October 2005 - Vol Five, No.11

History Helps, Volume Five, Number 11, October 2005
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HAPPY HARVEST! HAPPY HALLOWE’EN! AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO CANADIAN SUBSCRIBERS!

Cemetery Headstones

“FINAL RESTING PLACE

In 1989, high school students landscaping the Anglican cemetery in Winterton, Nfld, unearthed a gravestone that read: “HARE LYETH THE BODY OF WILLIAM LINCEFILD WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE OCTOBER THE 7 DAY ANNO DOMINI 1700.” Residents moved it to a local museum, but they are just now realizing its value.

Last fall, archaeologist William Gilbert of the Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation found the marker to be the oldest complete English headstone in Canada.

Lincefild’s history is unknown, but a silhouette of a man with an arrow pointing to a heart on the back of the stone shows it ‘was carved with some affection,’ says Grant Tucker, a teacher who helped preserve it. ‘[The carver] might have been his brother or father.’”

Source: Canadian Geographic, July/August 2004, page 32.

Canadian Directories Database

Here’s something at the Library and Archives Canada site that I didn’t know existed, namely, a database of Canadian directories pre-1901.

Unfortunately, there is only one entry for British Columbia, and that is the First City of Victoria Directory, 1860.

Have a look at http://www.collectionscanada.ca/canadiandirectories/.

Smuggling in British Columbia

I read a book just recently about “rum-running” which stated that British Columbia didn't have much of a history of smuggling in the 19th century. The following would suggest otherwise.

“CONTRABAND WHISKY -- During the past few months an extensive trade has been going on, shipping alcohol and high wines into British Columbia, from Spokane Falls, via the Kootenay trail. The liquor goes to the men engaged in the construction of the Canadian Pacific. To prevent intoxication and delays to the work, occasioned by excessive use of stimulants, the Canadian Pacific has steadily refused to transport whiskey over the portions of its line constructed but not yet in operation, and will not allow the sale of liquor within twenty miles on either side of the line. Its charter gives the company exclusive jurisdiction over this much territory during the period of construction.

There are now 4,000 men at work on the east slope of the mountains, 250 miles north of Spokane Falls, and they will have whiskey. The alcohol is shipped in on the back of mules, in five gallon tin cans, and left at the border to the twenty mile limit, where middle-men deal it out to railroaders through smugglers. The liquor is hardly equal to the better brands of Bourbon diluted with water and colored a little. It is less poisonous and more stimulating than the average rot-gut sold in Portland dives.

The men engaged in the traffic are making a small fortune, as the railroaders pay extravagant prices for the stuff. A gentleman who is just down from Sand point, where all the pack trains pass, told an Oregonian of occasional financial perils of the trade. There are about 40 mounted police in the railroad employ who keep a sharp lookout for liquors. It is usually arranged to have the train arrive at the border line at night and the cans are ‘cached.’ This is known to a party of thieves, who several times have stolen the liquor and carried it to some other cache. They in turn sent it inside the lines through smugglers and get pay therefor. The original owners have no recourse because there is no law outside the railway limit, and within the lines the traffic is forbidden. Now they guard their children with shotguns. -- Portland Oregonian.”

Source: The British Columbian, 08 November 1884, page three.

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Gwen Szychter, M.A.

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