Anderson farm became Malahat farm
The Anderson family were among the first settlers in the Sooke area. They farmed, produced lumber and ran a sawmill.
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Ten miles past Sooke through deep forest, William Anderson and his wife Azuba bought land from the E & N Railway, just east of Muir Creek, in 1895.
William, a journeyman carpenter from Yorkshire, built a log cabin for the family, which was their home until the beautiful new Malahat farmhouse was completed in 1914.
The Andersons were a remarkable pioneer family, not only establishing a farm, but a sawmill which produced the lumber used to build their second home, the finely finished structure which still stands on Anderson Road, Shirley District. The Anderson farm produced beef, milk, vegetables, apples, holly, eggs and fryers for market.
The photograph here, early 1900’s was probably taken on a Sunday, as two visitors are seen at right, come out from Sooke by horse and buggy to visit the Andersons. These ladies, in hats, are Nancy Charters and Polly Rhodes.
The eldest Anderson daughter Margaret stands beside her sister Lavinia and her brother Herbert. The young lady standing behind Herbert is unidentified; in centre are Mrs. Azuba Anderson and William H. Anderson, in front of their pioneer cabin.
Margaret grew up to marry Percy Clark, a member of another Shirley pioneer family; many of her descendants, to the sixth generation, live in the community today. Years later she told the story of the struggle her parents had in building their home that first year. A child herself, she stayed behind to look after younger brother Herbert, in a temporary shelter loaned to the family by neighbour Thomas Tugwell, while their parents worked together to build their first home.
A quotation from Margaret Anderson Clark Perron follows “My father had built the fireplace of fieldstones … and I remember this because we had to go along the beach and pick up clamshells which we burned and mixed with sand to make the mortar to put it together … it worked very well.”
Elida Peers
Historian, Sooke Region Museum
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