Part 24 (1/2)
”It appears that the agent of the Company sold last week all the trees on our streets to a party for firewood. Mr. Pemberton, Police Commissioner, at the request of some property holders, cut down the two oaks at the corner of Government and Yates Street, but it was no sooner done than Dr. Tuzo presented a bill to him for twenty dollars, ten dollars each. Opposite Mr. Adams' property on Douglas and View Streets, Mr. Adams forbid the parties, but in his absence they were felled. He then claimed the trees, as they were intersected every way by his property. But Dr. Tuzo threatened him with five hundred dollars damages, a.s.suring him that the trees belonged to the Company. Up Fort Street a number of oaks have been felled. Aside from the vandalism which would sell and cut down a single tree for a few paltry dollars, where it was no obstruction to travel, but an ornament to the street--the act of itself is a foul wrong--unwarrantable and without a particle of right to support it, either in law or equity. We cannot well conceive how that the agents of the Company could do such a scurvy trick--such an act of vandalism--except that they have been influenced to do so by a resident San Francisco landshark. Selling the trees therefore may be to maintain color of t.i.tle to the streets. But that will prove useless. Viewing the townsite as their private property, when they sold they forever conveyed away their claim to the streets. But the townsite is not private property, although it has unjustifiably been so claimed from the first settlement of the Colony. As private property the Company have no claim to it which will stand the test of law or equity. It is to all intents and purposes in the same condition as the lands of Cowichan, Nootka or Cape Scott; and the funds derived from the sale as justly belong to the Territorial revenues of the Colony. Taking then the townsite to be like other lands, subject to the conditions of the grant, (which we will hereafter prove) we find that one of the conditions says: 'That the said Company shall (for the purposes of colonization) dispose of all lands hereby granted to them, at a reasonable price, except as much thereof as may be required for public purposes.' The streets are used for public purposes--and for that reason the Company have no more right to them, nor the trees, than anyone else. Their act of felling trees on the public streets, and their intimation, deserves the strongest mark of public censure--and merits the attention of the proper authorities.
”Besides if our connection with the Hudson's Bay Company is not speedily ended we may expect many more such trumped-up claims as their claim to the streets, which they will want us to pay for.”
I think my pioneer friends will now agree with me that enough evidence has been furnished to prove my contention that View Street was originally intended to reach from Wharf Street to Cook Street, and farther if necessary.
CHAPTER x.x.xVII.
BISHOP CRIDGE'S CHRISTMAS STORY.
Some years ago the _Colonist_ requested several ”old timers”
to write for the Christmas number a description of Christmas as it was observed in the early days in this city.
The following were those who wrote: The Venerable Bishop Cridge, Hon.
Dr. Helmcken, Hon. D. W. Higgins, and the author of these reminiscences. I was so much interested myself in these stories (as I am in all Christmas stories), I decided, with the consent of the writers, to reproduce them in my book; not only as interesting, but as very instructive, describing, as they do, life in the pioneer days of the colony.
[Portrait: Rev. Edward Cridge, 1859.]
In essaying to write an account of my first Christmas at Victoria, I am met at the beginning with the inconvenient fact that I kept no journal, my only written records relating simply to my ministry or to things purely personal or domestic. What I write, therefore, is not a history, seeking materials from any and all sources of information, nor a biography, dealing with the writer's proper business in life, but a narrative of incidents occurring to memory, interesting to the reader only because they refer to the early history of our beloved city.
Another thing has to be considered, namely, that as, after fifty years and more, the remembered incidents of a particular day or season would occupy but a few lines to relate, such a season may properly be regarded in relation to things going before and things following after.
In this view, my memory carries me back to a very happy day, April 1, 1855, when the good sailing s.h.i.+p _Margius of Bute_, chartered by the Hudson's Bay Company to bring its freight and pa.s.sengers, including myself as chaplain and district minister of Victoria, my wife and servants, to this far-off island, calling at Honolulu by the way, cast anchor off Clover Point, so terminating a voyage of about six months' duration from London. The next day, having moved to the inner harbor, we made our first acquaintance with several Victorians, who came on board to give us and our _compagnons de voyage_ a cordial welcome. That same morning we received an invitation from His Excellency Governor Douglas to luncheon, who also sent a boat to take us ash.o.r.e; the boatman was good John Spelde, concerning whom I curiously remember my wife telling me that her domestic, Mary Ann Herbert, referred to him later in the day as the ”man with the fingers,” he having lost three of those members in the firing of a salute on some ceremonial occasion.
After the luncheon, never to be forgotten for the cordial welcome of His Excellency and Mrs. Douglas and their interesting family, not to say the delicious salmon and other delicacies after s.h.i.+pboard fare, we were conducted to the Fort, which was to be our temporary abode till the Parsonage, which then began to be built, should be finished.
I have no recollection of the impression produced on my mind as we entered by the south gate the large square fenced in by tall palisades and frowning bastions, only I am certain I had no fear of being imprisoned in this stronghold of the great Adventurers; on the contrary, I distinctly remember that as, proceeding past the central bell-tower to our rooms, on the north side, east of the main entrance, we entered the s.p.a.cious, though empty, apartments destined for our reception, my wife fairly danced for joy at our release from the long and tedious confinement on s.h.i.+pboard. The very emptiness of the rooms was a charm. It was the new home to which from her mother's house in London only a few days before sailing together to the other end of the world, I had brought her, and what bride does not joy to see her work awaiting her, though the house be empty and bare! With the help of our two servants, and local carpenters, supplies from the Company's stores, and our ample outfit, she soon effected a transformation.
I remember also, something of the evening and night of that first day; the tea and fresh milk and bread and b.u.t.ter; and how, when settling ourselves to sleep for the night, we saw a large white rat crossing the stovepipe which ran through our bedroom from the great Canadian stove in the sitting-room. It is curious how trifling things cleave to the memory, while the monotonous things of everyday life, which are our proper business, give no signal.
The next morning I was introduced to several officers and cadets of the company messing at the Port: W. J. Macdonald, now our well-known representative in the Senate; B. W. Sangster, Farquhar, Mackay, Newton, Sangster (Sangster's Plains Postmaster), also to Chief Factor Finlaison, who lived in a house in the southwest corner of the Port; and Dr. Helmcken, now, for reasons of state, the Hon. J. S. Helmcken, residing with his wife in the house which he still occupies; later J.
D. Pemberton, who returned from England, bringing his sister, Miss Pemberton.
Looking back now to my first Sunday service, I have no recollection of it as distinguished from other similar services to follow.
From my written records only I find that the text of my sermon on the occasion was, ”Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” and that I referred in the conclusion to the Crimean War just ended; but there is pictured in my memory the figure of a man coming past the bell-tower with a prayer book under his arm, ”going to church.” Him I was afterwards to know as good John Dutnall, a dear and faithful friend to me as long as he lived.
The church services were held in the messroom. There was no instrument and no organized choir. Of those whose voices contributed to this part of divine wors.h.i.+p I think only Mrs. W. J. Macdonald survives.
As to my first Christmas Day, which this year ('55) fell on a Tuesday, I can remember nothing of it as distinguished from other Christmas Days to follow (more than fifty in number); but my records say that my text was, ”Glory to G.o.d in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men.” But where we dined, what we had for dinner, or how we spent the day, my wife might have told, but I cannot. I know that we spent many Christmas evenings at the Governor's very pleasantly, and this may have been, and probably was, one of them. I remember that one New Year's Eve there was a violent snowstorm, which hindered me from holding a service at Craigflower, as I had intended, but my records show what I do not in the least remember, that I preached at Craigflower on New Year's Day. I also remember that by Christmas Day we had moved into the Parsonage, and that my two sisters, who had arrived at Esquimalt from England, a week before, were with us on that day. I remember a good deal about the Parsonage in those early days. It was almost in the country.
As it was at first unfenced, my wife was often afraid at noises. One night we heard a sc.r.a.ping, and she was sure that someone was breaking into the house. I tried to persuade her that burglars did not announce their presence in that open fas.h.i.+on. However, to rea.s.sure her, I reconnoitred, and found it was only an old sow rubbing her back against an old shed nearby.
The Parsonage ground was all wild, but the soil good, and as it was my future home, the task of trying to make it a worthy appendage of the district church was a pleasant one. My servant, James Ravey, was a good gardener, but rather more inclined to the useful than the ornamental. When my wife wanted to enlist his interest in flower gardening, he remarked that the flowers he had liked best were cauliflowers. However, she had her way, he nothing loath. Dr.
Helmcken liberally supplied us with a variety of flowers from his well-kept garden, among which I remember daisies--not the wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers, but variegated beauties, gorgeous through ages of culture. There was not a wild daisy in the country; but now they are spreading everywhere, as if when left alone they preferred their natural state. The Governor also took a kindly interest in the work, offering valuable hints as to the planting of fruit trees, etc. Mr. Work, of Hillside, also sent me a fine lot of young ornamental trees, which flourished well. A good gardening book was loaned me of the company--a long loan, I think, as I have possession of it still.
So the garden, though nothing to boast of in the artistic point of view, yielded abundance of fruit.
[Portrait: Bishop and Mrs. Cridge.]
But if it were pleasant to get into the Parsonage, it by no means follows that life in the Fort was dreary; on the contrary, some of our happiest hours were spent there. Besides my satisfaction with the present and hopes for the future, coupled with the companions.h.i.+p of one who had full possession of my heart and life, we were forming and cementing friends.h.i.+ps which were to endure for many a long year.
Not only this--there were pleasant musical and social evenings. There were voices and instruments; Mrs. Mouat, with the piano brought out with her from England; Mr. Augustus Pemberton, lately arrived from Ireland with his flute; Mr. B. W. Pea.r.s.e, with his violin; I did what I could with my 'cello, the instrument my father had and played when a boy.