Walter Dawley

Dawley arrived on the west coast in the early 1890s.  In partnership with Thomas Stockham, he initially set up shop as a fur trader on Stockham Island near Opitsat village.  In 1902, he and Stockham moved to the settlement known as Clayoquot on Stubbs Island, taking over the store and hotel there. In these days before Tofino existed, Clayoquot was the commercial heart of the region.  Dawley had interests in every imaginable commercial activity on the coast:  he was Mining Recorder, Postmaster, moneylender, and Justice of the Peace.  Closely involved in the fur seal industry, he was provisioner to sealing schooners and  broker for sealing crews;  he was acquainted with all of the boys exploring mining claims on the coast; he was aware of every business deal for hundreds of miles around. Never one to tolerate a bad debt or a rotten shipment of onions, he was unforgiving, demanding and as tough as nails.

"Anchored solidly in place behind his store counter on Stockham Island, Walter Dawley was an imposing figure, large and inscrutable, no detail ever escaping his attention. His ambition was as expansive as his waistline; he intended his business to prosper, to grow and eventually to dominate the coast. He overlooked no opportunity and brooked no opposition. In charge of all the paperwork for the partnership, Dawley conducted business almost entirely by mail. All but a very few of his own outgoing letters have been lost, but letters written to him, and in response to him, survive in the thousands. These letters provide an intricately detailed, revealing picture of how his business operated, and how the area around him developed, over nearly three decades."

 

Thomas Stockham

The partnership between Thomas Stockham and Walter Dawley lasted until late 1903, when it dissolved in bitter and acrimonious dispute.  Before that, though, the names of the two men were synonymous with west coast trade, and they worked very successfully together despite being extremely different characters.  Dawley was calculating and imperturbable, highly efficient, and clearly more educated than Stockham.  Stockham’s letters reveal him to be hotheaded, conspiratorial and unpredictable.  In the summer of 1902 he was in Victoria, firing off wildly agitated letters to Dawley about the coming of the telegraph line to Clayoquot:

"Stockham’s letters concerning the fate of the telegraph line became increasingly agitated, written in such haste they are almost indecipherable. A letter dated July 8, 1902, veers crazily from one subject to the next, exhorting Dawley to remember the “ankring” of the telegraph cable, agitating about a special deal to buy a hundred cheap sacks of sugar, warning Dawley of a man called Croft, who Stockham believed was out to cheat them—“he is a crooked bugar we had better look out for him.”

By September, Stockham was in a fever of excitement because William Henderson of the Dominion Government Telegraph Service would soon be at Clayoquot to determine the fate of the telegraph line. “Mr. Henderson says he is going to Clayoquot perhaps on the next boat so make it as pleasant as you can for him,” he wrote gleefully on September 8. “Keep one of the best rooms for him have it cleaned in good shape also look after him at the table
. . . Stool him out hoor him. . . Stir him up.” Stockham advised Dawley to have Henderson check some surveyed parcels of land over on the peninsula, “on the Town Site on top of the hill no streets opened or any clearing,” and to do this “before Chesterman gets a hold of him.” This entire letter is a jumbled outpouring of shady suggestions, ending with further instructions for Dawley to keep Henderson happy any way he can: “Hoor Walter. Take him fishing or shooting if he will go make it as pleasant as you can for him do not charge him for board and be free with them best cigars.”

Whether or not Dawley followed Stockham’s advice—did he “hoor” Henderson and ply him with “them best cigars”—the outcome was satisfactory. On September 22, William Henderson wrote to Stockham and Dawley to say that their application “for Telegraph connection to the Alberni-Clayoquot Telegraph line by cable from Stubbs Island to the terminus of the line at Clayoquot Townsite had been granted by the Department at Ottawa.”

 

Father Charles Moser

For thirty years, Father Charles kept a diary describing his work as a missionary on the west coast.  Over the years, he was based at Opitsat, Hesquiat and at Christie School, and he worked also at Nootka, Port Alice, and other west coast locations. A small, spare man,  unswerving in his religious zeal, he was an indefatigable traveller on the coast, by canoe, sail and steamer. 

More than one version of Father Charles’s  diary exists; the most authoritative is at Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon.  He edited his original year-by-year journals, only some of which survive, to produce this 1100 page long version. Another much shorter, heavily edited version of his diary can be found in the BC Archives.

In his diary, Father Charles provides vivid descriptions of his travels on the coast. He writes at length of his domestic and church duties, of illness amongst First Nations people on the coast, about Christie School and about his fellow priests. He frequently mentions white settlers and storekeepers: he and his confreres were regular customers at Walter Dawley’s store.

Some of his most memorable diary entries are descriptions of deathbeds; he attended many, insisting on being present to try to save souls, whether or not he was welcome.

In 1907, Emma Peter lay dying. Back in 1902, her family had strongly resisted sending her to school, and Emma hid under the blankets, fighting “like a wild animal” according to Father Charles’s diary, before being forced into the boat and carried off to Kakawis. She had no fight left in her now.

October 22, 1907: At 5 pm I gave Extreme Unction to Emma. . . During the whole time Mrs. Peter was scolding and even slapped my hand. On a former visit to the sick girl old Tom, the Grand father and a friend of mine, cursed me with “God damn you” and called me a “damned fool.”. . . Emma gave her mother no sign of disapproval or to be quiet.

Three days later, Father Charles visited Emma again:

She was in her death agony. I made an act of contrition with her and gave her absolution. Her mother still acted mean and scolded; hence I left with the remark I would soon return. About 10 o’clock a woman was sent from Peters house with the message I should come and “make church” for Emma. With surplice and stole I gave her the last blessing with plenary indulgence. An hour later I entered the house again. I found her breathing her last and just had time to call the name of Jesus. Then she was dead. . . I said the funeral prayers in the house over the trunk in which she had been laid and the Indians took her to a rocky Island.

Father Maurus Snyder

The first principal of Christie Indian Residential School, Father Maurus was on the west coast from 1900 – 1911.  Unlike Father Charles Moser, he kept no diary, but he did keep a great number of letters from priests, Christie School students, and from others on the west coast.   This remarkable collection of papers has never before been examined.  Father Maurus also wrote several articles and scraps of memoir.  One of these is quoted in Chapter Three of Voices from the Sound.

“The school was here,” wrote Father Maurus Snyder in an article recollecting his early days on the coast, “but where were the pupils? Children had to be sought after.” He wasted no time. Only days after his arrival he was on board the next steamer up the coast, fetching children to the school from the nominally Catholic villages:

Canvassing parents for children proved no easy task . . . In many cases the Indians were reluctant in sending their children to school . . .Their medicine men and Indian doctors and sorcerers spared no pains in discouraging the parents sending the children to school. They even spread evil rumours about the school. They said the boys would have to wear pants all the time. For them pants were an abomination. . .Also they would have to work and get sick from working. . .They would be given bread with fine glass and sand mixed up in it to eat.

Despite these warnings, a few parents from Hesquiat and Opitsat agreed to send their children to school. At Kyuquot, “after much pow-wow the chief signed up his two sons Michael and Felix,” according to Father Maurus, and a third boy, Leo, also came from Kyuquot. None came from Ahousat, at least not initially. Father Maurus met more resistance at Ahousat than anywhere else. “A burly fellow wanted to shoot me for going on the Ahousat reserve for children for the school,” he wrote years later. “I outbluffed him and he did not shoot me.”

Classes began May 28, 1900, only twelve days after the priests and sisters arrived. Thirteen children attended on the first day, having first submitted to what Father Maurus termed the “bathing, currying and clothing” process, mandatory for every child. “The Sister matron rang the bell for the girls to assemble. Father Maurus took the boys under his tutorship. . .The boys looked wide-eyed as Father Maurus spoke a language sounding strange to them.”

Father Augustin Brabant

The pioneer Catholic priest on the coast, Father Augustin Brabant arrived to set up the first west coast mission at Hesquiat in 1874.  A towering and forceful individual he outfaced great opposition, doggedly remaining on the coast for over thirty years.  In 1899-1900 he was responsible for the creation of Christie Indian Residential School, on Meares Island, an establishment that had enormous impact on the native people of the west coast.

Brabant’s first decades on the coast are well documented elsewhere, but Voices from the Sound reveals previously unknown letters from Father Brabant to Father Maurus Snyder, dating from 1901 until shortly before his death in 1911. These letters include descriptions of children attending Christie School, an account of Chief Maquinna’s death, diatribes about the incoming Protestant missionaries, and bitter laments about Brabant’s eventual departure from the west coast. The earlier letters focus almost entirely on children and families from villages up the coast.

Brabant deluged Father Maurus with detailed information about the families of the Indians along the coast. This exchange of coastal gossip had one purpose: to inform Father Maurus about the children who might come to the school, about their families, their social positions and their relationships. Writing from Hesquiat in June 1901, Brabant said:

If Mr “Swan” comes with his children be sure to take them—his wife’s father owned all of Flores Island and the boy is in the regular order of things called to become one of the Ahousat Chiefs! If Jacob comes with his little girl she is a first cousin of Callista and Dan and as she is small she might be put to bed alongside of Callista—she is a very interesting child.

. . . Many of the children Brabant sent to the school had lost one or both parents. He did not consider this in any way remarkable; for years he had seen tuberculosis ravaging the native population on the coast, breaking up family groups. In telling Father Maurus about a Hesquiat child called Agnes, Brabant explained that the parents were anxious she be accepted though she was just seven years old: “She is very bright for her age—one of the reasons for the parents sending her at so early an age is because the mother is sick and spits blood from time to time.” Repeatedly, Brabant described the health problems of various individuals:

I am glad that you accepted the boy Sennen—However I am now informed that he has not been very well since last sealing season and if you should notice that he is really sick it will be in order to send him back . . .He belongs to a sickly family but I always found him to be an exemplary young fellow. He never missed being at church twice every Sunday.

Sennen did not last long at the school. His name surfaces in Harry Guillod’s report of 1902: ”The majority of the pupils seem strong and healthy. One discharged pupil, Sennat [Sennen], a good Christian lad and promising scholar, died at his father’s house at Heshquiat of consumption, but he was not a strong boy when admitted to the school.” Guillod was also all too familiar with the prevalence of tuberculosis. In his report of 1899 he commented wearily that “the death-rate for the past year has been exceptionally heavy; as usual, tuberculous diseases prove the most fatal.”

Frederick Christian Thornberg

Easily the most voluble letterwriter in Clayoquot Sound at the turn of the century, Fred Thornberg covered hundreds of pages of thin onionskin paper with his spiky, tiny handwriting. As the storekeeper at Ahousat, Thornber’s employer was Walter Dawley, so Thornberg addressed all of his orders, complaints and grievances to Dawley, at enormous length. Thornberg had been on the coast as a trader ever since 1874, becoming more erratic and contrary as each year passed. In later years, he wrote many letters to Father Maurus Snyder, but nothing can equal the volume of his correspondence with Dawley. His spelling, punctuation and use of abbreviations add a strangely bizarre appeal to his letters.

January 12, 1899

Mr Dawley
St arrived here at dark to night & blowing a gale & raining = could not land goods to night but will do so in the morning = you sent me to menny Boston Pilots 15 Boxes so the Bill sais = the Potlash [potlatch] is over but eaven if the had come last trip of St I could not have sold half of them. . . after this trade will be very small until the sch comes for sealing.

On this occasion, the steamer arrived late at Ahousat, in foul weather and at night, so Thornberg did not manage to paddle the cargo safely ashore. It remained overnight in his dugout canoe. To make matters worse, when he examined the freight, he found too many boxes of pilot biscuits and far too much fruit. “I dont want enny Fruit pr next St,” he declared testily, with his characteristic underlinings and abbreviations, adding, “if you send Apples = I shal reaturn them no sale for them here.” Thornberg was particularly annoyed about these apples, for he had ordered them much earlier from Dawley, but they did not arrive in time for the potlatch.

Potlatches, the lengthy and lavish ceremonies so central to the native culture on the coast, traditionally brought large numbers of people together for feasting and sharing. The host of a potlatch spent money abundantly on gifts of food, clothing and household goods to be given away to invited guests from far and wide. Storekeepers could rely on making ample profits from potlatches, and Fred Thornberg knew exactly what to order for his store in advance: popular items included print fabric and ribbon, blankets and shawls, raisins and rice, soup plates and washtubs, biscuits and, very importantly, apples. But this time the apples were late, the four-day potlatch at Ahousat was over and all the visitors had dispersed back to their home villages. No one was at Ahousat to buy the excess apples.

To add to his gloom, Thornberg knew that trade would now be slow until the seal-hunting season opened in the spring. The dreary days of winter stretched ahead, and he was completely out of sorts. Cheerlessly, he passed on the bad news that the recent potlatch brought the store far less money than expected: “as for the Potlatch Cashe from the Ahouset was about $200.00 = most of the Indians here are dead broak = wants goods on trust I wont give trust = so the trade is not much = about $30.00 a Day for 4 dayes.”

James W. Jones

Hailed in the Victoria newspaper as “ ‘Black Jones’ than whom there is no better prospector in the district...” James Jones swashbuckled his way into Walter Dawley’s correspondence files in the late 1890s. One of the most engaging of all Dawley’s correspondents, Jones was blithely convinced he would make his fortune at his claims up at Sydney Inlet.

The early years of his acquaintance with Dawley find Jones at his happiest. “Dear Friend Charley” his letters begin, or “Dear Charlie.” Few people felt free to address Dawley by his nickname, but Jones was a breezy soul, much chattier than most of the boys who came and went at Clayoquot. “Excuse this writing as my only table is a gold pan,” he announced cheerfully in a letter from Sydney Inlet in July 1898, requesting that “prospecting shoes” be sent up to him on the next steamer. In his letters, Jones joked with both Walter Dawley and Thomas Stockham, chaffing “Friend Tom” about his bald head and always passing on regards to any of the boys who happened to be around.

All of “the boys” on the coast were surprised when James Jones enlisted to go overseas to fight in the Boer War late in 1900. He wrote to Dawley several times from South Africa, always harking back to Sydney Inlet.

Steamer Sardinia, Cape Varde
November 12, 1899

Dear Friends:
You will see by my letter I have arrived so far safely on my journey we are now 3060 miles from Quebec and about 8000 from Clayoquot . . . Let me know when you write how Sidney Inlet is looking and give me all the news you can. . . It will be full three weeks before we arrive in Cape Town this steamer only makes about 10 miles per hour it was a horrible sight the first two days out from Quebec nearly three quarters of the men were sea sick . . . about 100 men are layed up with the Clap and about 50 with the old roll. Crabs are numerous.

Despite being reported dead, Jones made it back to the west coast, and back up to his mining claims. Evnetually – and very reluctantly – he sold his interests in the Sydney Inlet property, informing Dawley about his decision with characteristic good humour, during a visit to Victoria.

Dear Friend: As you will see by this letter I am still in the city of convivial companions and you will here suppose that I have been trying to paint the city a cardinal hue. Well Sidney Inlet is no longer our property. We sold out to Dewdney at a great sacrifice....

Mike Hamilton

Mike Hamilton’s letters to his fiancee Mabel Hall provide the backbone for one of the later chapters in Voices from the Sound.  Mike first arrived on the coast in 1914 to work on extending the telegraph line from Clayoquot up to Nootka.  Later, as a telegraph lineman, he became a familiar figure on the coast.  His sister and brother-in-law came to work at Estevan Point, and his brother homesteaded nearby.  The Hamilton clan became regular visitors at the home of Father Charles Moser during his years at Hesquiat, and they appear frequently in his diary.

 

By the early 1920s Mike had settled in the growing community of Tofino, where he had a machine shop. By then, he was passionately hoping to marry Mabel. They had met many years earlier on the ocean steamer that brought them to Canada, when Mabel was only twelve years old. In his letters, Mike poured out his heart to Mabel, telling her of his plans for their house, his dreams for their future, and often describing his surroundings and his fellow Tofinoites.

 

“There is a lull in the war in Tofino,” he wrote cryptically on one occasion,  “and everything is very quiet on both fronts. I often wish I was a cartoonist and I could have endless fun out of the situation here.”  On another occasion, Mike explained to Mabel how he decided who would receive credit at his machine shop:

To an Indian we scarcely if ever give credit, they are a poor class of customer anyhow. They are forever grumbling no matter how little your charges may be. They have inferior boats and engines anyhow they don’t look after them and only bring them in for repair when they are gone beyond that stage. Therefore they are undesirable as customers for this reason and because they will never pay a debt . . .The white people with boats are few and are also poor customers what few there are are usually broke. They are, as a rule, poor fishermen and it is for this reason I don’t like giving them credit . . .Then there are the Japs, our best customer in every way. . .They usually have splendid boats & engines they keep them in good condition and will not tolerate you doing a poor piece of work. They want the best. They are good payers, always cheerful and ready to lend a hand let it be financial or otherwise. They will subscribe to any good cause to their last cent. In short they are ideal citizens notwithstanding all that has been said against them.

Stockham Island, probably around 1900. Stockham and Dawley ran their business empire from here, provisioning satellite stores at Ahousat and Nootka. They remained here until 1902, when they moved to Stubbs Island.

Father Charles

Father Maurus and Father Brabant at Christie School

Christie School at Kakawis on Meares Island, 1900

“I am glad that my love and your love proved true. . . ours is not an ordinary love affair,” Mike wrote to Mabel. The Hamiltons are pictured here, probably after their wedding in 1924.