Wongs' Benevolent Association
Wong’s Benevolent Society acts as a marker for the incredibly controversial Janet smith murder case. On 26 July 1924 Janet Smith, a Scottish nursemaid, was found dead with a bullet in her head. All conditions surrounding her murder were suspicious: the fact that it was called in by Wong Foon Sign, a Chinese houseboy infatuated with Smith, the fact that the there was no bullet, blood, or brain tissue on the wall, the fact that the event was quickly categorized as a suicide, resulting in the hasty embalming of her corpse.Smith’s family did not take this lightly, quickly contacting the newly formed United Council of Scottish Societies, who in turn pressed the provincial government to reopen the file. Upon reopening the death was reclassified as a murder, and immediate suspicion fell upon Wong. Even though nothing could be confirmed, months later Wong was kidnapped, held captive, and tortured with the hope that he would confess. Wong never confessed and was released six weeks later.To this day the case is still unsolved and acts as a rather cold reminder of some of the race tensions present in a cultural mosaic like Vancouver. For, even though the kidnappers were initially masked they later revealed themselves to be police commissioners, a chief of police, a detective sergeant, and three prominent officials in the cities Scottish societies.Bibliography Kerwin, Scott. “Smith, Janet Kennedy.” Dictoinary of Canadian Biogrpahy, vol.15. University of Toronto. 2005. bibliographi.ca Web. June 2017.“Murder Mystery, Janet Smith.” Retrived from: https://vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/murder-mystery-intrigue-speaker-series-review-janet-smith/
Franciscan Sisters of Atonement
On June 13th, 1886, Vancouver was virtually destroyed in a fire along with most of the East End. Following the fire, efforts were made to reconstruct the buildings that were burnt to a crisp. A property at 383 East Cordova, which was formerly 333 Oppenheimer, was one of the structures built after the fire. It is one of the only houses that still stands in Vancouver on its original location on the corner of Cordova and Dunlevy. This building dates back to 1887 and records indicate that it is most likely to be the oldest building in Vancouver--maybe even older than the city itself. Although the home has been modified and added to over the years, the pitched roof still remains intact and can be seen in photographs dating back to 1887. The building is now owned by the Franciscan Sisters of Atonement, but it was previously home to Thomas Dunn, a Scottish hardware merchant who was also one of Vancouver’s first aldermen. The house was then home to another Scot named Archibald Murray Beattie and his family in 1894. According to the Vancouver Sun, the 1895 city directory lists a series of job titles for Beattie, such as an auctioneer at Vancouver’s Market Hall and a notary public worker, but little else is known about him.Bibliography: Johnstone, James. “Mill town memories.” Vancouver Sun. Pressreader, 8 April 2011. Web. 26 May 2017.
Dunn-Miller Block
The Dunn-Miller Block, now known for housing one of Vancouver’s flagship Army & Navy locations, was established in 1889. A sign in front of the store states that the Army and Navy Departmnt Store purchased the building in the 1930s. This three-storey late Victorian Italiante commercial building, noteworthy for its long facade that occupies almost half a block, was owned by Thomas Dunn and Jonathan Miller. Dunn and Miller were renowned local businessmen who were active members of the community. Miller was born in Melbourne, Ontario, arriving in Granville in 1865. He was appointed Granville’s first constable and also became Vancouver’s first postmaster. Dunn was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and he moved to Vancouver in 1886. He was elected as one of Vancouver’s first aldermen, during Vancouver’s first civic election in 1886. Both men are linked to Vancouver for developing two connected, but separate buildings known as the Dunn-Miller Block. This building is one of many warehouses constructed in Gastown at the time of Vancouver’s economic boom.Prior to settling in Canada in 1876, Dunn was a hardware merchant in England for two years. When he moved to Vancouver he started his own hardware business at Powell and Corral. In the same year, Dunn’s business and home suffered a huge loss when the Great Fire of June 13, 1886 destroyed the city. Two years after the devastating fire, Dunn hired architect N.S. Hoffar to design a bigger structure to house his hardware business and a ship chandlery. Hoffar completed the Dunn-Miller Block just in time to profit from a wave of miners who were seeking their fortune during the Klondike Gold Rush. This building was one of the first structures to be constructed of enduring material, such as brick, stone and cast iron, after the great fire. Therefore, the Dun-Miller Block was representative of Vancouver’s renewed prosperity, and it is said that Dunn even held a ball in the warehouse to celebrate its grand opening.Bibliography: “Dunn-Miller Block.” Canada’s Historic Places. Retrieved from http://www. historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=8557“The fastest City Hall ever built.” Lowtide Properties. Sep 1 2016.
Lord Strathcona Community School
Named after the incredibly wealthy Scottish businessman and philanthropist, Donald Alexander Smith, 1st lord Baron Strathcona. Born in Forres, Scotland, 1820, Smith’s beginnings were humble compared to the success he would find in Canada. Although his parents were distantly related to Scottish nobility, their wealth came from farming and the crafting of saddles. After finishing his schooling, smith declined an apprenticeship with a law firm, instead deciding to peruse a more mercantile life, choosing to be a junior clerk in the HBC. Through many trials and clever networking, Smith managed to find himself as administrator of the Northwest Territories and Manitoba. After leaving the HBC Smith’s ventures took off in all sorts of directions, from political to philanthropic. At the time of his death Smith had lived as the president of the bank of Montreal, the Canadian high commissioner to the United Kingdom, and the man who drove the last spike into the transatlantic railway.Lord Strathcnona holds a legacy that extends not just across Vancouver but across the entirety of Canada. He has a park named after him in Alberta, a township in the Northwest Territories, and even an entire municipality in Montreal.Housed in Vancouver’s oldest residential district, Lord Strathcona Elementary is the longest continuously running school in the city and is educates more children yearly than any other school in Vancouver. Despite the historic prestige surrounding the elementary school, it is merely a small marker in Smith’s vast legacy.Bibliography Reford, Alexander. “Smith, Dontald Alexander, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal.” Dictionary of Canadian Biograpy, vol. 14. University of Toronto. 1998. Biographi.ca Web. June 2017.“Lord Strathcona Community School.” Retrived form: http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=11304
Mcnair house
The McNair residence was commissioned and occupied by wealthy Vancouver manufacturer and businessman James Archibad McNair. Born in Jacquet River, New Brunswick in 1865, McNair was the son of two Scottish immigrants. Despite being the youngest of seven brothers, James had tremendous success when he moved to Vancouver in 1892 at the age of 27 to establish a shingle mill at Hastings. through the years the McNair Fraiser Lumber Company would expand greatly, expanding operations to Lynn Valley on the North Shore of Burrard Inlet and a number of shingle mills across the border in Washington. James was hit by a car when he was 75. According to his obituary, at its peak James’ company was at the largest shingle mill operation in the world.This house is one of two in Vancouver that stand as a memento of James’ life. Built just before the turn of the 20th century, it housed his family for no more than four years. While it’s difficult to trace all of its historical feature back to its origin, the patterned shingle sidings remain as a worthy tribute to the man known as “the shingle king of North America”Bibliography Kalman, Harold and Robin Ward, Exploring Vancouver: The Architectural Guide. D &M Publishers. 2012. Google Books: Web. June 2017.Kennith and Sharron Mcmillan, “Hard to Come By: A Family Archive”. Retrived from: http://www.hardtocomeby.com/ps04/ps04_105.htm
Malcom Mcllennan
Captain Malcom MacLennan was one of Vancouvers first chief constables. Now a massive operation with over thousands of employees, when MacLennan started as a chief constable, the force would have consisted of only around thirty men. This small band was far from enough to police a rapidly growing city of twenty-five thousand, at least that would be so if they had conventional working hours. But the first policemen of Vancouver didn’t, and they were expected to work seven days a week. MacLennen was quick to change this, striking a deal with the police commission to grant his boys two days off a month and a pay raise. Ever the progressive, MacLennen was the first Chief to hire a visible minority. Additionally he lobbied, for the therapeutic treatments of drug addicts, rather than branding them as criminals. Maclennens long sixteen years as police chief was cut short when, on March 20th 1917, he was called in from his son’s 10th birthday party to deal with a violent cocaine addict brandishing a shotgun and refusing to pay his landlord for rent. After leading the charge into the storming of the suspect’s apartment he was shot. A small mosaic can be found on the street in his memory.Bibliography “Fallen Officers: Malcom Maclennan”. Vancouver Police Museum. Retrived from: https://vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/fallenofficers/malcolm_maclennan.htm“History of the VPD.” Vancouver’s Police History. Retrived from: http://vancouver.ca/police/about/history/
MacLean Park
This park is named after Canada’s first mayor, the Scottish born Malcom Alexander Maclean. Mclean came to Vancouver at the ripe age of forty-two in 1886, three months before the city became Vancouver. When he arrived there were “but a hundred habitable buildings “with a population of only six hundred. These numbers would expand rapidly in the comings months, but at the time of the first election it would still be miniscule. He made a fast impression, and was convinced into running for mayor by strikers at Hastings sawmill who were hesitant about the new mayor breaking the strike with cheep Chinese labor. Malcom won by 17 votes (although it has since been confirmed that there were in fact 100 votes cast by those ineligible to vote), and was Vancouver’s mayor for a two short one-year terms, where he secured a fire truck to protect from rather flammable colonial town, and helped rebuild quickly rebuild portions of the city when the fire truck was inevitably delivered late.Although MacLean’s lineage stretches back to the beginning of Vancouver the park in his name is a relatively new creation. It was originally constructed in the early 60’s as part of the award winning Strathcona rehabilitation project. Bibliography “Malcolm Alexander MacLean.” Retrived from: http://www.vancouverhistory.ca/archives_macLean.htm“Strathcona residents: our history.” Retrived from: http://strathcona-residents.org/our-history
