Archives provide a portrait of the colourful William Grafton

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The other day I saw a deer strolling about on the grass at Bowen Court and it reminded me that I was going to tell you a bit more about early days on Bowen and the Grafton family. Again this information comes from archival records of conversations between Major James Skitt Matthews, Vancouver’s first archivist, and Bowen pioneer William Grafton.

Grafton said, “I was born at Hacking, London, England, February 6, 1868. My two brothers left England about March 1885, I left in March of 1886, my mother and sister in June 1886. We all stayed in Toronto but the other four reached B.C. before I did; I got there in the summer of 1887. We wanted to get land but they said there was no good land near New Westminster and none where North Vancouver is, so my brother located Bowen Island as the best place. Between my brother and myself, we pre-empted, all told, six hundred and forty acres, paid one dollar an acre. We built a log cabin and we all stayed there on and off for many years.”

He went on to say, “The deer on Bowen Island were very thick – you could go out and get one any time – and so were the grouse. We used to shoot for the market. I had the reputation of getting the biggest deer ever shot in the province – that was in the fall of 1891 – it weighed 195 pounds; but it wasn’t the biggest I ever shot, the biggest was 225 pounds. At one time, there were a lot of wolves on Bowen Island. They killed Beach’s dog and they killed Bill Eaton’s dog and you could always see the deer swimming in the water after being driven there by the wolves. Wolves won’t follow deer into the water. We never hunted deer in boots, always in moccasins. Chief George of Sechelt taught us how to make moccasins; I have sneaked up as close as twenty-five feet from a deer.”

Grafton had a four-ton sloop, with which he ran up and down Howe Sound to Squamish and Sechelt about once a week. The boat had no engine, just sails and no name. He docked the sloop at Andy Linton’s boathouse at the foot of Carrall Street. There were two brickyards on Bowen Island – they ran about four years, from 1886 to 1889. Grafton and his sloop carried the men who made the bricks up to Bowen. David Oppenheimer, Sam Brighouse, George Black and W.J. Armstrong, of Armstrong and Morrison, had a yard on the north side and it was from that yard that the bricks came to build Oppenheimer’s warehouse at the southeast corner of Columbia and Powell Street and the Tremont Hotel on Carrall Street. Joe Mannion’s brickyard was on the south side of the creek.

Ten Years Ago in The Undercurrent of July 3, 1998: The Arts Council was hosting a Celebration of Music and Arts on July 11 and 12 in the Old General Store and The Gallery in Artisan Square. In addition, they were preparing an updated version of the Cultural and Arts Directory. The sixth annual People, Plants and Places Tour was going to visit Cowan Point, Fairweather, Hummingbird Lane, Queen Charlotte Heights, Josephine Ridge, Miller’s Landing and Eagle Cliff. Featured on the 1998 tour was the wildlife-oriented garden of the Taylor/Lalonde family. The lunch site was at site #5, the 21-1cre Grohne property. Saturday, July 11 was the date for Howe Sound Music Festival set for Crippen Park.