Early in 1858, some
Victoria residents proposed to subdivide the land at present day Derby,
and advertised it for sale. Governor Douglas at once counteracted the
move, declaring that no land had been sold to anyone there. They had named
the place Derby, and this name Douglas accepted. He proclaimed that it
would be future capital of a new British Colony. Joseph Despard Pemberton
surveyed it.
Governor Douglas chose the site of Derby as the Capital of the new
Colony of British Columbia against the wishes of Colonel Moody. That Moody
had decided against the site at Derby before he had left England is
evident from a letter which Captain Grant sent to Governor Douglas, now in
the Provincial Archives. In it Grant recommends “a site near the Pitt
River, which is named by Colonel Moody in his instructions to me”, and in
which Grant recommends “that no buildings be commenced, however temporary,
at Derby until a true site is vindicated for the Capital”.
I never objected to the
Langley site, but on the first day I reached Fraser River and found
a Township was laid out and advertised for sale, I wrote to Governor
Douglas begging him to stay proceedings until the arrival of the
Commissioner and that in the mean time I would employ the 20
Surveyors I had with me in reporting on the various suitable sites
in the neighbourhood for his consideration. The offer was declined,
Langley was sold and unfortunately condemned by the Chief
Commissioner and hence of many blunders so commenced.
-- Major Grant,
15th April 1898 |
The Royal Engineer detachment arrived there
soon afterwards.
The detachment of RE which landed at Esquimalt 8th November
1858, arrived at Derby on November 10th 1858. This Detachment
consisted of:
Captain John Marshall Grant |
RE |
|
|
Bonson, Lewis F. |
Serjeant (Joiner and
Wheelwright) |
|
|
Byers, William |
Lance Corporal |
|
|
Alexander, Walter |
Sapper |
Bruce, Henry |
Sapper (Carpenter) |
Dawson, Samuel |
Sapper |
Edwards, Wm. "Black Bill" |
Sapper (Carpenter) |
Kennedy, James |
Sapper (Blacksmith) |
Maynard, Joseph |
Sapper (Carpenter) |
Manstrie, William |
Sapper |
Allen, Frederick |
Sapper |
Bowden, George |
Sapper |
Or according to Dennys Nelson of:
Charles Eade, a second corporal, Henry
Bruce, Walter Alexander, Fred Allen, Samuel Dawson, William Edwards,
(alias Black Bill), Samuel Johnson, William Momstrey, (drowned at Harrison
Rapids), Joseph Maynard, Lewis F. Bonson, Fred Thurgate, George Bowden,
and William Byers.
Prior to this, Captain Parsons and his 20
man Detachment had arrived at Esquimalt but had stayed behind at the RE
barracks of the Boundary Commission -- Pilgrim's Rest.
Royal Engineer Camp
Esquimalt 3 November 1858
My dear Sir.
Referring to your Instructions to accompany you to Fort Langley
with my Detachment and there to remain, I submit it is desirable
that I should if possible proceed there before your
Excellency for the purpose of ascertaining the exact condition
of the buildings you intend placing at my disposal so that I may
be prepared to demand such materials as may be necessary for
rendering them fit for the occupation of Troops.- Should the
time not admit of my proceeding you and returning to make
preparations, I would suggest that my Detachment should not take
up permanent Quarters on the occasion of you Excellency's visit
to Fort Langley, but return to Vancouver's Island and acting on
knowledge gained by personal inspection, prepare the requisite
for suitable Quarters, then as early as possible make our
residence at Fort Langley.-
I am
induced to think it absolutely necessary that the preliminary
inspection should be made, from the accounts brought from Fort
Langley by some Officers attached to Colonel Hawkins, who
represent the fine weather as quite broken up as at that place,
and, state that they did not observe any buildings that are at
present fit for the occupation of Her Majesty' Troops;- I should
have great objection to keep the men under Canvas in a wet
locality for any period at this late season of the year, unless
from pressing necessity, - indeed I hope to house and feed them
that their efficiency may not be found impaired, when the season
for active employment shall arrive. Waiting your Excellency's
Instructions
I have the honour to
remain,
Yours obediently,
RMParsons
|
The Men, rather than live under canvas in the wet and cold winter of
British Columbia, were offered the HBC brig "Recovery", as their floating
home while the barracks were completed. This vessel was anchored at
Derby on the Fraser River.
File Item
Correspondent
Date
3
3 Memo of provisions
required for two 11 Nov1858
Captains and 31 men of the Royal
Engineers
at Fort Langley
MS-0105
Yale, James Murray, 1798-1871
Originals 1845-1871 2 cm
Microfilm (neg.) 1845-1871 35
mm [A001653]BC Archives |
On the 19th of November, the Royal Engineers made up the Honour Guard
for the official ceremonies that formalized British Columbia as a British
Colony.
Victoria Gazette, 25th November, 1858 -
"...On Thursday morning, (the 18th November) His
Excellency and suite were conveyed by the Hudson Bay Company screw steamer
Otter to the Company's steamship Beaver, which was lying moored within the
mouth of the Fraser river. Both vessels then proceeded in company as far
as Derby, where the Otter disembarked a party of 18 sappers under the
command of Captain Parsons, who immediately embarked on the Recovery
revenue cutter, joining the command of Captain Grant, RE, who had
previously reached this spot with a party of the same corps. Both these
gallant officers have recently arrived from England with small parties of
men under their command.
On Friday morning, the 19th inst., His Excellency accompanied by his
suite, and received by an honor guard commanded by Captain Grant,
disembarked on the wet, loamy bank under the Fort, and the procession
proceeded up the steep bank which leads to the palisade..."
|
Captain Parsons' party, according to Frances
Woodward, consisted of:
Captain RM Parsons |
Captain (Surveyor) |
|
|
McColl, William |
Serjeant (Surveyor) |
Leech, Peter John |
2nd Corporal (Surveyor) |
|
|
Conroy, James |
Lance Corporal |
Meade, John |
Lance Corporal |
Turnbull, James |
Lance Corporal (Surveyor) |
Breakenridge, Archibald T. |
Sapper (Surveyor) |
|
|
Brown, Johnathan |
Sapper |
Colston, Robert |
Sapper (Blacksmith) |
Duffy, James |
Sapper (Surveyor) |
Goskirk, Robert |
Sapper |
Kennedy, David |
Sapper |
Lomax, Thomas |
Sapper |
Maclure, John |
Sapper (Surveyor) |
McMillian, Murdock |
Sapper |
Robertson, Alexander S. |
Sapper |
Shannon, James |
Sapper |
Armstrong, Robert |
Sapper |
Or according to Dennys Nelson of:
William McColl, James Ellan, Robert
Armstrong, A. T. Breakenridge, Jonathan Brown, Robert Colston, Robert
Giskirk, James Duffy, David Kennedy, Murdock McMillan, Alex Robertson,
Peter J. Leach, John McClure, Thomas Lomax, John Meade, James Conroy,
Henry C. Benney, James Shannon, George Dobbs, and Andrew Munro. George
Dobbs deserted at San Francisco and Andrew Munro deserted at Sapperton.
(Editor's Note: John Meade could not have
been part of any of the early parties arriving in 1858 as he is clearly a
member of the Thames City Detachment and mentioned numerous times in the
ship's newspaper, The Emigrant Soldiers Gazette and Cape Horn Chronicle.)
Grant, who was senior to Parsons, took command of the Detachment at Derby.
The duties of the RE included appraising lands along the lower Fraser
River for a suitable location for a Port of Entry and Colonial Capital. Part of the detachment proceeded on the search, while a smaller section
commenced construction of permanent barracks.
To inspire confidence, Douglas called for
tenders on December 1, 1858, for the erection of a parsonage, church,
courthouse and gaol, and these were built by E. L. Fell, under contract.11
Considerable correspondence between the new rector and Governor Douglas
resulted in an enlarged parsonage. Judge Begbie, who held court in the
barracks in early March of l859, criticized the courthouse plans which
provided no jury-box and no stair to the upper floor. His letter is in the
Provincial Archives.
The RE began the construction of the barracks
while supervising the construction of the goal, courthouse and Church.
The Barracks was said by James Murray Yale of HBC Fort Langley, to be
located on the HBC claim at the original fort Langley. The HBC Claim
consisted of the south half of Blocks 4, 13 and 24 and the North half of
Blocks 3, 14 and 23 of the Derby Townsite. (Gt. Britian, B.C. Papers, Yale
to O'Reilly, 17 May 1859.)
As the RE celebrated New Years 1859 in the Colony, disturbances at Yale
with Ned McGowan, forced the men from the comfort of the
"Recovery" and into the slush. Colonel Moody, while traveling
to the disturbances up the Fraser, took with him Captain Grant and 22 Men
of the Detachment. Colonel Moody wrote:
"...so alarming and so urgent in their nature that I had no
option but instantly to go there and to take the detachment of R.E.'s with
me. The Magistrate implored military assistance...The Men (22 in number)
of course delighted, looking up the locks of their Rifles and Revolvers -
the Judge and myself grave and thoughtful..." |
At the completion of the crisis, Grant and his men return to Derby and
barrack construction.
The RE surveyed the Fraser River from its "
Entrance to the Site of Old Fort Langley". The map they produced,
usually called the 1860 Plumper map (from the hydrological survey done by
the HMS Plumper, Captain Richards), shows 4 buildings parallel to the
riverbank in the vicinity of the original fort.
In February 1859, with the acceptance of
the proposal by Colonel Moody and Governor Douglas, New Westminster was to
become the Port of Entry and Capital. Work began immediately to
clear land there for a major RE Camp. The nearly completed barracks
were to be finished and the wives and
children of the Columbia Detachment, expected soon, were to use it as
temporary quarters until the Camp was complete.
When Colonel Moody's party made its way from Victoria, they stayed at
the not yet completed barracks. Robert Burnaby, who is Moody's private secretary, describes
it in a letter to his family:
22nd February 1859
"Our first destination was the new town of (Derby), where Captain
Grant and a Detachment of Engineers are stationed. It is a desolate
looking
spot, swampy and partly cleared. We occupied rooms in the new barracks
which
are not yet finished, the Colonel and I in one small room, Nicol, Blake
and
Crease, a barrister, in another, all in the rough of course, just a wooden
house, trestle bedstead, and some blankets. We messed in the large barrack
room, a long place with an open roof, much like a church schoolroom in the
rough. At one end a huge fireplace without grate, where great logs of wood
were continually consumed. Captain Grant is a very good, rough and ready,
go
ahead fellow, very kind to me and altogether pleasant.
We stayed at Langley till Tuesday. On Sunday we had service in the
barracks
in the morning and then pulled up to the Hudson Bay Fort." |
References indicate that the barracks had sash windows with panes 10" by
14" "in the clear", and that bricks were used for the chimney
(BC
Royal Engineers Letterbook, Miles to Trounce, 28 February 1859)
The barracks at Derby played host to
considerable activity - Reverend Crickmer had held church services in the barracks for the
Detachment (Stackkouse {196?}:8); Crickmer (and his wife and child) also
lived in the barracks while the church and parsonage were being built
(Crickmer
n.d. :780) and Judge Begbie held a
session of Court held there (Begbie correspondence, 10 March 1859).
Judge Begbie describes the barracks as the "best built and finest
looking wooden building in both the lower mainland and Vancouver
Island" (Begbie to Douglas, 20 March 1859).
With the arrival of the bulk of the
Columbia Detachment on the Thames City on the 12th of April 1859, the
barracks were used as the main living quarters of the Women and Children
of the Detachment.
“...I have sent the women and children
with twelve men to the barracks at Langley, there they will remain
for the present, under the charge of Assistant-Surgeon Mitchell. Dr.
Seddall goes up with them, and returns to Sapperton. You will be
sorry to hear that one child is at the point of death, and not
expected to survive the night. I have given orders that every care
be taken of the poor little sufferer.”
- from a letter from Moody to Douglas,
April 16, 1859. |
The little invalid was the child of Sapper
T. Walsh, said to have been a tailor at New Westminster later. The child
was buried outside the present fort on the sloping ground north of it, and
the remains were removed from there when the C.N.R. right-of-way was
graded.
The main party of Engineers, numbering
over a hundred was landed at the Camp to clear the site, the twelve men
going to Derby to do what outside work might be required.
As time passed the new town of
Queenborough rapidly took shape - to the detriment of Derby.
"...I have been up the Derby. They have barely a
place there to build twenty houses but no more. If a town of delivery is
requisite below Fort Hope, it will be better to go higher up the river.
Any one who thinks favorably of that place ought to go over the ground. If
the barracks remain there longer, it will be requisite to have a hospital
alongside. I caught marsh fever for only one night's sleeping there."
-23rd April, 1859 - The British Colonist
|
The church was first used when on May 13,
1859, Rev. W. Burton Crickmer preached the first sermon to the Royal
Engineers. It now stands at the corner of Laity Road and the River Road at
Maple Ridge. The courthouse was removed to a new site near the second
fort, and was the first home of Otway Wilkie after his marriage in 1884.
Upon the completion of the main barracks
at the Camp, the barracks at Derby were abandoned.
|