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- 86 REMINISCENCES OF OLD VICTORIA
outer dock I see three isolated houses, that still remain. The large one was built and occupied by Mr. Laing of " Laing's Ways," the pioneer shipbuilder; another by Captain H. McKay, the sealer captain; the third was built out of the upper works of the wrecked steamer Major Tomkins, the first steamer to run from Olympia to Victoria. She was wrecked off Macaulay Point in 1856. Mr. Laing bought the upper works and built this house. Lumber in those days had mostly to be imported from San Francisco?that is, the wood for fine work. Mr. Muir, of Sooke, bought the boilers and engines, which he put into a sawmill he built there, and good service they gave for years. Before the road opposite the Government grounds, which is now Belleville Street, was reclaimed from the sea, there was an Indian trail which ran through the woods, from Laing's Ways, in the direction of town along the water-front, around the head of the bay to Humboldt Street. I might say that the plat of ground on which the Government buildings were built in 1859 was bought from a French-Canadian who came overland from Montreal, and although in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company for years, either could not or would not speak a word of English other than "yes " or "no." He built his house here and lived here until he sold out to the Government, the house being afterwards used as a Government tool house.
Mr. Harry Glide, from whom I got these particulars, is a pioneer of 1856, and lived near the outer wharf. He married a daughter of Mr. Laing. He says all James Bay from the bridge to the mouth of the harbor was covered with pine trees, and all this land, together with that facing Dallas Road up to Beacon Hill, was called Beckley Farm. The greater part of all these trees were cut down for Kavaunah, a man whom many
VICTORIA IN 1859-1860 87
will remember as having a woodyard about where the James Bay Athletic Association now stands.
Mr. Glide says that there were quite a lot of Cherokee Indians here who came from their native land to the coast of British Columbia for work, and a fine body of men he says they were, most of them over six feet and strongly built. It does seem strange that they should have travelled so far from their homes and country. There were also many Kanakas here, who came on vessels from Honolulu at odd times. They formed a small colony and located on Kanaka Road, or Humboldt Street, as it is now called. I can remember them in 1860, one family attending service at Christ Church regularly.
The most prominent building in sight is Victoria District Church, as it stands out in relief on Church Hill. When I first went there as a boy, it was a most primitive-looking building, with its low steeple or dove-cote (as it looked like). There were two bells in this steeple, one larger than the other, which sounded ding dong, ding dong, many a year, until early one morning James Kennedy, an old friend of mine, as he was going home saw flames issuing from the roof.
He gave the alarm, and shortly after the whole town was there, and the engines with volunteer firemen. Nothing could save it though, as it was summer-time and very dry, and it was not more than an hour or two before it had disappeared. The other day I had the pleasure of meeting one of my schoolfellows of 1859, Ernest A. Leigh, of San Francisco, a son of the second city clerk of Victoria, and who was here on a visit to his niece, Mrs. George Simpson (customs). We of course had a long talk over old times, the days of yore, the days of '59. In looking over this old picture he
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