History Helps Volume Two, Number 11, October 2002
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• Happy Hallowe’en
• Land Information
• B. C. Place Names
• Born Aboard the Columbia
• Canadian Local Histories
• 1901 Census of Canada
• British Columbia Biographies
• More B. C. Land Information
• Something to Think About
• Subscription, Privacy Policy

GREETINGS!

October ends with the celebration of Hallowe’en for most of us. And everything old is new again, as the song says.

“Hallowe’en Pranks
The usual amount of Hallowe’en tricks were played in and about Ladner on Wednesday last. Many boys and girls, too, had a tendency to sleep-in [sic] on the following morning, while many of the residents of the district awoke early to find themselves minus gates and fences and thus had all-day searches after buggies and farm wagons, only to find them nicely ditched some miles from their original resting place. No really serious damage was done, as perhaps last year’s fracas taught many of the boys that heavy fines which result from practical jokes do not pay. Most of the young people of the Delta enjoyed a thoroughly good time on October 31, and many parties and social events took place.”

Source: The Weekly Gazette and Home News, 10 November 1917, page three.

Land Information

“Land Ordinance, 1870

The main features of the new Land Ordinance are the following:

‘1st. None but a male person, being a British subject, of the age of 18 years and over may pre-empt.

2nd. In the first instance, permission, in writing, to pre-empt must be obtained. The Commissioner must be supplied with a full description of the required land, a plan must be deposited. Both the description and plan must be in duplicate.

3rd. After permission obtained and within 30 days the person wishing to pre-empt must enter into possession and stake off the ground, and then apply in writing to the Commissioner to have his claim recorded, and if there be no objection he shall receive a certificate of Pre-emption Record on payment of a fee of $2, and if the Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works and Surveyor-General finds no objection the claim will be finally recorded in the Land Office Pre-emption Register.

4th. Certificate of improvement can be obtained much in the usual way except that a declaration has to be signed proving the improvement and continual residence.

5th. Transfers of pre-emption claims can only be made with the aid and in the presence of the Commissioner.

6th. Occupation means a continuous bona fide personal residence of the pre-emptor.

7th. Pre-emptors may absent themselves from their claims 2 months in the year without leave and may obtain an additional 2 months in each year from the Commissioner. License to substitute for 6 months can also be obtained from the Commissioner.

A pre-emptor may purchase his claim on the Government survey being made, he having received a certificate of improvement and having resided 4 years on the claim.

Pastoral, hay and timber leases can be obtained under the Ordinance.
The Governor in council has power to make free grants of land.
An appeal against the decision of any Magistrate or Commissioner lies within one month, in the Supreme Court.”

Source: Mainland Guardian, 26 October 1870, page three.

B. C. Place Names

Located on the edge of the North American continent, British Columbia understandably abounds in place names related to maritime exploration. This site, http://www.rootsweb.com/~canbc/bc_placenames.htm, lists the place names chosen by 18th century explorers, including Captains Cook and Vancouver. A most impressive compilation.

Making History

“BORN EN ROUTE

Mrs. Holiday Provides a Surprise for Passengers on the Columbia
When Geo. A Bigelow comes in from Kootenay, he generally has a pretty good story to tell, and to-day he fully sustained his record. His tale is that among the passengers on the steamer Columbia en route from Little Dalles to Revelstoke was Mrs. Holiday, of Pullman, Wash., who with a number of others was on her way to take up a permanent residence in Canada.

On Oct. 26th this lady gave birth to a fine, plump girl baby. The event immediately became the only thing on the vessel in which any interest was taken. Everyone wanted to do something for the kid [sic]. A subscription was taken up and $70 realized which was presented to the mother with the following address:

We the undersigned, officers, crew and passengers of the steamer Columbia take this opportunity of expressing our interests in the unusual, and, we believe, unprecedented, occurrence of a birth on board the ship while on her trip between the Little Dalles, U. S. A. and Revelstoke, B.C., on the 26th of October, 1892. ... We request her parents to receive on her behalf the accompanying purse to be laid out for her benefit at their discretion, and we suggest, that in honor of the ship on which she was born, she shall receive in addition to such other names as may be given her that of Columbia.

The parents fell in with the suggestion and Bishop Sillitoe, who was on board, kindly and heartily acceded to the request to do the christening, and the little stranger was duly named Columbia Florence Holiday. It is unnecessary to add that the rest of the day was converted into a Columbian Holiday alongside of which a Roman holiday pales into insignificance.”

Source: Vancouver Daily World, 28 October 1892, page five.

Canadian Local Histories

If you’re looking for local histories in Canada, this is a site where you could spend days, http://www.ourroots.ca/english/home.htm
My only complaint, and it’s a tiny quibble, is that the search function is not very sophisticated. For example, when I searched for “British Columbia,” the response was “Sorry, no results found for your selection.” Not likely.

A joint project of the University of Calgary and Laval University, it reminded me of Early Canadiana On-line, although the site is not of as high a calibre.

1901 Census of Canada

All of us, I’m sure, have used this census to obtain a variety of information. The following item, published in The [New Westminster] Columbian, 11 March 1901, gives us some perspective on that Census:

“THE DOMINION CENSUS

The details of the instructions to the census enumerators appear in recent mail advices from the East, and they prove specially interesting by reason of many points that will suggest themselves to the thoughtful reader. This census will be a complete national directory, for it is provided that ‘every person whose habitual home or place of abode is in an enumerator’s district in any part of the Dominion is to be entered on the schedule by name, irrespective of age, sex or condition -- the head of the family or household to be taken first and the other members in regular order.’

The date selected for recording the population is the same as the date fixed by the Imperial parliament for taking the census of Great Britain, being Sunday, March 31. The decisive hour of reckoning is made 12 o’clock, or midnight, on the night of March 31 to April 1, so that everyone born before that hour and everyone dying after it are to be counted in the population. The enumerators will commence their work on the 1st of April, and continue their house to house visitation during eight hours each week-day except Saturday, until their task is completed.

The provision already reported briefly in the despatches, for making Canadians by wholesale, reads thus:

Nationality is a term of more or less conventional meaning, but as it applies by right of established usage to the citizens of Canada -- the expression new nationality was in this sense introduced in the speech with which the Governor-General opened the first Canadian parliament -- it is proper to use ‘Canadian’ in column 15 as descriptive of every person whose home is in the country, and who has acquired rights of citizenship in it. A person who was born in the United States or France or Germany or other foreign country but whose home is in Canada, and who is a naturalized citizen, should be entered as a Canadian; so also should a person born in the United Kingdom or any of its colonies, whose residence in Canada is not merely temporary. An alien person will be classified by nationality according to the country of his birth or the country to which he professes to owe allegiance.

The enumerators are further instructed that while among whites the racial or tribal origin is traced through the father, as English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, etc., care must be taken not to apply the terms ‘American’ or ‘Canadian’ in a racial sense, as there are no races of men so-called. ‘Japanese,’ ‘Chinese,’ and ‘negro’ are, however, declared ‘proper racial terms.’”

British Columbia: From the Earliest Times to the Present

Some time ago I was reminded of a valuable pair of books produced in 1914, titled “British Columbia: From the Earliest Times to the Present, Biographical.” Except for a word of caution about the self-congratulatory tone used in some of these individually submitted autobiographies, I have found these volumes to be enormously useful and have included an excerpt from a typical entry for Delta below. Part of a larger set, this resource is available in many libraries, including our own Pioneer Library in Ladner.

“JOHN WEAVER

John Weaver has for nearly twenty years been engaged in diversified agricultural pursuits in the East Delta district, Ladner, where he owns a fine, well improved farm. He was born in Cheshire, England, January 31, 1850, and is a son of John and Mary (Parry) Weaver.
The boyhood of John Weaver was passed in the parental home, his education being pursued in the schools of his native town. At the age of fourteen years he terminated his student days and became a wage earner. For seven years thereafter he was employed as a clerk on the railroad; later he turned his attention to agricultural activities and assumed the management of a farm for his brother-in-law. He held this position for fifteen years, and having become very much interested in British Columbia from the many reports and accounts he had read of the country, he subsequently resolved to establish a home there...” [Vol. IV, pages 904-907]

British Columbia Land Information

Here’s an instance where I’m going to pass along a Website, which I can’t tell you anything about, since it’s not designed to be accessible for Mac users like me.

Claiming to be “Your Window to Land Information From British Columbia Canada,” the site is British Columbia Land Data, located at http://www.landdata.gov.bc.ca/general/index_frame_main.htm. It purports to offer “Digital and Paper Maps” “Air Photos” “Survey Data” “Reports” and “Software”. If someone explores this site and finds it might be useful, please let me know and I’ll pass it on.

Something to Think About

From The [Ladner] Optimist, 13 February 1941: “ Knowing that you don’t know much is knowing a lot.”

Reminder

These newsletters are all dated. Consequently, some of the websites recorded therein may no longer be operating at the stated web address.

Subscription, Privacy Policy

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Gwen Szychter, M.A.
P.S. Here's a favour you can do for me: If you liked this newsletter and found it helpful or just interesting, please pass it on to a friend or colleague. Thank you.

Newspaper Obituary Database coming to

History of Delta, British Columbia On-line

Delta History On-Line

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