History Helps Volume Two, Number 12, November 2002
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• Remembrance Day
• Vancouver As Seen by an Outsider
• 1901 Census of Canada On-line
• Speaking of Money
• Coroners’ Records for British Columbia
• Horticulture
• Biographies
• Subscription, Privacy Policy

Remembrance Day

The cenotaph in Ladner at which Delta’s Remembrance Day services take place was dedicated in May 1921. The British Columbian reported it thus on 23 May 1921, page one:

“DELTA’S TRIBUTES TO HER HEROES

War Memorial is Unveiled in Memorial Park with Impressive Ceremonies

ELOQUENT ADDRESSES

Lieut.-Col. Foster, H. N. Rich and Rev. Jackson Speak of Glory of 27 Who Fell

LADNER, May 23 -- With simple yet impressive ceremony Delta dedicated its war memorial on Sunday, in grateful memory of the gallant men of that municipality, who gave their lives in the Great War. The memorial, a tall shaft of B. C. granite, erected at the entrance of Memorial Park, and bearing the names of 27 men was unveiled by Mr. H. N. Rich, whose only son Sidney Rich fell on the field of Battle. The memorial address, delivered by Lt. - Col. W. W. Foster, D.S.O. was most appropriate in thought and sentiment, and Captain, the Rev. M. H. Jackson, M. A., chaplain of the 7th Battalion, who delivered the dedication address was equally impressive in his brief but eloquent words.

Over eighty ex-service men of Delta were in the procession ...”

Vancouver as Seen by an Outsider in 1892

“Archbishop O’Brien on Vancouver

Among the many eminent personages from the east who have visited the coast this season will be remembered Lieut.-Gov. Daly, of Nova Scotia, Archbishop O’Brien, Rev. Father Murphy and party, who have since returned and who have been extensively interviewed by the eastern press as to the impressions formed by them while in the west.
Being asked by a representative of the Halifax Herald what he thought about Vancouver, Archbishop O’Brien said, in substance, that for a town only six years old, it was a wonderful place, and presented some very novel features.

Fine blocks of buildings were scattered here and there, with intervening blocks of stumps, being lots held by speculators who were holding out for big prices, and the prices at which lots were held and actually sold greatly surprised him. The town showed great ambition and enterprise. It had a circuit of nine miles of electric tramway. It also had electric tramway connection with New Westminster, 13 miles away, making regular trips each way every hour, it taking an hour to accomplish the trip.

At Vancouver the Government is building a magnificent post office, and the C. P. R. is building a large extension to an already very commodious and very excellent hotel. In that city on the Pacific coast he found that the Hong Kong train was no myth, but a living reality. There he found at the wharf the steamer Empress of China, one of the three great steamers of the Pacific fleet, magnificently fitted up, ready for sail to Yokohama and thence to Hong Kong. We arrived on Friday, he said, and she sailed on Sunday with 140 saloon passengers and a large number of intermediate and steerage. These steamers do a large amount of passenger traffic, and carry about as many Chinamen back as they bring here. Towards the end of the year a great many Chinamen return to their homes to attend some sort of religious festival, His Grace thought, although he would not speak with certainty on that point. He had, however, received that impression.

These steamers had diverted a great deal of commercial and passenger traffic with the east which formerly went through United States channels and centred at San Francisco. The line is shorter and the steamers are better, and this causes the C. P. R. Company to outstrip all competitors on the Pacific. Cargoes of flour are actually shipped from San Francisco to Vancouver, and there reshipped to the east by these boats. These facts, His Grace thought, accounted largely for the animus which the United States shows towards Canada.”

Source: Vancouver Daily World, 17 October 1892, page four.

1901 Census of Canada - On Line

The accessibility of information contained in the 1901 Census of Canada was greatly improved when the National Archives of Canada uploaded the file to its site on the Internet. While it is not possible to search by name, the data is available on a geographic basis.
Delta residents who want to examine the records of their ancestors who lived in the municipality in 1901 will find the data by keying in on the search form:
Province: - British Columbia,
District: - New Westminster.
Sub-district: - 4 for Delta; b-1, b-2, b-3, b-4.
Schedule: Search Schedule 1 for personal information,
Schedule 2 for address, housing.

For some time it has looked as if the 1901 census would be the last historic census to be released for public use. The Government of Canada announced on September 3, 2002, that legislation will be introduced in the new session of parliament in respect of the release of 92 year old census records. We can hope that the four-year battle to ensure the future release of historic censuses has been won. Thanks for passing on this information, Gordon.

Incidentally, the web address for the above is http://www.archives.ca/02/020122_e.html

Speaking of Money

The subject is unavoidable, especially the necessity of converting Canadian to American dollar values. The quintessential Website for doing that is http://www.xe.com/ucc/

For a historical perspective, this excerpt below from “Guide to the Province of British Columbia for 1877-8” published by T. N. Hibben & Co., page 41, is instructive:

“MONEY (COIN) IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

British money is not much used in British Columbia. Business is done, and accounts kept, in dollars and cents, and the coins principally used are United States coins, as follows:
GOLD: 20 dollar piece; 10 dollar piece; 5 dollar piece; 2 1/2 dollar piece.
SILVER: 1 dollar piece; 1/2 dollar piece; 1/4 dollar piece; Dime (called a ‘bit’).”

A historical perspective from a different angle, one which Canadians in the 21st century can appreciate with wry amusement, is presented in the following snapshot of an imaginative entrepreneur from the 1890s:

“Buying and Selling Cash

The Portland Oregonian has this to say of how a Vancouverite, now in that city, is making an honest living: There are quite a number of ways of making a living, and oftentimes some of the easiest are the most profitable. Yesterday a heavy-set man was seen visiting all the stores on First street with a large bag of money in his hand. He would approach a store keeper and ask if he had any Canadian or mutilated money. If the merchant had, he would offer to purchase it, and in nearly every case he made a trade. Canadian money is quite plentiful in Portland, being so close to British Columbia, and scarcely a shop keeper, when he makes up his cash at night, fails to find a few quarters or halves of Canadian coin. The banks will not accept them at par, and rather than be bothered with them throw them aside, until they often have quite a large amount. This speculator has learned of this and he goes around offering to take the money at 15 per cent discount. He generally gets it, and stated yesterday that he cleared each month all the way from $150 to $300 by his brokerage system.”

Source: Vancouver Daily World, 31 October 1892, page two.

Coroners’ Records for British Columbia

The search page of the B. C. Archives site is at http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca:9000/sn-142CCDF/search#form

A search for “coroner” will turn up a number of items, including “Coroner’s inquiries/inquests 1865-1937” (GR-0431), as well as an index (GR-0432). Much useful information can be found here.

The following is a sample of the kind of information that can be found in the Finding Aid. The information includes Volume Number, Date, Name, Cause of Death, Date.

4 1894 J. Broulette Explosion of boiler on Steamer Queen, Jul 4th 28 Jul 1894

4 1894 Hugh Lynn Sentenced to death and was hung 24 Aug 1894

4 1894 Charles H. Marble Drowned in Fraser River after descending by parachute from a balloon 11 Oct 1894 - 12 Oct 1894

5 1895 William Law Exhaustion on board a wrecked steamer Velos 25 Mar 1895

5 1895 Capilano (Indian) Accidental drowning while drunk 22 Apr 1895

5 1895 Sandy Ferguson, Joe Moore Burnt to death in Hotel fire (Ferguson supposed to have started fire while drunk) 19 Apr 1895

5 1895 Chief George Drowned (supposed to have been drunk) 12 Jun 1895 - 13 Jun 1895

5 1895 Unknown (John Rochon) Supposed to be body of fireman of "Str. Queen" 15 Jun 1895

5 1896 Edward Shanaghan Killed with 4 others by explosion of Giant powder in Central Star Mine 16 Mar 1896

5 1896 Harry Talbot Point Ellice Bridge Disaster drowning. May 26th 28 May 1896

Horticulture

We’ve all read of how enchanted the middle and upper classes in Victorian England were with gardening novelties. Many of the flowers, shrubs and trees that we now enjoy originate in that era, discovered in some exotic land and cultivated for domestic use. Who would have thought that B.C. was the source of some of those “exotics”?

“B. C. SHRUBS FOR ENGLAND

The First Shipment Made by the Georgia Street Nursery

A large quantity of British Columbia trees and shrubs were yesterday shipped from the Georgia Street Nursery in this City to the Old Country. One shipment is bound for Sheffield; another to the estate of Mr. McIver Campbell in the north of Scotland; a third is to be sent off in a few days to Virginia Water, near Windsor Castle in Berkshire. The shipments which are all sent in fulfilment of orders, include besides trees and shrubs, a variety of native ferns. A number of the plants are different from any yet grown in Britain and Mr. Robinson is justified in expecting further orders from dealers and others both in Great Britain and Ireland.

This is the first shipment of the kind from British Columbia and it is hoped it will turn out a success.”

Source: Daily News-Advertiser, Thursday, 15 November 1894, page two.

Biographies

Here’s a suggestion that came from a subscriber. When looking up British Columbia names, be sure to check Who's Who in Who's Whos: an Index to Biographical Dictionaries of British Columbians / Compiled by R. Dale Mcintosh. Public History Group, University of Victoria, 1991. 218 pages. UBC Library (Special Collections) FC 3805 M25 1991. The University of British Columbia has all the references listed in the bibliography, pp. 217-8. Thanks, Margaret.

Reminder

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Newspaper Obituary Database coming to

History of Delta, British Columbia On-line

Delta History On-Line

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