Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Victoria, BC aka James Bay, Beckley Farm, all staked out by HBC and CPR 1863

It took a while to figure out which way was up with this map from 1863 of Victoria, BC when compared to Google Earth.   It was the little bit of filling out the waterfront profile, for various shipping reasons, and the DND.

Beckley Farm   48°24'58.62"N 123°22'47.64"W

Go to Google Earth and check out the waterfront line for Beacon Hill Park and find the shoals just off shore.....
1863

Red Wedge shape, is part of the BC Legislature Precinct

Go to Google Earth and check out the waterfront line for Beacon Hill Park and you'll find the shoals just off shore.....which forms the boundary....    Sea Levels, higher in 1863?
2014
Who owned which property in 1860?

1863 Committee Book Minutes

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History

The original inhabitants of James Bay were the Swenghwung people who were part of the Lekwungen people of the Coast Salish and whose descendants today are known as the Songhees First Nation. Even after the aboriginal inhabitants allegedly sold the land to the Hudson's Bay Company, remains of fortifications at Holland Point and of burial grounds at Laurel Point remained. The neighbourhood takes its name from the shallow inlet James Bay that forms part of Victoria's Inner Harbour, named for James Douglas, Settled early after the establishment of Fort Victoria in 1843, much of the present day neighbourhood was originally part of Ogden's Fields Farms, subsequently known as Dutnall's Farm and then Beckley Farm.

Residential development of James Bay began in 1859 when Governor Douglas decided to construct the colonial administration offices for the Colony of Vancouver Island across the harbour from Fort Victoria.  Known as the Birdcages because of their somewhat fanciful design, the Birdcages were replaced in 1898 by Francis Mawson Rattenbury's Parliament Buildings, which still serve as the meeting place of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia.

Between the construction of the Birdcages in 1859 and the completion of the Parliament Buildings in 1898, a considerable amount of residential development took place in James Bay. The family home of James and Amelia Douglas stood on the location of the present Royal British Columbia Museum, behind which is located the house of John Sebastian Helmcken, the colony's first doctor, speaker of the Assembly, and son-in-law of the governor. SNIP

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