, the only houses of any moment being the pagoda-like buildings erected in 1859 for the Government, and replaced by the present palatial buildings, of which there were five. In addition to these I see the residence of Governor Douglas and Dr. Helmcken, Captain Mouat and City Clerk Leigh. There was also a good-sized house on Beckley Farm, corner of Menzies Street, in charge of John Dutnall and wife. Across Menzies Street there is the cottage now owned and occupied by Mr. Jesse Cowper, since dead, which was then occupied by John Tait of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s service, and who was an enthusiastic volunteer of the white blanket uniforms of 1861.
I see what I think was the residence of W. A. Young, on Superior Street, who was Colonial Secretary, and whose wife was a daughter of Chief Justice Cameron. If this is the place I see, it is still standing, and for years was the residence of the late Andrew J. Smith. To the right of the Government buildings is an isolated cottage which I believe is still in the land of the living, being built of corrugated iron, brought out from England by Captain Gossett, who in 1859 was colonial treasurer, mention of whom will be made later on. From Mr. Leigh’s residence, which with Captain Mouat’s was on the site of Belleville Street, until you come to St. John Street, there is a blank. On the corner is the house built and occupied by Captain Nagle, now occupied by Mr. Redfern, and across the street another built by James N. Thain and now occupied by Mr. George Simpson of the customs. From this on to the outer dock I see three isolated houses, that still remain. The large one was built and occupied by Mr. Laing of "Laing’s Ways," the pioneer shipbuilder; another by Captain H. McKay, the sealer captain; the third was built out of the upper works of the wrecked steamer Major Tomkins, the first steamer to run from Olympia to Victoria. She was wrecked off Macaulay Point in 1856. Mr. Laing bought the upper works and built this house. Lumber in those days had mostly to be imported from San Francisco—that is, the wood for fine work. Mr. Muir, of Sooke, bought the boilers and engines, which he put into a sawmill he built there, and good service they gave for years. Before the road opposite the Government grounds, which is now Belleville Street, was reclaimed from the sea, there was an Indian trail which ran through the woods, from Laing’s Ways, in the direction of town along the water-front, around the head of the bay to Humboldt Street. I might say that the plat of ground on which the Government buildings were built in 1859 was bought from a French-Canadian who came overland from Montreal, and although in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company for years, either could not or would not speak a word of English other than "yes" or "no." He built his house here and lived here until he sold out to the Government, the house being afterwards used as a Government tool house.
Mr. Harry Glide, from whom I got these particulars, is a pioneer of 1856, and lived near the outer wharf. He married a daughter of Mr. Laing. He says all James Bay from the bridge to the mouth of the harbor was covered with pine trees, and all this land, together with that facing Dallas Road up to Beacon Hill, was called Beckley Farm. The greater part of all these trees were cut down for Kavaunah, a man whom many will remember as having a woodyard about where the James Bay Athletic Association now stands.
Mr. Glide says that there were quite a lot of Cherokee Indians here who came from their native land to the coast of British Columbia for work, and a fine body of men he says they were, most of them over six feet and strongly built. It does seem strange that they should have travelled so far from their homes and country. There were also many Kanakas here, who came on vessels from Honolulu at odd times. They formed a small colony and located on Kanaka Road, or Humboldt Street, as it is now called. I can remember them in 1860, one family attending service at Christ Church regularly.
The most prominent building in sight is Victoria District Church, as it stands out in relief on Church Hill. When I first went there as a boy, it was a most primitive-looking building, with its low steeple or dovecote (as it looked like). There were two bells in this steeple, one larger than the other, which sounded ding dong, ding dong, many a year, until early one morning James Kennedy, an old friend of mine, as he was going home saw flames issuing from the roof.
He gave the alarm, and shortly after the whole town was there, and the engines with volunteer firemen. Nothing could save it though, as it was summer-time and very dry, and it was not more than an hour or two before it had disappeared. The other day I had the pleasure of meeting one of my schoolfellows of 1859, Ernest A. Leigh, of San Francisco, a son of the second city clerk of Victoria, and who was here on a visit to his niece, Mrs. George Simpson (customs). We of course had a long talk over old times, the days of yore, the days of ’59. In looking over this old picture he exclaimed, "There is the old church we went to! My father built it," and then I remembered the fact. Well can I remember the old church, with its old-fashioned windows, seats and gallery, and its organ that stood in the gallery, facing the congregation. When I first remembered it, Mrs. Atwood, now Mrs. Sidney Wilson, was organist, and I was organ-blower. Originally it was played as a barrel organ, as it contained three barrels which contained ten tunes each, but Mr. Seeley, the owner and proprietor of the Australian House, at the north end of James Bay bridge, made and adapted a keyboard to it, and Mrs. Wilson played it in the morning and in the afternoon. In the evening the keyboard was removed, and your humble servant ground out the hymn tunes as on a barrel organ.
It was in this gallery that I first met John Butts we have heard so much of through Mr. Higgins. I remember Butts as a sleek, respectable-looking young fellow with a nice tenor voice, which he was not afraid to use, and he was quite an addition to the choir, of which I was a juvenile member. In after years John fell from grace and gave up the choir, and might have been heard singing as he walked along the street, and not above taking fifty cents from someone well able to give it. He was always cheerful and goodnatured, and if a child were lost John would ring his bell and walk up and down calling out the fact.
This view of the old city is taken from the rocks on the Indian reserve, and in the foreground is a large building which occupied the site of the present marine hospital. When first I remember this building it was used as a lunatic asylum. It is the only prominent building shown on the reserve, with the exception of the Indian lodges, which by the extent might accommodate easily two thousand Indians. The harbor is full of shipping, taking up the whole frontage from the Hudson’s Bay Company’s wharf north, which is the only one distinctly to be seen in the view. The vessels reach to the bridge across the harbor.
At anchor is the historic Beaver, and steaming out of the harbor is the British steamer Forward. On the Hudson’s Bay Company’s wharf is a large shed or house. I do not see the present brick building, which was not built then (1859), but Mr. Glide says in a large shed on this wharf the British Colonist first saw the light, the advance sheets being printed here in 1858. When the shed was torn down a little over a year ago there were brought to light a number of old letters, which was a good find for the man who had the job of taking the shed down, for there were lots of old Vancouver Island stamps on these letters.
The Colonist was moved from here to Wharf Street, about where the Macdonald block now stands. Also Wells, Fargo’s express first did business in this shed, then moved to Yates Street, where it was located in a building, the lumber for which was imported from San Francisco, being redwood. This building was afterwards moved to Langley, between Bastion and Fort, and used as a feed store by Turner & Todd, whom we all know.
An incident by my schoolfellow Ernest Leigh, of Upland Farm in 1859, finishes this reminiscence.