History of the Municipality of Oak Bay
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FOREWORD The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect those of the Corporation of the District of Oak Bay Compiling the history of the Municipality of the District of Oak Bay has not been an easy task. The majority of the very early settlers have long since passed away and I discovered, in my search for information, that the living relatives of those early pioneers had burned or otherwise disposed of scrapbooks and photographs which would have been of inestimable value today. I have searched through the entire files of Council Minutes from the date of incorporation to the present time but information has not been recorded in a manner to provide important data so necessary in determining why the Council made certain decisions and how those decisions might have affected the community at a later date. Many early records have been lost or are otherwise not available in the municipal offices or provincial departments, all adding to the difficulty of providing authentic information. Rather than write the history as a continuing sequence, I have divided it into seven parts in order that the reader may be able to select a particular phase in the succession of events if it is not desired to read the entire history at one time. I gratefully acknowledge the help received from Mr. Willard E. Ireland, the Provincial Archivist and Librarian, and his staff in providing information and pictures; Mr. Archie Wills for his help with early sporting events; Mr. D. A. Whysker, Mr. Robert Duke and Mr. Colin D. Wyatt of the municipal office staff for supplying available information in order that this humble effort might be completed in a somewhat coherent manner. G. Murdoch 1 INDEX PART ONE Before the Settlers Came PART TWO The Years 1843 to 1906 PART THREE The Developing Years PART FOUR The Church in Community Life PART FIVE Education PART SIX Public Protection PART SEVEN Recreation APPENDIX: Tax rates through the years Bank loans until taxes collected Members of Council -- 1906-1968 Oak Bay street names and origins -------------------- 0 -------------------- A HISTORY OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF OAK BAY 1968 2 History of the Municipality of Oak Bay PART ONE Before the Settlers Came 3 Before the White Man Came Native Indians occupied several areas on the shores of Oak Bay for perhaps several thousand years prior to the arrival of the early explorers. There is no record of any detailed study of the archaeology of Oak Bay ever having been made. An attempt was made, however, to establish at least a partial history of the people who lived in the area in prehistoric times. In his book, "Archaeology of the Gulf of Georgia and Puget Sound" published in 1907, Harlan I. Smith states: "... shell heaps were found on the Bowker Farm at Oak Bay, about a mile north of the Oak Bay Hotel and a quarter of a mile north of these were others." On page 357, the author describes several artifacts found at this site and also the remains of fortifications, house sites and burial places found on the point on the easterly side of Loon Bay (next to the present Royal Victoria Yacht Club property). Another book, "Cairns of British Columbia and Washington" by Harlan I. Smith and G. Fowke, states on page 58 "... about four miles northeast of Victoria, on land belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company and sloping toward Cadboro Bay, were several hundred cairns made of boulders, apparently taken from a native outcrop at this place." It was on this site that a group of archaeologists, in company with members of the Natural History Society of Victoria, made their principal examination of cairns. These cairns covered single bodies, buried without grave offerings. Whether they were ordinary men of a tribe or those vested with authority is unknown. When the Uplands was developed as a residential subdivision, boulders were taken from the cairns for building construction and for rockeries associated with landscaping. Some of the palatial homes on this site may have skeletons of former braves under their basements or beneath their lush lawns, but no resident has ever reported seeing a ghost brandishing a tomahawk or spear. Two of these cairns, still intact, were discovered in Uplands Park early in 1959 and the municipal authorities decided to fence them in for posterity. This work was never carried out and in more recent years these large boulders were removed by municipal workmen for use as barricades on roads leading from the main circular driveway. This required the use of a derrick and flat-bodied truck, indicating that the natives who placed them originally must have been muscular individuals. Apparently there were several groups, or tribes, of Indians who made their winter camps in villages stretching along the coastline from Sidney to Beecher Bay. Authorities do not agree on the number of these groups but one, Professor Boas, has stated that there were 12 in all. They spoke a common language called "Salish", which was also common to those who frequented the coastal areas of Washington (Oregon) and along the Fraser River. For the most part, the coastal Indians appear to have been comparatively peaceful people. It is known, however, that at least one tribe was not averse to violence for we find that in 1854 James Douglas (later, Sir James), writing to Archibald Barclay of London, England, mentioned that "... about noon the 26th. of May, Thomas Grenham arrived from the Cadboro Bay Farm in a state of great alarm, with a report that the place had been attacked and taken by several hundred Indians and that he had escaped 4 with difficulty from their hands... the Indians who had committed the deed had made a precipitate retreat ... I learned they had attacked Mr. Baillie ... he fought stoutly and knocked two of them down before he was himself felled to the ground by a blow on the head." It was later established that the raiding party belonged to a tribe of Cape Fox Indians who had on previous occasions stolen cattle from the farm. There appears to be no record of their being brought to justice, or whether Baillie survived the blow from the Indian war club. Shortly after Fort Victoria was established, many of the groups, including those from Oak Bay, moved to the land area opposite to the Fort (now known as the Victoria Indus- trial Reserve at the westerly end of the Johnson Street Bridge). The composite tribe was then known as "Songhees" (possibly a corruption of the word "Stsanges", the name of one of the groups). There they remained until moved (around 1913) by the government to a new reserve in the Admirals Road/Craigflower area of Esquimalt. They continued to make camps at Cordova and Cadboro Bays and at Willows Beach when storms caught them in their travels. These people never travelled by land -- always by water. Either the cartographer was a practical joker or Bowker Creek must have been considerably larger than today, for an early map describes it as the "Thames River". Even as late as 1912, reference is made to the "Thames Valley" in municipal documents. A later map of 1855 calls it "Tod's Stream" and later still, following the death of John Tod, it became known as "Bowker Creek". Where the stream joined the sea there was quite a sizeable ravine (later used as a garbage dump) and every indication points to the fact that there was once an Indian village on the present site of the fire and police building. When work on this building was in progress a large midden was uncovered, from which was extracted a great number of Indian artifacts which would have been of considerable value to anthropologists. Unfortunately, these were carried off by school pupils and others. In 1959, university students under the guidance of the Provincial Department of Anthropology excavated another large midden on Kitty's Islet on the east side of McNeill Bay, or "Shoal Bay" as it is sometimes called. Many valuable and interesting artifacts were exhumed on this site. Reference to the Indian people would be incomplete without mention of Jimmie Chicken. He was a member of a group which had its headquarters village on Chatham Island but, for some unknown reason, he took up his abode in a little shack on the lee side of Mary Tod Island where he lived for several years with his wife Jenny who was his pride and joy. Mrs. Haynes used to recall with considerable mirth the time she gave Jenny a bright red petticoat which she herself did not like. Jenny was so thrilled that she went out on the road (now Beach Drive) and proceeded to strip to her bare skin. Putting on the new garment, she gathered up her former clothes and went skipping toward the beach and her canoe. She was seen paddling furiously toward the island, no doubt to impress her husband with her new duds. Jimmie, a short and stockily built man, had customers among the early settlers but his main customer was John Virtue of the Mount Baker Hotel to whom the little Indian sold the bulk of his produce of the sea. Virtue befriended the little native in many ways 5 and no doubt Jimmie and Jenny enjoyed many a good meal provided by the hotel proprie- tor. When, in 1900, Jimmie took off for the Happy Hunting Grounds he had a massive Indian funeral. Long time residents of Oak Bay assert that there were at least a hundred canoes drawn up on Oak Bay Beach where the natives went through their ceremonial dances to the beat of Indian drums.