Early Vancouver Volume Seven

Early Vancouver

Volume Seven

By: Major J.S. Matthews, V.D.

2011 Edition (Originally Published 1956)

Narrative of Pioneers of Vancouver, BC Collected between 1931-1956.

About the 2011 Edition The 2011 edition is a transcription of the original work collected and published by Major Matthews. Handwritten marginalia and corrections Matthews made to his text over the years have been incorporated and some typographical errors have been corrected, but no other editorial work has been undertaken. The edition and its online presentation was produced by the City of Vancouver Archives to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the City's founding. The project was made possible by funding from the Vancouver Historical Society.

© 2011 City of Vancouver. Any or all of Early Vancouver may be used without restriction as to the nature or purpose of the use, even if that use is for commercial purposes. You may copy, distribute, adapt and transmit the work. It is required that a link or attribution be made to the City of Vancouver.

Reproductions

High resolution versions of any graphic items in Early Vancouver are available. A fee may apply.

Citing Information

When referencing the 2011 edition of Early Vancouver, please cite the page number that appears at the bottom of the page in the PDF version only, not the page number indicated by your PDF reader. Here are samples of how to cite this source:

Footnote or Endnote Reference: Major James Skitt Matthews, Early Vancouver, Vol. 7 (Vancouver: City of Vancouver, 2011), 33.

Bibliographic Entry: Matthews, Major James Skitt. Early Vancouver, Vol. 7. Vancouver: City of Vancouver, 2011.

Contact Information City of Vancouver Archives 1150 Chestnut Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 3J9 604.736.8561 [email protected] vancouver.ca/archives

HISTORY OF BURNABY. GREEN, 1947. 24th February, 1947. Dear Mr. Green: Our congratulations on your completion of this exhaustive work on the story of the Municipality of Burnaby we hasten to send. It has been a long arduous task over a period of many years; is the culmination of countless hours of patience, and is a contribution to the achievements of historical writers of Burnaby, British Columbia and Canada. Our grateful thanks are extended for your gracious and generous presentation of an autographed copy. The spoken word is a poor medium for the transmission of thought, and the written one still poorer. You will have to imagine much which does not appear in the cold type of this letter. Your final accomplishment of this stupendous task you set yourself so many years ago gives us immeasurable gratification and satisfaction. It is a benefaction not alone to those of the past and present, but also to the generations of the future. The people of Burnaby and of British Columbia are fortunate in that so able and so persistent an historical worker lives among them. And we of Vancouver, so insolubly linked to Burnaby, are no less fortunate. On behalf of all those whom I have the honor to serve, and they are many and varied, past, present and future, we sent our warmest appreciation and grateful thanks. With all good wishes, Most sincerely, J.S. Matthews CITY ARCHIVIST. George Green, Esq., Historian, 200 South Grosvenor Ave., Vancouver

THE VANCOUVER PROVINCE, SATURDAY, 4 JUNE 1955. Excerpts: George Green, author of The History of Burnaby, and outstanding authority on B.C. history, died Thursday at Shaughnessy Hospital after several months illness. He was 83. Mr. Green, whose byline was well-known to Province readers, was president of Vancouver Branch of B.C. Historical Association, a director of the Art, Historical and Scientific Association, editor of the Vancouver Museum Notes and official Burnaby historian. THE NOTED, well-liked historian was officially recognized in 1950 when Burnaby Council established George Green Park. Earlier this year he received the golden key to Burnaby. The modest cottage at 200 South Grosvenor in North Burnaby was the birthplace of more than 400 articles. It was also here that Mr. Green’s History of Burnaby saw the light after 15 years of painstaking research. MR. GREEN WAS BORN at Rippingale, Lincolnshire, and came to Canada as a two-year-old. As a young man he worked as an engineer on a steam threshing machine in Saskatchewan, invented, built and operated a fence post pile driver, and worked as a house mover, carpenter and construction foreman after he came to Vancouver in 1904. In World War One he served in Scotland with the Canadian Forestry Corps.