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www.celtic-connection.com
NOVEMBER 2004
HUGE SCOTTISH INFLUENCE REFLECTED IN HISTORY OF VANCOUVER
UTHOR Chuck Davis is currently working on a new book entitled The History of Metropolitan Vancouver which will he published in 2007. For more details about the book visit: www.vancouverhistory.ca. The following article is an excerpt from his work in progress and relates some well-known Scots who have left their mark in the Lower Mainland.
Scottish influence in metropolitan Vancouver was important from the very beginning of our post-native history. The number of Scots who figure in our story may be the highest of all the city's ethnic groups...even if one of the earliest was an American.
Descended from a noble Scottish Highland family, the Lovat Frasers, Simon Fraser was the youngest son of Simon Fraser of Culbokie and Isabel Grant of Duldreggan. In September, 1773 the family emigrated to America aboard the Pearl and settled in Albany, New York. Simon Jr. was born in the small rural hamlet of Mapleton, Hoosick Township, New York on May 20, 1776, the very eve of the American Revolution.
Simon's Loyalist captured at the Battle and died a prisoner, mother fled with including eight-year-Canada in 1 784. exploration here was
father was of Bennington His widowed her family, ■old Simon, to His famous made in 1808.
The first elected official in the lower mainland was a Scot. His name was James Mackie, and he was elected the first "warden" of Langley, June 2, 1873. His clan was native of Banffshire. You already know that Vancouver's first mayor, Malcolm MacLean, was a Scot and so was his opponent, Richard Alexander.
George Black, butcher and hotelier, was born in Aberdeen. He was called "The laird of Hastings, " an ardent Scotsman, who always wore highland dress to dances, and also imported the area's first race horses. He used to conduct horse races down unpaved Granville Street.
The St. Andrew's and Caledonian Society of Vancouver was formed in 1886, the same year the city was. Here's a braw, bricht statistic: On St. Andrew's Day, November 30, 1887 the society held a grand St. Andrew's Ball in McDonough Hall at the southeast corner of Hastings and Columbia. Of the 1,000 or so people who lived in Vancouver at the time, 400 attended. In a rainstorm.
A fellow named William Duncan, born in Scotland in 1882, was a commercial fisherman here and established a locally famous fishing bar in Langley. He was renowned for having landed a sturgeon weighing 725 pounds.
John Murray, Sr. was born in Ireland of Scottish parents. He was a lance-corporal in the Royal Engineers, and he and his wife Jane Fuller were the first settlers in Port Moody, on his sapper's land grant. His son, John Murray Jr., known as "Mr. Port Moody, " named many streets in the municipality.
Many local place names are courtesy of the Scots: Dollarton was named for Captain Robert Dollar, born in Scotland in 1844. Ewen Slough was named after Alexander Ewen, an
early cannery owner. 'A dour Scot, he was reputed never to have laughed."
West Vancouver's first white settler, John Lawson, planted holly by the side of the "burn" (stream) flowing across his property, and called it "Hollyburn. " Iona Island used to be called McMillan Island after a pioneer settler, Donald McMillan, until he himself renamed it Iona, after the island where St. Columba in 563 began christianizing the Scots.
An early resident, Russell Macnaghten, Professor of Greek at UBC, named part of West Vancouver after Dundarave Castle in Scotland, the ancestral home of Clan Macnaghten. Dundarave comes from a Gaelic word for a two-oared boat, and is apparently pronounced to rhyme with "have, " not "save. "
In 1905 when theB.C. Electric built a station on its Steveston interurban line at what is now West Forty-First Avenue in Vancouver, the company's general manager called on a young Scottish couple named MacKinnon who had recently settled in the district and invited Mrs. MacKinnon to name the new station. She adapted the name Kerrisdale from her old family home, Kerrydale or Kerry's Dale in Gairloch, Scotland. Kerrydale means "little seat of the fairies. "
The manager of Vancouver's first Bank of British Columbia branch was James Cooper Keith, of Aberdeen. He later became president of the Board of Trade and reeve of North Vancouver. Keith Road in North Vancouver is named for him. Also Aberdeen-born: botanist John Davidson, whose gardens at Riverview Hospital and at UBC are celebrated. In 1918 "Botany John" founded the Vancouver Natural History Society. Tom Alsbury, mayor of Vancouver from 1959 to 1962, was born in 1904 in Edinburgh...ourfirst mayor to have been born in the Twentieth Century.
Also born in Edinburgh: Lily Laverock, a lady who needs much, much more than a brief mention here. Her story (first woman reporter in Vancouver, fighter for women's votes, extraordinarily successful impresario, etc., etc.) will be told in a later issue.
Senator Tom Reid came to Surrey from Scotland. He was a Liberal MP for New Westminster, later a senator. Reid was a Surrey pioneer. He gave the municipality land that is now Bear Creek Park. The Senator played the bagpipes, sometimes at special events in Parliament.
The Marine Building had a Scottish element. The 12 signs of the zodiac are worked into the lobby floor, which was originally made of corkoid, or "battleship linoleum, "
manufactured in Scotland by a firm that specialized in producing similar floors for luxury ocean liners. In 1989 the floor was replaced and replicated in marble.
Photo Credit: Jim McGraw
AUTHOR Chuck Davis at work on his new book The History of Metropolitan Vancouver which will be published in 2007.
The names of Scots pepper our history: John Linn, after whom Lynn Valley is named...James McGavin of bread fame... John McLagan, newspaper publisher, the Vancouver Daily World...butcher shop owner James Inglis Reid, "we hae meat that ye can eat".. Andrew
Roddan, United Church minister... William Irving, boatbuilder (his home - Irving House in New Westminster - is an historic treasure)... James Sinclair, the late federal fisheries minister, for whom Sinclair Centre in downtown Vancouver is named. He was also
the father of Margaret Sinclair ...WilliamLamont Tait, whose Glen Brae mansion in Shaughnessy is now Canuck Place, a hospice for children.
And then there was Jimmy Cunningham, stonemason. He was born in 1878 on the Isle of Bute, Scotland. Jimmy came here in 1910, served in the FirstWorld War with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
He worked extensively as a stonemason, including UBC, Vancouver homes, pools at Lumberman's Arch, Second and Kitsilano beaches, the Empress Hotel and the Banff Springs Hotel.
In 1917, he began work on the Stanley Park seawall. In 1931 he was named master stonemason for the Vancouver Parks Board with a special task: to secure Stanley Park's shores. Jimmy retired in 1955, but kept coming down (once in his pyjamas!) to keep an eye on the wall's progress, until his death at 85 on September 29, 1963.
Here's a story I treasure: Jimmy built a low stone wall around his home, later learned the improvement would raise his taxes $4 a year. "My wife and I went out and tore the whole blooming thing down."
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