Meeting Murder

It was the evening of April 12, 1921. 8:30 p.m. and the city was already dark, the streets were wet from a recent rain. Mrs. Bailby walked along West Georgia Street when she saw a well-dressed, middle aged man walking towards her with a furled umbrella. The man approached an area of the sidewalk where it was darkened by a tree shadowing the street lights. Mrs. Bailby noticed two young men step from the shadows and stop the other man.

Nothing seemed strange about that. The man appeared relaxed, laughing and leaning on his umbrella. A few seconds later though, the woman heard the sound of a gunshot and saw the man clutch his chest and fall to the sidewalk.

The two young men bent over him before one laughed nervously and both turned and ran around a corner.

Another man happened to witness the incident and gave chase to the fleeing assailants but was unable to catch them. He returned to the scene of the crime to find a small crowd had gathered. People carefully lifted the fallen man carefully and carried him to a nearby house. Unfortunately, in a few minutes, he was dead.

The victim turned out to be William F. Salsbury - an accountant and popular local sportsman and a prominent member of the Vancouver Rowing Club. He was son of a retired Canadian Pacific Railway executive, a pioneer of Vancouver who I have written on before in this entry.

There were many witnesses to the shooting. Although Mrs. Bailby was the only person who claimed to have seen the incident happen, many heard the shot and looked up to see the two men standing over a body.

I saw this doll in someone's yard on one of my walks. Someone really has an issue with clowns! LOL

Witnesses gave similar descriptions of the two men but that wasn't much help to investigators. Both men were in their twenties with dark clothing and caps. However, Mrs. Bailby insisted the criminals were just boys and wore knickerbockers.

While some took statements from the witnesses, other officers searched the area for more evidence. And they found some.

Where the two assailants left West Georgia Street to turn onto a side street, there was an area of newly planted grass on a boulevard. A strand of barbed wire, strung about a foot off the ground, surrounded the lawn.

On that strand, the police found a small piece of cloth, which appeared to be torn from a pair of men's trousers. Could this small piece of fabric belong to one of the murderers?

 Thanks goes to Joe Swan and his book POLICEBEAT for the information on this murder. I will tell you more on Friday.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, CPR, History, William Salsbury,Georgia Street, Vancouver Rowing Club, pioneer, rain, umbrella, police

CPR and Shaughnessy

For a little while now I have been showing you photos of homes in Shaughnessy and telling you about the history of those homes. But what about the area itself?

Spanning an area of 447 hectares, Shaughnessy is Vancouver's wealthiest district with an average annual household income of $136,252 and family income of $153,895^{.  (According to a 2001 census)}

Many of the homes built here were constructed either prior to or during World War II compared to 20.8% of the city at large.

Shaughnessy is bordered by 16th Avenue to the north, 41st Avenue to the south, Oak Street to the east and Arbutus Street/West Boulevard to the west. Its population is about 9020 with that coming from 2970 homes.

This area was developed by the CPR, the largest land developer at the time. It was named for the Canadian Pacific Railway's president from 1898 to 1918, Thomas George Shaughnessy.  Thomas went on to become Lord Shaughnessy.

In 1907 Richard Marpole, the general superintendent and executive assistant of CPR, began to subdivide a large tract of land which was on a hill south of False Creek. CPR was interested in making this area attractive and appealing to Vancouver's elite. It had to project the wealth and status of our more affluent residents and this exclusive neighbourhood would bring in former residents of the West End's Blue Blood Alley.

A Montreal architect by the name of Frederick Todd was hired to lay out the area in generous lots. Todd was inspired by Frederick Law Omstead - the architect who designed New York's Central Park.

Before any of the lots went on sale, CPR spent $2,000,000 preparing the site. Sewer lines were put in as were paved sidewalks and roads.

As I stated earlier the CPR wanted this neighbourhood to be exclusive and they ensured it would be by insisting that the homes cost five times or more that of any other home in Vancouver. Only the truly wealthy would reside here, on a hill looking over the rest of Vancouver. At least it was like that at the time.

A typical early Shaughnessy home consisted of twenty rooms that were filled with opulent furniture, silverware and other trappings that reflected the wealth and status of the owners. These were mansions with music rooms, parlours of every sort, reception rooms and ballrooms. There were also basement rooms labelled in architectural designs as Chinaman's Quarters where the servants - many of whom were Asian - would live. Family members would beckon the servants by using in house call boxes.

Guests were delivered in horse-drawn carriages under porte-cocheres then ushered into grand foyers. Of course that was before the arrival of the automobile. Deliveries and tradesmen naturally went to the rear of the house making this the busier area.

CPR's promoters were quite keen on getting the posh residents to move to the new neighbourhood and enticed the people by extending the BC Electric's Interurban to the new subdivision. The new area also had a tennis club, a lawn bowling club and later the Shaughnessy Heights Golf Club.

Shaughnessy was built in three sections and developed in phases. The first surrounded Shaughnessy Park and was called The Crescent. Then there were areas further south that were called Second Shaughnessy and Third Shaughnessy.

From 1911 through the twenties Shaughnessy was the place to be. Then World War I halted the growth in Vancouver and the Great Depression of the 1930s stalled advancement even more. The CPR was repossessing home after home and Shaughnessy became known as Mortgage Heights. The Tait House, valued at $75,000 in 1920 sold for $7,500 in 1939.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Richard Marpole, Vancouver, Frederick Todd, Frederick Law Omstead , Tait House, World War I, British Columbia

Firing Totem Poles

An interesting display at Stanley Park is that of the totem poles. Here is a lasting tribute to the people of the First Nations who first settled this area.

This gateway, and two others, were made by Susan Point of the Musqueam nation. This is important because the totem poles that you will see in a moment are not representative of the Coast Salish. They didn't make totem poles. Their carving talents were shown in such things as house posts and arches.

If you were so fortunate as to be invited into one of their lodges, an acrchway such as this might have greeted you.

This is called a Beaver Crest Pole and it was carved in 1987 by NISGA'A artist, Robert Tait along with his son Isaac, brother Robert and nephew Ron Telek.

It depicts a Tait family legend of how the eagle clan adopted the beaver as their crest and how the eagle and raven met and shared the sky. For the whole story you can go to the park and read the plaque in front.

The single pole you see here is the Oscar Maltipi Pole carved in 1968.  A Kwakwaka'wakw artist Oscar Maltipi trained at the Royal B.C. Museum under artist and teacher Henry Hunt.

This is entitled the Chief Wakas Pole. Traditionally in Kwakwaka'wakw ceremonies talking sticks, or carved staffs, were held by the people making speeches on behalf of the chief. This pole represents the talking stick used in an  Owikeno story relating to, guess who, Chief Wakas. The original pole was in front of Chief Wakas' house in Alert Bay in the 1890s. This one was carved by Nimpkish artist Doug Cramner in 1987.

Totem poles were like a coat of arms for the First Nations of British Columbia. They are unique to the North West coast of BC and lower Alaska. These carvings from red cedar were not worshipped nor were they regarded as idols. Rather each one tells a story - real or mythical.

This is a replica of a Thunderbird house post that had been carved by Kwakwaka'wakw artist Charles James in the early 1900s.This one was created by Tony Hunt in 1987 to replace the original which is in the Vancouver museum.

Haida artist Bill Reid with assistant Werner True carved this repllica of Chief Skedans Mortuary Pole in 1964. Don Yeomans had to recarve the moon face in 1998. It depicts his heriditary crests as well as events in his life. The board at the top covered a cavity that contained the chief's remains on the original pole.

The original pole was raised in the Haida Village of Skidegate about 1870 to honour the Raven Chief of Skedans.

The totem poles section of the park is an awe inspiring site and one well worth the effort to find.

Stanley Park and the area has been home to many different nationalities. In the 1860s Coal Harbour was settled by many Hawaiian families. They had a small community known as Kanaka Ranch, a name taken from their Polynesian heritage. The community was sustained by them growing fruits and vegetables and fishing and hunting. They produced charcoal and sold it to the Hastings Mill where the men workd and the children went to school.

At one point above the seawall is a plaque.

This slab was set here in 1863 or 1865, I can't read it clearly. It was set by the Royal Engineers and used as a survey point by the Royal Navy Survey Ship H.M.S. Egeria.

Not far from that is the Nine O'Clock Gun.

This is a naval type twelve pound muzzle loader and was cast at Woolwich England in 1816. (The Woolwich Factory is now known as the Royal Arsenal.) The crests of King George III and the Earl of Mulgrave, Master General of Ordance, are engraved on the barrel. It was brought to Vancouver about 1894.

This gun is one of sixteen that was given to the 'provinces of Canada by the British Government in 1856 (11 years before Confederation). Three of those guns made it to the West Coast.

Two guns were outside the legislative buildings in Victoria but those were melted down in 1940 as part of the War effort. This one resided for a while in Nanaimo to quell discord between nervous miners and the native population. From what I've read it was more of a visual - and auditory - deterrent rather than a weapon. Next it went to Esquimalt where unrest brewed due to the conflict between Britain and the United States over an international border line.

Once that hullabaloo was over with the gun was placed at Stanley Park and first fired on October 5, 1898. The story goes that at one time a dynamite explosion was set off nightly at nine pm to aid in navigation. There are apparently a couple of different versions of why but all I will tell you is that every night at nine o'clock the gun fires. It is heard at Granville and Hastings at five seconds after; in Marpole 35 seconds after; in New Westminster a full minute after and even in Mission at more than three minutes after the hour. I will have to try to listen for it.

A few more observations of my time yesterday at Stanley Park. I hope you enjoyed it and I wish all of you a great weekend.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

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