- Dec.

“sale in the

- Smith

hile.

_ By Art Davies

Despite the excellence of

Pioneer Mills, the compet-
ition of the mills in New
Westminster, the isolated’
situation, and the difficul-
ties, delays, and the expen-

ses .of. transport were too
much and too many for the
little mills located on the
north shore of Burrard Inlet.

Graham & Co., the owners
were determined to abandon
their venture. As a result, in
1863, after only five
months of business they
advertised the operation for
“British Colum-
bian.”” The. mill, timber
‘ights and about 1,000,000
doard feet of logs were put.
up for public auction on Dec.
16, 1863.>

There were two -bidders:
John Oscar Smith, a former
New Westminster grocer and
Sewell P. Moody, a native of
Hartland Maine who had
some to the B.C. Coast in
1859.

Moody. had -become in-
volved in the young logging

‘industry by hauling rafts of

timber from Burrard Inlet to
Victoria.

Qddly enough, Moody,
known to many as ‘‘Sue
Moody”’ was the only other
bidder.
been offered, Moody and
Smith raised the bidding by
$100 jumps and the price

soon reached $8,000 at which .
+4 Sue’ i

point the canny .
Moody bid no more. So the
mills were knocked down to
J.O. Smith.

But Moody bided his time,
perhaps believing that ex-
perience in the grocery

' business and on steamers on

the Fraser River was scarcely
m apprenticeship to saw-
ailling. (J.0. Smith had
seen an employee on Capt.
William Irving's steamer
“Roliance”’).

renamed the.
‘Pioneer’ mills‘ ‘‘Burrard
nlet Mills.”” Immediately he
sstablished agents in New
Westminster and Victoria

ind advertised that he was

After $6,000 had.

Victoria, then -in_ the
separate coloriy of Vancouver .
Island, turned out to. be
Smith’ s Principal market.

Throughout the summer of.
1864 ~“. business _ boomed;
shipments were’ made’ ‘to.
Victoria, Nanaimo and other

- local points. One large order
came from the Vancouver

Coal Co. for 500,000 feet of
lumber ‘to construct a wharf.
at Nanaimo.

With the summer proving
so successful Smith entered
the foreign market. In
November 1864 he made his

foreign export trade.

This was
277,500 feet of lumber and
16,000 pickets, shipped on
Capt. Hellon’s _barque
“Ellen Lewis,’’> bound for
Adelaide, Austrialia.

As Burrard Inlet wasn’t a
port of entry then, the vessel
was entered and cleared at
New Westminster where
J.A.R. Homer’s mill furn-
ished part of the shipment.

The ship took a long time
to load as one would expect.

The: mills didn’t — have
facilities for quick dispatch in
those days. The result was
that the “Ellen Lewis’’ lay
moored in the Inlet from
Sept. 16 to Nov. 9, nearly two
months.

In attempting to expand
his trade Smith had become

heavily in debt and: in Dec. .

1864, after an endeavor
lasting 12 months, his
mortgagers took up proceed-
ings. and advertised the
water powered mill and 480_
acres of timber for sale on
Jan. 19, 1865, by Mr.
Valetine Hall of B.C.

~

Ironically, “before | his
bankruptcy. |. John - Oscar
Smith had succeeded |

setting a record as being the

first man to ship. a‘cargo of.

__ Jumber from Burrard Inlet to

prepared to. supply the ‘a foreign port,.
export tfadé.....° = "years ago. :
soy p tconlnaemert donb abatbarenbans wal v batenb Gamodoneatcon nent a ee
amnntneauacanaanauamabperndtuistemativns a teqypesimeven its: wien eres pl car mam

vasusseniatstenignsoye momougeammaanaatrenern seen

a cargo of

Ships loading lumber at Mocdyville Mill in 1890. Most famber went down the coast to tne States and further south to Pera and
Cc . .

‘custom typesetting a
-and makeup —

Our

modern
production

typesetting,
facilities

and

design i
“Tor ae

are available.

commercial use during the time riot: required. :
for ‘Shopper’. production. For information © |.
please contact Shopper Production Manager 2

‘Val Beamish at 980-0517.

#202, 1199 Lonsdale Ave. a
North: Vancouver, B.C.
V7M 2H4

2

i 882998889 999999999

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Telephone |

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