| Transcript |
- Early Residents of HBC Uplands Farm. The first European residents living on the Gordon Head campus worked for Hudson's Bay Company, Uplands Farm. The farm covered 1,100 acres and may have been occupied as early as 1852 when sheep were delivered to the area. ... A sampling of landowners occupying Section 44 and Section 45 from 1889 to 1906 indicates the diversity of settlers who chose the campus as their home. ... With the exception of the northern portion of the HBC Fur Trade Reserve, the campus lands were eventually subdivided into smaller parcels from one to eighty acres. Mike Finnerty. Cleared Lands Where UVic Now Stands. Lured by the promise of a quick fortune in the Caribou gold fields, Michael Finnerty (1821-1930), arrived in Victoria from Ireland (via New York) in 1859. An engineering foreman by trade and one of early Victoria's most successful market gardeners, he sold a portion of his 300 acres in Gordon Head and moved his family to a heavily wooded area just north of Uplands Farm (HBC Fur Trade Reserves). In 1872, he constructed Finnerty Road and built a farm stead and orchard, felling giant trees often ten feet in diameter. Finnerty's Spring Park Farm, once home to milk cows, chickens and an apple orchard, was located in the university's main quadrangle. A gnarled pear and apple tree opposite the Cornett building are all the remains of the efforts of this early pioneer. Michael Finnerty lived to the ripe old age of 109. It is believed that some of his vitality may have resulted from 40 years of imbibing the mineral water of his Spring Park Farm.
|
|---|