Salt Spring Island Archives

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Audio

Margaret Cunningham

Accession Number Interviewer Imbert Orchard
Date Location
Media mp3
ID 5

5_Cunningham-Margaret.mp3

otter.ai

20.01.2023

no

Unknown Speaker 0:01
Tell me about your fabric. Were you born here?

Unknown Speaker 0:03
Yes, I was born here and married here and I have five children. But do you want to know about my sister tell

Unknown Speaker 0:09
me about your father came

Unknown Speaker 0:11
in? Oh yes. 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 a 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 now, Ireland, he already had taken a piece of property at the south end of the beaver pond where his family still live. So they started off in a boat, but they unfortunately we had drift and got to San Juan. And it was just after they'd been all this trouble the dispute. So they were ordered off sign law. And just after they've settled on the island, and we're trying to make some coffee, they were ordered off the island. So then they set off again, and this time they reached just a place past beaver point. place with a lovely white Shell Beach. And when my auntie Emily saw this speech, she said, Well, this is going to be our home. And it was a palm tree grown 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. And 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 became the boarding house of the of the district. And he was here for from he taught school here from 1885 to 8097. And lived here in this boring house at the time.

Unknown Speaker 1:46
What was your father's name?

Unknown Speaker 1:47
His name was raffles. Pretty raffles Augustus Robert furnish your full name is father's people were stone carvers in England, and some of them were musicians.

Unknown Speaker 2:00
What was your uncle?

Unknown Speaker 2:02
And Ernie was Samuel and Emily potty and laminates and upon me Samuel and Emily Bettis and she was Emily Patti a Sister of My Father's so the business world is named after BWI. Yes, that's right.

Unknown Speaker 2:23
Well what is there any things that happened in the incidents with regard to the any of those people before you came on the scene so to speak in those early days?

Unknown Speaker 2:34
Oh yes, my father taught school here for as I say from 1885 to 8097. And it was very different in those days there was nothing at all again just and the boat call it was serious. And in various other parts of the online phone world and at Fulford harbour and beaver point, of course, the the transportation changed a little bit throughout the years, but that's the way it was there was nothing at all again, does it first. And so everything there was a stalwart Vesuvius and things were left there and then brought up to this settlement here at Central most of this area had been occupied by the Nico's prior to that particular time. centralism is this this area here at the Crossroads is known as Central. They they seem to be dropping the name I notice now in the telephone book that they no longer show these and the district is central. Well, they call us they say this is the North End Road or St. Mary's lake, but they don't they drop that world again. But it was quite a segment because we're originally the Negroes who are on here, namely the first to come to the island as you know, they arrived here and in 1859 and August, they were sent here by Governor Douglas, who send a boat over to to colonize the island. And of course, then White people started coming in but they settled at forward Harbor. And it wasn't till a few quite a few years later that they weren't people settled up here. The first fight settlement was yesterday before the array, the earliest white man that still has family here would have been 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. And so his descendants are still there to Fulford harbour then the severe is the depth to get going early on well no it was actually really nothing adverse he was there was a store and Mr. Bitten cause and he had two or three little houses down close to the store and the roof that went out from into the sea you know, right near the near the what is now the Vesuvius lodge that was originally you see Mr. Bitten chorus door. And but all the houses new things, you see that a day are all new. I mean, they've all come in the last few years. Actually, at that time there was nothing there. This was really the only settlement and at Fernwood were earlier than the time that my father came there was what was known as big settlement out of Fernwood.

Unknown Speaker 5:16
Any thing any incidents in the early days for father's? He was teaching school.

Unknown Speaker 5:22
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's telling me, which is when he scared the children at school. He was rather a tall man with blue eyes, and he had a beard, which was typical of the day, of course, and he kept very good discipline. According to some of the pupils. They all thought he was a wonderful teacher, too. But one thing I'd rather surprise the children was that one of the boys one day got a bleeding nose, and he sent one of the other boys to go to the woodshed and get their x and comes on various petrol. But he put those coal eggs on the back of his neck, and he recovered quite quickly. But I guess that startled the rest of the children. And then there was another time when of course, there are no doctors here then. And so he had to take the give any medical aid that he could do anyone and one day up here at the church, he is he this place is right alongside St. Mark's Church was built in 1889. And my uncle Mr. Beatty, has built it in his eldest son Charlie helped him and there were bees of different people who came around who helped him at the same time. And so the church was built about that time and and dedicated about 1893. And when Mr. Hill reveler has won was staying here, he stayed in the room upstairs on that particular side on the right hand side in the front of the house. He boarded there, and my father had the room overhead up here. So this is quite an old place, you see. And 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 go through a lot of rocks exposed, and somehow he fell over the rocks and broke his leg. So he called out to help out for help, rather, and Mrs. Stevens who was the boring housekeeper here heard him crying out for help. So she went up there and, and then she went on down to the school, which was at Central and got my father Mr. Peroni to come back. And he said, his lake for him. And during the time that he had to leave a school like that, he left home more who was the oldest boy in the school, he left him in charge of the rest of the pupils. But he never doesn't know things that they had to do, because there were no doctors here. And so that if anything really serious happened, you had to come over on a boat to the other side to Vancouver Island.

Unknown Speaker 7:44
Where did where did he teach was, oh, it

Unknown Speaker 7:46
was on this little school Central. And there were originally two schools that was a log building. And then 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 the original building was a log school. And I think Mr. Jones had been the first teacher there, he was a colored man. So that, that would have probably been sometime about 20 years after the Negroes settled here, and possibly about 1880. And then it is a matter of there for the 12 years. A lot of older people early to old timers, you might say went to school with him. Now when I'm in Gilbert mode, when the Ford store, they were pupils of his in the three Collins brothers out along sunset door just off sunset drive, and the Norton family and various and the bigger family, the old families at the time. And the Harrisons. They own this property around the lake just across the road from us.

Unknown Speaker 8:51
Tell me about the moments. Were they here before your thought again?

Unknown Speaker 8:55
Will they came I afterwards? I believe they came the next year. But did they come to do? Well, Mrs. MOUT. Mr. Mod, I think died soon after they came here, didn't you? Yes, yes, I think he 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, they had a farm there. And then Walmart 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 store business that was Gilbert mod. And he unfortunately got stricken with polio. And so they wanted really to come back and help him out so that they do brothers, then handle a store. There was a story at Central and post office, and this and the whole and of course, these things all came along later. This is after 1900 and courthouse or jail. I mean, there was definitely a settlement there. And nothing really to this was Throughout the crossroads, everything was gone. In fact, I could show you some pictures of it if you'd like to see them.

Unknown Speaker 10:04
This was really the first community

Unknown Speaker 10:07
and at the north end of the island. It was for fun. When you see that, when you consider that was when he talked about the first community that was 1859 when the Negroes came here, and about, just about the soon after that, or by night 1860 The white settlers were in Fulton. And then after a long, long road, he cut a trail of through from Fulford to, right through here to central among people used to travel by oxen.

Unknown Speaker 10:45
Settlement should be so far from the water,

Unknown Speaker 10:47
though, 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 their arrowheads and so on over the years, and others to come around by the way to get away for protection from the other invading Indians that came down from the north. You know what I mean, there were some terrific battles. And these ones around pouching were fairly peaceable and they used to come in and, and also to hand but they never really lived here. There were there was evidence of their camping here, around the beaches, of you know, from the piles of clamshell. But they didn't actually live here or have homes.

Unknown Speaker 11:22
I was thinking more of the fact.

Unknown Speaker 11:24
And I think personally because rather, would have to build an iceberg. There was always a danger of Indian Red Raiders, you know, and then not only that, when the color people first came here, they, it seems that the Indians respected the white men but they didn't do respect to color people. And if and color man unfortunately left his light going in his room and didn't put his blind down while they would take a shot. If he was seated in the winds. I mean, a lot of murders occurred. If you read back the old issues as a columnist, and the British colonists, it was called in those days in Victoria in the archives, or, you know, in Victoria there at the pilot release, you will find that for about 20 years, there were terrific lot of murders all over the island. So I mean, it wasn't really too safe to be right by the waters it until and as you think of it, that was that was 1859 when they started it, and it was really well by 18. Well, my father came here in 1884. He said they were white, they were 12 white families on the island at that time. So it took quite a while for them to progress to that stage. That's at least possibly about 2425 years, isn't it? Yes, this was interesting. I mean, they had only just started schools. I suppose it took a while for them to have the children to grow up and so on for that for that. I mean, they had only just started schooling. I think the earliest records are the schools are about 1873, or something of that sort. But they were long school houses in the first you know, in the first instance, when it first started in

Unknown Speaker 13:05
this settlement, when your father came here was the settlement already beginning to grow up around the corners. There was tears coming sponsible for helping

Unknown Speaker 13:17
that settlement must have started after that, because yes, I'm sure it did. Because when he first came, he was living down with the basis of the phone a bit his road. And they hadn't been there very long before they saw our boats, right people go past and this and these people were there Stevens ferry they camped over there at on the other side of Ganges Harbor, where the Fruitvale barn is now that the great boundary of the Scots Pine notice Fruitvale and they camped over there and that had been that property had been owned by a Negro and I think the borewells lived there for a while I believe they did later. Yes, well, it's dark and no bird was got to they got there. They got that place. And it must have been very soon after that, that the Stevens has decided to buy land up here from the negros this had originally been an eagle place you see. In fact, they all log when was still I was still remember the old legroom that used to be here. This part here was probably built 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 it had a kitchen and pantry and beyond when that was taken out of the zebra 30 years ago, but I do remember this long, long room very dark and had a fireplace in the end. And I remember not too long ago many years ago, about 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 no matter where we taken it down. And we only had she wondered if 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, that was taken out. And we still had it outside. And I was able to show her that, but she had come up to get her birth certificate from Victoria. They didn't issue them in the same way that they do today. Of course, it's a long time ago. And so she'd come up to get that and she wanted to see the old place where she had been as a baby. I think she was born here. Probably

Unknown Speaker 15:20
no any other incidents with your father settling here?

Unknown Speaker 15:27
Well, he didn't marry too many years later, he gave up for 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 off, but Israel down towards the seed. And he had the help of a Japanese and they saw down the trees, made them into piles and burned all this wonderful, all these wonderful trees, it seems to cover the wider clear that I loved what everyone did in those days. 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 first of his family, sisters and brothers and, and 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 in visiting 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 one, but the one before that. And that was an April, the fourth night in 11. And then they were going to come up here to the island on the Euro crow. That was the name of the boat is running at that time from Sydney to the islands. And instead of staying the two months that they had planned his day, they came up a little earlier or a month earlier. And they just missed the trip when the book went down. They were planning to come up by that time you see in May. And I think it went down about May the eighth of May the 11th. Round about that time in God 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. Then he had when he cleared this land he had planted apple trees and or 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. Then he made a lot of cider with him and the apples were picked and sent off to Victoria.

Unknown Speaker 17:43
What he says to produce

Unknown Speaker 17:47
Yes, that's what people did in those days about all they could do was to provide to produce food 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 Wellington Lima came back and down on the other side of the island so that people could ship their produce in on various days to various places I think that's probably all that they did as a living

Unknown Speaker 18:13
the main forms of quality

Unknown Speaker 18:15
I spoke with a mixed family mostly fruit and some people had chickens and pigs and I guess sheep different things you know, butter I think they made quite a lot on send off this was quite a fruit. It was much more so in those days than it is now. 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 fruit was very low in fact if you if you bought the wood to make the other boxes and the nails and put them together and made them and pack the box with apples and send it away You were lucky if you got 50 cents for it. In fact it cost you about that to make it really you know with the word you didn't make very much on it. That was a major yes I would be in the 20s

Unknown Speaker 19:03
Any problems and fruit growing here?

Unknown Speaker 19:07
I don't think we find anything very much really I never heard of anything very drastic

Unknown Speaker 19:12
doesn't seem to suffer from seizures.

Unknown Speaker 19:14
No I haven't heard of anything really very much like I once saw a very bad Holly altered in Victoria but I've never seen anything like that. Here anything struggling struggling with anything that's not there was a man at one time it was to Barrow who had a nursery at the police 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 19:45
any more incidents there father I can see it was a bad show for

Unknown Speaker 19:49
a long time. Yes. More about

Unknown Speaker 19:51
his life in those early days.

Unknown Speaker 19:56
I don't know that I well. I know the young fellas used to pay a lot of pranks on him. When he was out there batching you know, and he, they used to come down sometimes and get this cider that he'd made and then they will play pranks on him and take the wagon and take it apart. And so this is one prank that they played, they took the wagon apart, 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 on to the wagon, so that when he got up the next morning, the right one was complete up on the barn, but they had been empowered to do it. On overtime, getting it down. Oh, yes, they did a lot of that. I think the unfrozen those days did. And hymns to book were very great. Very great pals. Mr. Ward was an old timer here that he lived in, he lived in this same house at the same time, as my father did. In fact, he occupy 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 Mr. Bullock may ask. And then he eventually bought a piece of land of his own the 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 he'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 we're 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'd be the garden 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 as they came out from the dining table. And there were seven courses anyway and there'd be all kinds of desert when he got around to the desert. There were three or four beautiful desert you know, these fancy jellies and trifles and different things and a lot of whipped cream and and then he always insisted that you put a spoonful of sherry in your oxtail soup or whatever you were having. And, and he had various different things for the man to drink in a box of chocolates for the ladies and coffee and the driver here really entertained. And he said when he was a younger man, he told me he used to have two sittings, I haven't bought 25 guests, and he'd have two sittings at the table, he'd sit down with each other and go through dinner with each of them because of course, I can't do that. Now when he was old. Enough, he was a very wonderful old chap, who was like Santa Claus to a great many people very kind. And he used to bring these boys out of the same gave this wonderful home and everything they want. He even bought cars for them. And they had their own musical instruments and their own orchestra and, and they were very happy. And then when they left, they're also wanted to if they grew up and wanted to start off on their own, he would he wouldn't give them a piece of land and a house or helping to build a house or something he got through for them started in places of their own. So he was really a generous, generous man.

Unknown Speaker 23:35
His full name,

Unknown Speaker 23:36
Henry right. Philip WRI GSD. Where did he come? He came from England. I think his father was a Croton.

Unknown Speaker 23:44
How did he manage to have all this money to do all that?

Unknown Speaker 23:47
Well, I suppose he must have had money in England or it must have been left him because he had plenty. And he really, you know, I mean, 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 slack. 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 had as he had money and he just he didn't work he just did and and just really enjoy life. But he had a large acreage there and put in all dozens and dozens of trees. I mean, I remember he had two or three dozen or one variety, but quite intrigued me that he had so many of one Kylan he had not trees as well as apples and he had an A very nice tennis court. And in fact, he told me I could take my class of Sunday school children down there for a picnic once and we had this picnic at his place and the tool news the tennis court.

Unknown Speaker 24:45
Where did he do?

Unknown Speaker 24:48
Well, that is back in behind us the back of our property. Let's see now that would be on the south east side of this of our base. Yes, as he said and he The back of this last little lake originally belonged to the Stephens property that we're on. But he, he bought it from the steam too. So he has the two lakes, the little one I know was seven acres by deulofeu dimension to the big one. And he bought a large house there. And as I say he used to entertain quite a lot. He's quite a well known character.

Unknown Speaker 25:25
What was this house here that all these people were living in?

Unknown Speaker 25:29
This was Mickey Stephens, his boarding house. They came here and shortly after my father and the Medicis arrived, and as they came, first of all, of course, does it what was 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 business rock a bit of land for the church in 1889. So there 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 property used to walk up here to teach school all that way through this tunnel on his trail. And they were after the trails, they got oxen, teams and made a rough road through and eventually it would fit for horses. And it was quite a long stage of progression from one thing to another before they eventually got good roads like we have now. But this place was the Stephens place was the boarding house and everyone stayed here because there was really no other place to stay was run by all Mr. Mrs. Harry Stevens. They had no children of their own, but Mr. Stevens had a nephew of his came out from England and Mrs. Stephen Taylor. And she had a nice here or an anyway, she had a there was a news event taking her niece or just a friend. Just a friend so she adopted her really brought her up because she lost her mother. There was a family of Jane consider that and they lost their mother and so Mrs. Demons brought up one and then my aunt Mrs. Bennett brought up the other girl, Myrtle Jenkins.

Unknown Speaker 27:02
Then there'd be a lot of bachelors.

Unknown Speaker 27:04
Oh, yes. It was just full of bachelors. Yes. I think that's fair. Everyone came here because I think it's how I father Mr. Robot. So apparently, there were a lot of men and federally, all the earliest people that came here as opposed were bachelors. There were four Scott brothers. And one of them was unfortunately drowned in the harbor, and they have a memorial window up in the church here to him and the and the other front of his ground with him. But I would say the majority of the people that came were bachelors, at least in those early days.

Unknown Speaker 27:39
This Jeff Bullock just remembered, would he be the the main, sort of the most important gentleman farmer of those days? I

Unknown Speaker 27:48
mean, you might say he was the the gentleman farmer of the day because some of the men had more money than others. And he definitely did. And I think that made quite a difference. You know, although some of the men were fairly well off. Others were not and some were quite green and had quite a time with they tried to do anything in the farming nine. He remained a 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 28:26
Anything more about Bullock?

Unknown Speaker 28:29
Well, he had one of the early cars on the island, the first car when he probably was telling me about it just a day or two ago. In fact, I had heard about it before. But the first car was owned by Mr. Blackburn. And that was, oh, I suppose it be before 1912. And in any case, the horses that were here, we're not used to cars. And so they used to leave his car Mr. backwards down at the manhole grounds, which is the property around the present score. And the people will come in with our horses and drive around it and drive around the castle that 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 at home that day on the day of the fair, because it would frighten the horses too much. So he did this he complied with their wish but he had the letter frame because he thought there was pretty good.

Unknown Speaker 29:28
Everything about him and the anecdotes

Unknown Speaker 29:31
knew him very well because he used to come and see me quite a lot as a friend of my father's you know. As a very nice old gentleman. He had a lot of perhaps different views to what we might have had but he was kind and I think he had quite a lot to do with the beginnings of harbor house. I think he must have helped them out to you know, financially to get to that place started as a hotel.

Unknown Speaker 29:56
What were his different views and other people

Unknown Speaker 29:59
Oh, Well, he Well, I don't know whether he really would like to have these things published. But he did have an idea about how ladies should look. I don't know whether I should tell you or should I? Oh, well, he, I think he still lived in the older days because he he dressed in the older style of frock coat, you know, long black fur coat and a top hat and blacks out. And he still wore this type of costume right until the time he died. He I mean, he used to drive around in his in his car previous to that his boys was driving around with a horse and buggy that he is as far as ladies dress was concerned, he liked to see them with very, very thin waist 28 inches or 18 inch waist that he used to like, particularly if you're going across you don't see those things. Anyway, he liked that and high heels and gloves and veils and earrings. And, you know, really dressed nicely got into his taste. When he talked to you about this? Oh, yes, he wasn't shy and telling ladies how they should look liberally. In fact, he'd often he'd often like to visit you just so that he could talk about how a person to look. And he was very generous to the ladies used to give them earrings if we were talking about Mr. Bullock A little while back. And 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 closing up his estate, and again, more was looking after that. And I remember he said they found $5 bills and some of the chairs and through the some of them when they went to 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 was rather strange. And one incident I remember when he had these boys cooking for him towards the end witness 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 in for the meals afterwards after he was having a dinner party. And there was this one occasion when my husband happened to be there was 15 Mr. Bullet one day about something and and the world apparently was having a dinner party and 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, he saw the roasts sitting out in the out of the table. He's important not in the oven yet. He said while the guests were being 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 32:37
Yes, yes. Yes, he was. He was quite a character. And yes, he was quite a character. Now that and to think about we were talking about Reverend Wilson also, I remember one lady telling me how wonderful his daughters 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 well wonderful long dresses. And this girl was greatly impressed by the way they looked. I 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. And then oh, there were various things that happened on the island over the years of businesses and other come on gone. I mean, we have the trading company today and which I think started about 1913. And we've mentioned mortar store and what started the older more stores the oldest yet it was about I think about 19 Seven, I think when they took over from Purvis, Nikon Purvis. It was the first I imagined what I think Mr. barbel had the store up here at Central first as far as I know. And now to get on to this, about the other businesses that were on there 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 there were the Mr. Seymour rabbit 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 an apartment building owned by Mr. Bowden. And then during the in the early 20s They were also required number of tiles on the I think they were dotted all over the aisle in different parts down 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. Singing meals 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. But they are also ruining existence for a few years and then they came Do an end

Unknown Speaker 35:07
up the car on the girls? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 35:09
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 lower down from the school. His house was another way down. He had a lake, across a school and a lot of fields and the car was used to his cars to grouse used to graze all around the fields. And 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 cars 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 dirty about that or not. No. And he used to leave his car down in the manhole grounds. That's where the present school is situated. And people would come with their with their horses and buggies and they drive the horses around the car, just as a horse could get a good look at it and get used to it. And it evidently costs quite a bit of trouble on the roads if they if the horses met the car on the road at all. Also at this summit Hall grounds originally the mount Hall was given by a number of people to were 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 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 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, that was the high school that I attended when I went of course later 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 to 1940 and civic school today. Now of course, there's talk today of building in fact, they've started on the direction of this new building. Wallace Mr. Wallace, or Mrs. Wallace? Mrs. Wallace is a daughter of a fan. Mrs. Dark. One of the early Negroes who lived here. Oh, yes, yes. That wasn't that wasn't know.

Unknown Speaker 37:37
Anything further about this house in the origin?

Unknown Speaker 37:41
Oh, yes. as well. I don't really know too much about it. I think I've told you mostly, it was originally a little log 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, Gianni buddies, who was the son of Mr. Baris who built this 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 saw 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 what I suppose it was built in the time that they were building it. The business is of course lived away down the founder for his no business 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 when my youngest cousin was born, Jeffrey Barris, he was the youngest one in the biggest family. And he was born just a month after his father died. And so Mrs. Bettis 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 so I think that probably took most of that summer. But they used to stay for three weeks or a time.

Unknown Speaker 39:18
What better suspended for farming? Well, they

Unknown Speaker 39:21
had a farm down there and Mr. Baris was able to do quite a lot of different things. He had actually been a printer in in England. And then he eloped with my aunt who was in my father's sister, and she was a soloist at the gosta cathedral. And they came out to New York, and, you know, took the ball 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 in Nebraska. But they musical he or she was she had a very good voice but the role No, I don't think they are As the various boys were musical accepted the one boy, Lionel, who still lives it. At Duncan, he played the violin. Well, my mother played the violin to both my sides of both sides of my family were musical. I can't think of any really any interesting stories to tell you because it was all happening for a long time before my time. And they didn't tell me too much about it. Really?

Unknown Speaker 40:24
What about your impression of the society as you're growing up here? wasn't particularly English, or that the people seem to be a mixture or with a difference?

Unknown Speaker 40:35
Oh, well, I would say they were mainly English at the beginning because there's there were there was no school of thought 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. Part of the all the early settlers here were English. The exception of the other 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 it just round Vesuvius, you know, there and I think that's why a lot of people were a lot of people had come to work. In fact, I think one of the, was it. One of the coal Wells was working there at the stone quarry. That's how he met this young Broadwell girl who worked in the store here that I met her married her isn't that I believe how they met? I think so. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 41:50
Tell me about the negros. Was there any discrimination in any way at all their racial feeling?

Unknown Speaker 41:58
No, I don't think 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. 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 that they had very much trouble later on.

Unknown Speaker 42:23
Can you remember as you go up a feeling of your friends or people above the ecosphere?

Unknown Speaker 42:30
Well, of course, where I lived, then I didn't live up in this area. At that time, I was living down on Venice road, and we never came in contact with them, or very rarely, because they were all up at this part of the island, you see. And the only time that I remember was that we had we used to have a Mr. Harry Woods come to plow forest. He was not a negro 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 were still living here now. But no, I wouldn't think that there was any, any ill feeling towards them at all? No, I think they were quite nicely treated and respected. They tend to keep to themselves. I think they did pretty well. Of course, they went to the schools with the other children.

Unknown Speaker 43:17
There was no flashy remember, there's no,

Unknown Speaker 43:20
no, I don't think so. No, of course, it was quite a virgin country in the early days, you know, and everybody had to get along with everybody else. What about the law? Well, the Indians, the coach and Indians here were not warlike really, I think they used to come over to haunt and they used to come in here. So I've been told they came in here for protection mainly because there were these terrific battles from the other veiling Indian Indian tribes, you know, from the likely from Fort Simpson, they used to come down and the height is and the Bella Bella's. I mean, there were various other types that came down here that used to cause trouble. But 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 considered that this land was their Latins, what brought it even if we even if the white people grew it, 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 in, he stole some of the carrots out of my mother's garden. So she went up and go and kicked him in oceans in his shins, you know? And he he just laughed at her. You thought it was quite a joke. 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 work, and he went outside the door and Dr. Rodney came back. So they all wanted to know what 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 he wasn't right for them to come around to that condition and in civilized settlements like that. Well, 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 45:37
you yes, I forgot about those. Yes, Reverend 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 here. 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, when in the way that he did such a lot of writing, he wrote all these papers about the early history of AR and kept things up with what was going on, you know, at the time, those are really the only written records that we have today. So we owe an awful lot to him. And it seems that only to Collins brothers and the Mort family are the only families on the island who kept all his papers. There was a 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 a little, we will keep quite a lot of little booklets and diaries that he wrote. And 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 just why they were going there. But But anyway, he took her 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 painted it of what had happened. And then 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 Dark Hole turning 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 bought 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 and they were the most interesting pictures. I I'm not quite sure if Mrs. Graham showed that his daughter die or his granddaughter die hasn't but she she was the one who showed me this book that was most interesting. So he drew a lot of pictures and painted things that happened right around here on the island. His he was an interesting man