Salt Spring Island Archives

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Audio

Margaret Cunningham

Accession Number Interviewer
Date Location
Media tape Audio CD mp3 √
ID 187 Duration

187_Margaret-Cunningham.mp3

otter.ai

11.03.2023

no

Unknown Speaker 0:00
So

Unknown Speaker 0:03
tell me about your fabric Were you born here?

Unknown Speaker 0:05
I was born here and married here and I have five children, but don't know about my

Unknown Speaker 0:12
father.

Unknown Speaker 0:14
My father and uncle and aunt came together in 1884. They had come out from originally from England and went to Nebraska and my father had joined my uncle and out there. And they had been living there for a little while, and they came up to Victoria in 1884. And from there from Sydney, they took a boat to come over intentionally for the Salmon River up to the north end of Vancouver Island. But when they got to Sydney, they met Mr. Rucker, and he said, Oh, don't go so far away, come over to Salisbury, Maryland. He already had taken a piece of property at the south end of the beaver point where his family still live. So they started off in a boat, but they unfortunately what had drift and got to San Juan, and it was just after they'd been all this trouble would dispute. So they were ordered off San Juan just after they settled on the island, and we're trying to make some coffee, they were ordered off the answer. Then they set off again. And this time they reached just as real place past be repoint place was a lovely white shell beach in Miami and

Unknown Speaker 1:11
well, this is our home. And it was upon to ground going out into the sea rather flat and made a very nice homestead for them. They eventually planted fruit trees there, you know, and built quite a place and had a farm. But my father stayed with him for a short time. Then he came up here to central to teach school at the settlement around the lake, which was known as central settlement. And he bought it in this house that we're living in now which was

Unknown Speaker 1:35
became the boarding house of the of the district. And he was here for

Unknown Speaker 1:42
another five to seven lived here in this boarding house at the time. What was your father's name? Spanish raffles party after Augustus Robert pretty cool. The full name is foreigners people were stone habits in England and some of them were musicians.

Unknown Speaker 2:04
And then he was Samuel and Emily Purdy and Sam upon me Samuel and Emily business and she was Emily per your sister of my father's so that's what the British wrote is named after BW. That's right.

Unknown Speaker 2:27
Is there any things that happened any incidents with regard to the any of those before before you came on the scene so to speak in those early days? Oh yes, my father taught school here for as I say from 1885 to 1897 and it was very different in those days there was nothing at all and Ganges and the boat call it was serious. And in various other points of the unlike phone wound, and and Fulford harbour and beaver point. Of course the the the transportation changed a little bit throughout the years but that's the way it was there was nothing at all Ganges at first. And so everything there was a store of Vesuvius and things were left there and then brought up to this sacrament here at Central most of this area had been occupied by the Nico's prior to that particular time

Unknown Speaker 3:15
is this this area here at the crossroad is known as thankful they seem to be dropping the name I noticed now in the telephone book that they no longer shows these in the district of central

Unknown Speaker 3:27
well they call us they say this is the North End Road or St Mary's lake but they don't they drop that we're all together.

Unknown Speaker 3:36
But it was quite a startling because we were originally the Negroes were around him. They were the first to come to the and as you know, they arrived here in 1859 and August they were sent here by Governor Douglas who sent a boat over to to colonize the island.

Unknown Speaker 3:52
And of course then white people started coming in but they settled at Fulford Harbour. And it wasn't till a few quite a few years later that the white people settled up here. The first place settlement was

Unknown Speaker 4:03
before the array, the earliest white man that still has family here would have been

Unknown Speaker 4:11
Mr. Joe Aikman, he came out I think about 1860 or 61 and he married a young lady from the bride ship. You've heard of that? Of course.

Unknown Speaker 4:22
And so his descendants are still there to fulfill harbor

Unknown Speaker 4:31
Cygnus

Unknown Speaker 4:33
early on Well, no, it was actually really nothing apathy. It was there was a store and Mr. Ben Carson he had two or three little houses down close to the store and the wealth that went out from into the sea, you know, right near the near the what is now the Vesuvius lodge that was originally Mr. Glass Door. And but all the houses and everything you see there today are

Unknown Speaker 4:56
all new. I mean, they've all come in the last

Unknown Speaker 4:59
few years.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
Here's actually that time there was nothing there. This was really the only settlement and Fernwood

Unknown Speaker 5:09
were earlier than the time that my father came in was what was known as big settlement out of Fernwood.

Unknown Speaker 5:16
Any thing any incidents in the early days?

Unknown Speaker 5:23
Oh, yes, he was teaching to oh, well, there were all sorts of little things that happened, I suppose. Do you want to hear of those sort of things? Oh, yes. Well, one, one thing that I remember quite distinctly, he was telling me, which really scared the children at school. He was rather tall men, blue eyes, and he had a beard, which was difficult to do, of course, and they get very good discipline. The point is

Unknown Speaker 5:44
that he was a wonderful teacher, too. But one thing that surprised the children was that one of the boys when they got a big nose, and he sent one of the other boys to go to the woodshed and get the act. And because everybody was tough,

Unknown Speaker 5:58
but he put his colleagues on the back of his neck, and he recovered quite quickly. But just like subtle, the rest of the children.

Unknown Speaker 6:06
And then there was another time when, of course, there were no doctors here then. And so he had to take the, and give any medical aid that he could to anyone and Andy up here at the church, this place is right alongside that most, which was built in 1889. My uncle was a bit of

Unknown Speaker 6:27
time. And so the church was built about that time and dedicated about 1893.

Unknown Speaker 6:36
And

Unknown Speaker 6:38
her husband was staying here in the room upstairs on that particular side on the right hand side of the house, he boarded there, and my father had the room over his appear. So this is quite an old and

Unknown Speaker 6:53
one day while Reverend husband was up there walking around the churches, it just hadn't been built very long. And it was very rough in front and crystal on rocks boat, and somehow he fell over the egg. So he called out to help out for help rather, and Miss Stevens who was the boring housekeeper here heard him crying out for help. So she went up then. And then she went on down to the school, which was at Central and got my father, Mr. Perry, and back and he said his leg for him.

Unknown Speaker 7:21
And during the time that he had to leave the school like that he left home or who was the oldest boy in the school, he left him intact.

Unknown Speaker 7:30
I mean, never just an incident of things that they had to do, because there were no doctors here. And so that if anything really first happened, you had taken over in a boat to to Riverside to Vancouver Island.

Unknown Speaker 7:44
Where did where did he teach was? Oh, it was on this little squirrel Central. There were originally two schools, there was a log building. And later they had a nice white frame building, which was taken down a few years ago and made into a house for someone who's living right next door there now. But

Unknown Speaker 8:02
the original building was a long school. And I think Mr. Jones had been the first teacher there he was a colored man.

Unknown Speaker 8:10
So that that would have probably been sometime about 20 years after the Negroes settled here, and possibly about 18 He

Unknown Speaker 8:20
and then just name a photo there for the 12 years.

Unknown Speaker 8:24
A lot of older people early to old timers, you might say went to school with him. Now when I'm in Joburg mode, when the mode store, they were pupils of his in the three Collins brothers out along sunset or just off sunset drive.

Unknown Speaker 8:41
And the Norton family and various and the bigger family. They all families at the time. And the Harrisons. They own this property around the lake just across the road from us. Tell me about the moments were they here before your father came? Who they came my afterwards? I believe they came

Unknown Speaker 8:58
the next year. That's what they come to do. While Mrs. March Mr. Mod, I think died soon after they came here to you. Yes, I think it did. and Mrs. Moore was left as a widow for quite a long time with this large family of boys and girls. They lived across the lake, the end of farm their

Unknown Speaker 9:19
remote was going to be sent away to college, I think he wanted to become a lawyer. But he had to give up his dreams of becoming a lawyer because his brother was in this

Unknown Speaker 9:29
store business that was still at Nord, and he unfortunately got stricken with polio and so they weren't willing to come back and help him out so that they do bear this. Then handle the store.

Unknown Speaker 9:40
There was a store associate,

Unknown Speaker 9:42
Central and post office and, and the whole

Unknown Speaker 9:47
thing's all came along later. This is after 1900 and

Unknown Speaker 9:53
the courthouse and jail. I mean that there was definitely a settlement there. And nothing. This was old

Unknown Speaker 10:00
crosswords, everything is gone if I take pictures and pictures,

Unknown Speaker 10:03
this was really

Unknown Speaker 10:07
at the north end of the island

Unknown Speaker 10:14
when you consider that was the winner of the first community that was 1859 in the negros came here. And about just about the soon after that or by night 1860 The white settlers were in

Unknown Speaker 10:30
Gaza there is a long, long way to kind of trail through from fifth to

Unknown Speaker 10:36
right through here to Central.

Unknown Speaker 10:40
Common people used to travel by accident

Unknown Speaker 10:47
Well, I think the main reason was because in the early days, the Indians used to come in here. And they used to come around by the lake, we've had found relics of arrowheads, and so on, over the years, and they used to come around by the way to get away for protection from the other invading Indians that came down from the north, you know, there were some terrific battles, and these ones around pouch and were fairly peaceable and they used to come in and I never saw two hand but they never really lived here. There were there was evidence of their camping here around the beaches, you know, from the piles of em shell. But they didn't actually live here or have homes.

Unknown Speaker 11:23
I think possibly because

Unknown Speaker 11:28
they would have to build an iceberg. There's always a danger of Indian Red Raiders, you know. And then not only that, when the color people first came here, the teams of the Indians respected the white men, but they didn't respect the color people and if and coordinate unfortunately left his light going in his room and didn't put his blind down while they look take a shot.

Unknown Speaker 11:49
And a lot of murders occurred. If you read back the old issues as a columnist, in British colonists, it was called in those days in Victorian the archives or your inventory that the problem is you will find what

Unknown Speaker 12:02
20 years there were terrific lot of murders all over the island.

Unknown Speaker 12:08
So I mean, it wasn't really too safe to be right by the water's edge. And so and as you think of it, that was that was 1859 when they started it, and it was really

Unknown Speaker 12:18
well biting. Well, my father came here in 1884. He said they were white, they were 12 white families at that time.

Unknown Speaker 12:27
So it took quite a while for him to progress to that stage. That's at least

Unknown Speaker 12:32
must be,

Unknown Speaker 12:34
isn't it.

Unknown Speaker 12:38
And he made only just started schools,

Unknown Speaker 12:41
rather than to have his own further that had only just started this.

Unknown Speaker 12:48
I think the earliest records of the schools are about 1873 He was on the red side.

Unknown Speaker 12:58
But they were long school houses in the first you know, in the first instance, when I first started doing

Unknown Speaker 13:07
that my father came here with the second already beginning to grow up around the corner.

Unknown Speaker 13:16
I think that settlement must have started

Unknown Speaker 13:19
after that, because

Unknown Speaker 13:23
yes, I'm sure it did. Because when he first came, he was living down with the businesses and the Friday but his road and they hadn't been there very long before they saw a boat, right people go past and these are nice people were there, Stephens family, they camped over there, on the other side of Ganges harbour where the Fruitvale barn is now that the great band of the Scots band known as Fruitvale. And they camped over there and that had been that property had been owned by a Negro and I think the bulls lived there for a while I believe they did later, as well as dark and when abroad was got to, they got there. They got that place. And

Unknown Speaker 14:00
it must have been very soon after that that the student has decided to buy land up here from the negros this had originally been an ego patient. In fact, the Morgan was still I still remember the old log when they used to be here. This pouch here was probably build about possibly about 1890 All this white part of our house but there was a long long room that we're running along there, which my husband took down about 30 years ago and he had a kitchen and pantry and beyond. When that was taken out as a zebra three years ago. I do remember this long, long room very dark and had a fireplace in the end. And I remember not too long, too many years ago, five or six years ago a lady came up one day and she had come up from California and she wanted to see this log and I totally taken it down and we only had to run to the fireplace was still there because she had been photographed as a baby of six months old, sitting beside the fireplace with her mother you know and she wanted to see it again. I said well the only thing we have left is the facing of the fireplace. You know this taken

Unknown Speaker 15:00
However, we still had an outside I was able to show her that what she put up to get her visited Victoria. We didn't use it.

Unknown Speaker 15:08
Because this is a long time ago. And

Unknown Speaker 15:13
she wanted to see the old preschool she had been as a baby. I think she was born here probably.

Unknown Speaker 15:25
While he didn't married many years later, he gave up bird teaching in 1897. On by the way, he taught some of the family of Reverend Wilson, the three younger boys. And some of their family, of course, is still here, and the Wilson family. And then he decided to go worm farming, and he wanted to clear land. So he got a piece of land on his way down towards the state. And he had the help of a Japanese and they saw down the trees, made into piles, and Berto was wonderful, it was wonderful. They wanted to clear that I left whatever I'm doing in those days.

Unknown Speaker 16:02
And then he had been there for quite some time, he was about 50. And then in 1911, he decided to take a trip back to England to see his rest of his family, his sisters and brothers and, and

Unknown Speaker 16:15
it was when he went back to on that trip in 1911, that he met my mother. And I should say, really, it was in 1910, in the fall of 1910, when he went back, and then he was there for a few months and enlisting his sister, he met my mother at her house. And then she came out later here and married him in Victoria at the original Christchurch Cathedral, not the present moment, the one before that. And that was an April 4 1911. And then they were going to come up here to the island, on the Euro core. That was the name is a boat running at that time from Sydney to the islands.

Unknown Speaker 16:53
And instead of staying the two months that they had planned his day, they came up a little earlier, but a month earlier, and they just missed the trip when the book went down. They were paying to come by that time you see in May. And I think it went on about maybe eight or maybe the 11th

Unknown Speaker 17:08
round about that time in third might have been the end of April or not really to show but you could check it in 1911 and so they just missed that they got up here the week ahead.

Unknown Speaker 17:19
Then he had when he noticed that he had planted apple trees and are few pear trees but many apples he had 500 and in one orchard that's the one up on the road near the house and 300 trees down by the sea and an orchard down there.

Unknown Speaker 17:36
And he made a lot of cider with him and the apples were picked and sent off to Victoria

Unknown Speaker 17:41
is that what he says to produce was such what people did in those days about all they could do is to provide your produce for Victoria, and possibly Nanaimo. There was a lot of trade between the border that time ran between Victoria and came up on one side of this island one day went up to nine and came back down on the other side of the island so that people could ship their produce

Unknown Speaker 18:05
in on various days to various places I think that's probably all they did was a living

Unknown Speaker 18:13
I started with a mixed family mostly fruit and some people had chickens and

Unknown Speaker 18:20
I guess different things

Unknown Speaker 18:22
but

Unknown Speaker 18:30
it was much more so in those days and it is now

Unknown Speaker 18:33
and of course there weren't too many people living here as in and they couldn't use the food so it was shipped away. But then later on in my time I remember that that food was very low invite if you if you bought the wood to make the ammo boxes and the nails and put them together made them and pack the box with apples and send it away You were lucky if you've got 50 cents for it. In fact it cost you about that to make it really you know with me would you didn't make very much on it represent later years I would be in the 20s

Unknown Speaker 19:05
I don't think we've been to anything very much

Unknown Speaker 19:08
faster.

Unknown Speaker 19:12
Now I haven't heard of anything new. I went through a very bad highly altered inventory but I've never

Unknown Speaker 19:22
I wasn't mad at one time it was to Barrow who had a nursery at

Unknown Speaker 19:27
the place which was quite recently the until quite recently the Anglican vicarage that's on the on the right hand side of the Cemetery Hill as you go down

Unknown Speaker 19:43
any more incidents there father I can see it was a bachelor for quite

Unknown Speaker 19:47
a long time. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 19:54
I don't know that. I know young finishes to play a lot of pranks on him when he was out there. Batching

Unknown Speaker 20:00
You know, when he used to come down sometimes and get this cider that he'd made, and then they would replace on him and take the wagon and take it apart. And this is one paint that they play, they took the regular part, took the wheels off and put it up on top of his barn. And then they kind of down, took the wheels back up again and put them onto the wagon. So when he got up the next morning, the writing was complete up on the bar that they had taken apart to do it. They must have done an awful job getting it down. Oh, yes, they did a lot of that. I think the young fellas in those days did.

Unknown Speaker 20:32
And hymns to Bach were very great. Very great pals. Mr. Work was an old timer here that lived and he lived in this same house at the same time as as my father did. In fact, he occupied these two rooms across from the hall, he had one as a city and one as a bedroom and they had quite good times together and

Unknown Speaker 20:50
Mr. Bullock may ask. And then he eventually bought a piece of land of his own place. Over on the new is known as the old book estate. And it's been it's changed hands now. But there were two lakes there. And he used to have a good, nice driving path where he could ride his horses, you know, and so on. And he entertained a lot. He was a very wonderful character. I remember in, in my younger days when I was first married, how I was invited to many of his dinner parties. He used to have some cost dinners. We know everything soup and grapefruit and soup and, and fish. And they wouldn't just be a little skimpy piece. He'd have a great big piece of halibut for a huge platter for perhaps my husband and myself, you know, just two people. And then you'd have a huge Roast of 14 pound Roast of beef. And there are only been possibly three or four cuts out of it taken out of it. And as each course came out, he was taken out into the kitchen and he had several boys that worked for him you know that were he's worked around the place when we work in the house when we wait at the table and when did the cooking when drove his car and then there'll be the gardening and all the different things to do. And he got these boys in the pros and orphans home and Victoria and he trained them all. One of them became a very good cook. And so he eventually built the log cabin for him in Ganges and that was the beginning of the log cabin of herself Hogan. Well then these boys would have all their friends in and they'd sit around their kitchen table at Mr. Books, and they would consume each of these courses that came out from the dining table. And it was seven courses anyway and there'd be all kinds of dessert when he got around to the desserts that were three or four beautiful desserts, you know, these fancy jellies and trifles and different things and a lot of whipped cream and then he always insisted

Unknown Speaker 22:32
Sherry in your oxtail soup or whatever you were having. And he had various different things for the man to buy that box of chocolates for the ladies and coffee. And

Unknown Speaker 22:43
I said when he was a younger man, he told me he used to have two sittings. They haven't bought 25 guests and he'd have two sittings at the table. He'd sit down with each other and

Unknown Speaker 22:55
each of them does of course I can't do that now.

Unknown Speaker 22:59
This is a very wonderful

Unknown Speaker 23:01
result. Senate goes to Brittany and people very tiny and he used to be these boys are given this wonderful home and everything. They weren't even Bert Cosmo when they had their own musical instruments and their own orchestra. And they have an image they left their LLC when they grew up and wanting to start off on their own he would

Unknown Speaker 23:21
he would give them a piece of land in a house so helping to build a house is super awesome starting places of their own

Unknown Speaker 23:29
is really a generous,

Unknown Speaker 23:31
generous man.

Unknown Speaker 23:34
He moves Knight, W ri ght he came from England, like his father with the

Unknown Speaker 23:43
money to do well I suppose he must have had money in England or must have been lifting because he had plenty. And he really he really spent it he used to he supported the church very well and kept it going for many years I think when they were rather slag. What was he doing here? Well, he was what you might saw what they used to call in the old days a squire you know, he used to he drove around and enjoyed tea parties and a social life with the people and he knew he had money and he just he didn't work he just did

Unknown Speaker 24:16
just really enjoy life.

Unknown Speaker 24:19
But he had a large acreage there and putting all dozens and dozens of trees and I remember he had two or three dozen a one variety acquainting tree Muti had so many of one Kylan he had nut trees as well as apples and hidden in a very nice tennis court.

Unknown Speaker 24:34
He told me I could take my classes and

Unknown Speaker 24:39
we had the student at his place and join us the tennis court.

Unknown Speaker 24:45
Well, there's some

Unknown Speaker 24:47
backing behind us the back of our property

Unknown Speaker 24:50
will be on the

Unknown Speaker 24:52
east side of this. of

Unknown Speaker 24:55
this. So he said, and he in the back of this last little lake, originally belong to

Unknown Speaker 25:00
The Stephens property that we own, but he, he bought it from his team too. So he has the two lakes. The little one I know was seven acres by doing the dimensions the big one. And he built a large house there.

Unknown Speaker 25:11
And as I say, he used to entertain quite a lot

Unknown Speaker 25:16
was quite a well known character.

Unknown Speaker 25:22
Was this house here, all these people?

Unknown Speaker 25:26
This is Mrs. Stephens is boarding house. They came here and shortly after my friend and the Medicis arrived, and it was the we came first of all across to that what is now the Fruitvale property, and then not long after that they moved up here. I don't know just exactly what year it was. But they donated a little bit of this rocky bit of land for the church in 1889. So they must have been here before that. And I remember my father saying he used to walk up when he lived with him at first down on the other part, he used to walk up here to teach school all the way through this tunnel, this trail, and they laughed at the trails, they got oxygen teams and made a rough road through and eventually he would fix the horses. And he was quite a long stage of progression from one thing to another before they eventually got good ones like we have now that this place was the Stephens place was the boarding house and everyone stayed here because it was really the only place to say

Unknown Speaker 26:22
here's what I always do, says Harry Stevens. They had no children around but Mr. Stevens had

Unknown Speaker 26:30
a nephew of yours came out from England and Mrs. Stephens her

Unknown Speaker 26:37
she had a nice here or in any way she had a there was a new Ziva Jenkins a niece or just a friend.

Unknown Speaker 26:44
Just a friend she was she adopted her when he brought her up because she lost her mother. There was a family of Jenkins's and they lost their mother and so Mrs. Stevens brought one and then my aunt Mrs. Benz brought up the other girl, Myrtle Jenkins.

Unknown Speaker 26:59
Then there'd be a lot of bachelors. Oh, yes. It was just full of bachelors. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 27:05
I think that's where everyone came. He is I think it's how I father Mr. Robot. So apparently, there were a lot of men. In fact, all the all the earliest people that came here, I suppose were bachelors. There were four Scott brothers. And one of them was unfortunately drowned in the harbor.

Unknown Speaker 27:24
To him and the other friend of his gun with him.

Unknown Speaker 27:28
That they're early. I would say that during the game, more batches, at least in those early days.

Unknown Speaker 27:36
This Jeff Bullock just

Unknown Speaker 27:38
will he be the the main,

Unknown Speaker 27:42
most important.

Unknown Speaker 27:45
Might say he was the Legion farmer. Because

Unknown Speaker 27:50
some of the men had more miles and he definitely did. I think it made quite a difference. Although some of the men were fairly well off. Others were not. And some were quite green and had quite a time when they tried to do anything in the farming nine.

Unknown Speaker 28:03
He remained the bachelor always he made a bachelor all his life. And then eventually his he left his property to his nephew, who came out here and nephew married out here, lived here for a few years. But he's left you know, he went to live in Victoria. And I think he's in England at the moment.

Unknown Speaker 28:23
Anything more about?

Unknown Speaker 28:25
Well, he had one of the early cars on the island, the first car when he probably was telling you about it just to dare to go. In fact, I had heard about it before. But the first car was owned by Mr. Blackburn. And that was

Unknown Speaker 28:40
I suppose it was before 1912. And in any case, the horses that were here, we're not used to cars. And so they used to leave this car to backwards down at the manhole grounds, which is the property around the present school. And

Unknown Speaker 28:56
then people will come in with their horses and drive around and drive around the cars of the horses could get used to the look of the car. And then in the 1912 when they were having their annual agricultural show. They wrote Mr. Bullock a letter and asked him if he would kindly leave his car home that day on the day of the fair, because it would frighten the horses too much. So he did this he comply with their wish but he had the letter frame because he thought there was pretty good.

Unknown Speaker 29:24
Anything further about him in the anecdotes? Wow, I knew him very well because he used to come and see me quite a lot as a friend of my father's you know.

Unknown Speaker 29:35
Miss him in a very nice order. He had a lot of

Unknown Speaker 29:39
different views to what we might have had but he was kind and

Unknown Speaker 29:44
I thought he had a lot to do with the brains of harbor house. I think he must have helped them out to you know, financial aid to get started as a hotel.

Unknown Speaker 29:53
What

Unknown Speaker 29:55
other people Oh, well, he Well, I don't know whether you really would like to have these other things published but he did.

Unknown Speaker 30:00
have quite a an idea about how ladies should look. I don't know whether I should tell you should I? Oh, well he I think he still lived in the older days because he he dressed in the older style of rock coach in a long black coat and a top hat black belt. And he still wore this type of costume right until the time he died he unused drive on his in his car previous to that

Unknown Speaker 30:27
he espoused ladies desperate concern, he liked to see the very, very thin way that he ate into space that he used to like,

Unknown Speaker 30:35
if you're going across you don't see those things today. Anyway, he liked that and high heeled gloves and veils and earrings. And you know really dressed nicely going into his taste.

Unknown Speaker 30:51
Oh, yes, he wasn't telling the ladies how they should be affected often, you don't often like to visit the defense, he could talk about how very generous to the latest

Unknown Speaker 31:03
earring.

Unknown Speaker 31:06
We were talking about terms to Bullock A little while back. And

Unknown Speaker 31:12
there were a couple of things that came to my mind about him. I remember you asked about the furniture. And it seems to me that when I don't know anything about how valuable his furniture was, but when it came to cozying up his his day to day gown mold was looking after that. And I remember he said they found $5 bills and some of the chairs. And through the some of the winter into the books, they found them in different places and pages in books and so on, you know, I mean, they weren't covering them in various places, which is rather strange. And

Unknown Speaker 31:42
there was one incident I remember when he had these boys cooking for him. And towards the end when his as Mr. Prime Minister, they weren't, he wasn't quite as strict as he was at the beginning. And he had all these boys in with their friends and for the meals afterwards after he was having a dinner party. And there was this one occasion when my husband happened to be there as Fisty Mr. Bullet one day about something and and the two boys apparently was having a dinner party in a few minutes. And so he went into the kitchen and he said to the young fellow who was supposed to be cooking the dinner, he said, Well,

Unknown Speaker 32:14
he saw the rules sitting out in the on the table, he said but not in the oven yet. He said why the guests will be in here. We will be in in 20 minutes. And who was this big roast? So I guess it was pretty raw and it was ready to serve?

Unknown Speaker 32:33
Yes, yes. Yes, he was. He was quite a character. And yes, he was quite a character.

Unknown Speaker 32:41
Now that and to think about we were talking about Reverend Wilson also, I remember one lady telling me how wonderful his daughter's looked at church. They used to sit in the choir stalls. And they all had such beautiful dresses. Of course, in those days they did were wonderful, long dresses. And this girl was greatly impressed by the way they looked. And he had some very beautiful daughters. I remember my father had some nice pictures of them too. And they used to wear roses, you know? And they look very nice indeed.

Unknown Speaker 33:10
And then

Unknown Speaker 33:16
there were various things that happened on the island over the years of businesses and other come on gone, where we have the trading company today and which I think started about 1913. And we've mentioned mortar store and

Unknown Speaker 33:30
mortar stores the oldest Yes, it was about I think about 19

Unknown Speaker 33:36
Seven, I think when they took over from Purvis Nikon Purvis, the first I imagined and what I think Mr. Broadwell had the store up here at Central first, as far as I know.

Unknown Speaker 33:49
And

Unknown Speaker 33:51
now to get on to this, about the other businesses of the world now and at the time there was a jam factory for a while. I don't know very much about it. I remember Mr. Seymour who used to run it and it was situated down in Ganges just across from the school that we had and

Unknown Speaker 34:08
there were the Mr. Seymour ran it and he used to I remember his making strawberry jam I can't remember much about anything else but I know he made that but I don't think it lasted too long. And now it's become

Unknown Speaker 34:22
an apartment building owned by Mr. Bowden.

Unknown Speaker 34:25
And then during the in the early 20s are also required number of tiles on the wall I think they were dotted all over the island different pastel forefoot and the divide and the North End and around the lake here. I think there must have been about 11 of them all together at one time. Singer Mills, I think they were called they used to cut ties and and they gave quite a bit of employment to the young men around here.

Unknown Speaker 34:47
But they are also ruined in existence for a few years and then they

Unknown Speaker 34:53
came to an end

Unknown Speaker 35:01
Oh yes, yes. When I was going to school in my early days up at the divide, there was a Mr. Blackburn who lived just across from the lorry down from the school his house was another way down he had a lake across from the school and a lot of fields and the cows, his to his cows to grouse used to graze all around the fields. And

Unknown Speaker 35:23
we were at school one day when he came up to the school and said that we had been making far too much noise and his cows weren't able to graze properly, so they weren't getting enough milk. So we got a reprimand from him about that. But he was the first man to have the car on the ground definitely about that or not. No. And he

Unknown Speaker 35:43
used to leave his car down in the manhole grounds. That's where the present school was situated. And people would come with their with their horses and buggies and they drive the horses around the car, just so the horse can get a good look at it and get used to it. And evidently caused quite a bit of trouble on the roads if they if the horses met the car on the road at all.

Unknown Speaker 36:06
Also at this summit Hall grounds, originally, the main hall was given by a number of people to put up by a number of people in memory of Mr. Manoj, I believe, and it was to be a community hall for the district. And alongside that on our list, not very far from it. It was another building that they erected for agricultural shows. And they used to have the main show of fruit and vegetables in the main hall itself. And in a smaller building, they had

Unknown Speaker 36:35
a show of chickens and rabbits and poultry mainly. And then eventually, the what had been a chicken building was converted into the high school. In fact, F was the high school that I attended when I went

Unknown Speaker 36:50
firstly to the all the schools were we had eight or nine schools on the island and eight of them were done away with me from the consolidated school, which was opened in April, the first 1940 and civic school today. And now of course his talk today of building in fact, they've started on the direction of this new building.

Unknown Speaker 37:08
Wallace

Unknown Speaker 37:10
Mr. Wallace, or Mrs. Wallace? Mrs. Wallace is a daughter of

Unknown Speaker 37:18
Mrs. Dark.

Unknown Speaker 37:20
One of the early Negroes who lived here. Oh, yes, there wasn't there wasn't

Unknown Speaker 37:28
anything further about this house in the origin.

Unknown Speaker 37:33
As well, I don't really know too much about it. I think I've told him mostly, it was originally from love building and then the Stevens's had it enlarged so they could take care of these guests that were coming to stay here all the time throughout the years. And my cousin Charlie, but his who was the son of Mr. Bass, who built this in the church here. He was the one he and his brother Henry, who helped to build this addition which you see now. And this was built, I should imagine around 1892, or something of that size, two or three. And I imagined it must have been built by 1892 Because I missed a rock and my father both stayed here. So that I suppose it was built in.

Unknown Speaker 38:15
The time that they were building it to the barest is of course lived away down at the far end of what has now been his road and they had to come up by boat to Ganges there was nothing really at Ganges itself. So they came up by boat. And then they walked all the way up over the trail from their road as it turned out there sort of an ox, suitable for OXImeters eventually for horses, and walked up here to Central. And

Unknown Speaker 38:39
when my youngest cousin was born, Jeffrey Barris, he was the youngest one of the biggest family. And he was born just a month after his father died. And so Mrs. Barris and the oldest son Charlie carried him up all the way from Ganges, and they walked up here and carried him up here. And then when they got here, they stayed for two or three weeks at a time, while they were working on the addition of this part of the house. And

Unknown Speaker 39:02
so I think that probably took most of that summer. But they used to stay for three weeks at a time. The medicines when performing well, they had a farm down there and Mr. Baris was able to do quite a lot of different things. He's actually been a printer in in England.

Unknown Speaker 39:20
And then he eloped with

Unknown Speaker 39:23
my aunt who was in my father's sister, and she was a soloist at the gosta cathedral. And they came out to

Unknown Speaker 39:31
New York, you know, took the boat out to New York and then from there, they went to Nebraska and they stayed there for about 12 or 13 years, I think. And so most of the family the boys were born down there and Nebraska.

Unknown Speaker 39:45
He or she was she had a very good voice, but the role not only for the end of the bass boys were musical except that the one boy, Lionel, who still lives it at Duncan here played the violin. Well, my mother played the violin to both my sides of

Unknown Speaker 40:00
both sides of my family were musical.

Unknown Speaker 40:04
I can't think of any really any interesting stories to tell you because it was all having to draw on time before my time. And they didn't tell me too much about it. Really? What about your impression of the society as you were growing up here? Was it the particularly English or that the people seem to be a mixture or with a different song? Oh, well, I would say they were mainly English at the beginning because as there were, there was no school taught Ganges. There were several later they became a several boys schools, and they were Englishmen who were taught them and there was also I can remember, as a young girl, there was a, an English girl who taught she had a girl school. And she gave us dancing lessons. I can remember going there to that. So I would say there was definitely an English atmosphere here. And part of the all the early settlers here were English.

Unknown Speaker 40:54
negros Yes, of course, they were. There were various nationalities. According to Mr. Wilson's pamphlet, there were about 200 people here by 1895. But then, of course, that was kind of it later. And then they were all types. Because at that time, what brought so many people in, I think, was the fact that there was a stone quarry, operating just round the situation. Oh, there and I think that's why a lot of people were a lot of people had come to work. In fact, I think

Unknown Speaker 41:22
one of the was

Unknown Speaker 41:26
one of the call Wells was working there at the stone quarry. That's how he met this young Broadwell girl worked in the store here that I met her America, isn't that I believe? How

Unknown Speaker 41:36
are they met? I think so. Yes. Tell me about the negros was there any discrimination in any way at all their racial feeling? Imagine that there was in the early days, do much really, because I think they some of them were quite well educated, they were quite well lightened. And I think it was mainly the Indians who didn't have any respect for them.

Unknown Speaker 42:00
And that they used to take as I say, earlier, that is quite a lot earlier, right from the time they first came that they used to take shots at the mountain. But I don't don't think they had very much trouble. Later on. You remember

Unknown Speaker 42:13
the feeling of your friends or people above?

Unknown Speaker 42:17
Well, of course, where I lived, then I didn't live up in this area. At that time, I was living down on Baris road. And we never came in contact with my very rarely, because they were all up at this part of the island, USA. And the only time that I remember was we used to have a Mr. Harry Woods come to plow for us. He was not an ego himself. He was a Cockney from London, but he had, he had married one of the Negroes. And he had quite large family and some of his descendants as the ones who are still living here now. But

Unknown Speaker 42:48
no, I wouldn't think that there was any

Unknown Speaker 42:52
ill feeling towards them at all. No, I think they were quite nicely treated and respected. They dedicate themselves. I think they did pretty well. Of course, they went to the schools with the other children. There's no five to remember, there's no,

Unknown Speaker 43:06
no, I don't think so. No, of course, he was quite a virgin country in the early days, you know, and everybody had to get along with everybody else.

Unknown Speaker 43:17
Mr. Rollins is the couch and Indians here were not warlike, really, I think they used to come up to hand and they used to come in here. So I've been told they came in here for protection, mainly because they were these terrific battles from the other

Unknown Speaker 43:31
veiling Indian, Indian tribes, you know, from the likely from Fort Simpson, they used to come down into the high desert and the Bella bellows, I mean, there were various other types that came down here that used to cause trouble.

Unknown Speaker 43:44
The local ones, I think, got on quite well with the locality. Or in the early days, they used to, they used to take vegetable produce, and so on, they like to do that because they consider that this land was their lands, what grew out of even if we even if the white people good, it was still their land, and so they didn't mind helping themselves to what was there, you know, in the way of vegetable crops because I remember my cousin DC saying that they, they came round one day to her place. This is down in the Buddhist property. And she was a little girl about 12 or 13. And this Indian chief came, he stole some of the carrots out of her mother's ground. So she went up and go and kicked him in her shins, in her shins, you know? And he, he just laughed at her. He thought it was quite a joke.

Unknown Speaker 44:25
And then another time, she said, when she was even very much younger. And they were sitting at the dining room table in their house down there. And their father said to them, Don't anybody move, just stay right where you are. Don't get up and he got up from the table. They were obedient children. So they all stayed where they were. And he went outside the door. And after a while he came back. So they all wanted to know what had happened. And he said, Well, he said as I was sitting at the table, I saw a whole band of stark naked Indians go past the window. And I went out and told him that it wasn't right for them to come around to that condition and in civilized settlements like that.

Unknown Speaker 45:00
So

Unknown Speaker 45:02
when will this be, that would be where he died in 1893. So that would be before then possibly at 92. Or even earlier, sometime between 1885 and 1892. I couldn't say just when.

Unknown Speaker 45:22
Oops, I forgot about those years reven Wilson was known really for his paintings, he had some very nice ones that he had done when he was back in an Indian settlement back in Ontario, I can't remember just the name of the place, but he was in charge of some Indians there.

Unknown Speaker 45:39
I don't know whether it was a mission or whether it was just an Indian reservation. But he was there before he came out here to this island. And he came here in 1994. But he also while he was here, he was a very prolific man within the way that he did such a lot of writing, he wrote all these papers about the early history of the IRA and kept things up with what were going on, you know, at the time, and those are really the only written records that we have today. So we own an awful lot to him. And it seems that only the Collins brothers and the Mort family are the only families on the island who kept all his papers. They were the church papers. And he used to put in this page every month of what things had happened. And besides writing that he used to keep it or we will keep quite a lot of little booklets and diaries that he wrote in with his diaries. He not only wrote what happened, he also used to illustrate them. And I saw one very interesting little book that he did once he was taking his family. That would be his wife, I think and, and Mrs. Fred Crafton and her three eldest children Dermot and Desmond and die on a trip down to Santa Monica in California, I forget to say why they were going there. But But anyway, he took them on this trip and all the way on the trip. Every day, he wrote something that had happened during the day. And then on the next page, or the page opposite he drew a picture and pages of what had happened. And these pictures were most intriguing. There was one I remember where they were all going on board the ship and he had the steamer at the dark, you know and they were walking on the dock all training all these children to the dark and then they got on board. And then there was one incident where I remember distinctly where the the the stewardess came in and brought him something to eat on a tray and I remember her coming in the door. And they had had trouble that day had been rather rough and the sea had been coming in quite bad and as she came in a gush of this water came in behind her and she came in and this was all recorded and these pictures are never the most interesting pictures.

Unknown Speaker 47:37
I'm not quite sure if Mrs. Graham show that his daughter die or his granddaughter die hasn't but she she was the one who showed me this book what was most interesting. So he drew a lot of pictures and painted things that happened right around here on the island

Unknown Speaker 47:53
is he was an interesting man.