Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 20

The History of Fort Langley, 1827-96

by Mary K. Cullen

Appendix G. The Physical Appearance of Fort Langley — A Brief Look.

Fort Langley 1827

The first Fort Langley was located about six leagues above the entrance of the Fraser River on the south bank in "latitude 49°-11N and longitude 120°-35W."¹ The building party of 25 under the command of McMillan anchored near the fort site at the junction of the Fraser and Salmon rivers on 29 July 1827.² From the moment the first stick was cut for Fort Langley on 1 August,³ faithful entries were made in the post journal reporting the building process. Through these passages, the three-year Fort Langley journal provides us with a good overall picture of an otherwise unphotographed, unsketched complex.

Operations started with the construction of a defensible enclosure which, following Company practice, meant one or more blockhouses or bastions and a palisade. The builders were divided into teams, some men felling timber and burning and clearing away the underwood, others squaring wood, and two men constantly at the pitsaw. Within a week enough timber had been squared for a bastion and some pickets cut for the fort walls. The following week the first bastion was up and covered with cedar bark which was purchased from the Indians. By 20 August most of the wood required for picketing had been cut and hauled to the site and the next morning four men started digging a trench three feet deep for the pickets. A second bastion was finished on 31 August and on 8 September McMillan recorded that "the Picketing of the Fort was Completed, and the Gates hung."⁴

The rectangle enclosed was 40 yds. by 45 yds. To make the 15-ft-high palisade walls, logs 4 in. to 5 in. thick and 18 ft. in length had been planted in the ground, their edges squared so as to come closer together.⁵ The walls contained at least two gates although their precise location or construction is not described. Two "good" bastions formed part of the defence structure, one on the north side and the other at the southeast corner. These were "12 ft. square each, built of 8 inch Logs and having a lower and upper flooring the latter ... to be occupied by ... artillery."⁶

It had taken just six weeks to prepare a wall of safety, but more than two years would be spent in building its interior community. The builders adopted the poteaux-sur-sol method of construction found at many fur-trade forts. Basically, this form consisted of a timber frame resting on short timber blocks, horizontal logs filling up walls between spaced vertical posts which were mortised into sills and top plates.⁷ The necessities of minimal personal comfort rather than business considerations initially dictated building priorities. Until their own quarters were finished, the builders lived in rude bark huts which they shifted as required.⁸ During the first year ten buildings were put up and improvements were made in the security arrangements.

Before the schooner Cadboro, which had brought the establishing party, was able to leave, it was necessary to build a store for the reception of the trade goods and supplies. This structure was begun on 10 September, raised to its height within four days and "roofed in with an excellent Bark Covering" on 15 September.⁹

During the next month, houses were put up for the "Gentlemen" and staff. A dwelling house for McMillan and his clerk George Barnston was built near the front gate (probably the river or north side of the fort). In another unspecified location a small wintering house was constructed which promised to make a "snug & Comfortable quarters" for some of the men. It was 30 ft. long by 15 ft. broad and was divided into two apartments each provided with a fireplace and two windows. A second and larger wintering house occupying one side of the square had three apartments with a fireplace in each. With the exterior work done on the houses by 13 October, McMillan reported "the Chimneys now only require to be built and a little work done inside, to make them habitable."¹⁰

During this time salmon traded from the Indians and kept in the store was found to be mouldy.¹¹ To prevent this important provision from spoiling, a salmon shed was therefore built where the stock of dried fish was hung. Underneath the shed, which was probably raised off the ground several feet, constant fires were kept lighted to dry the air.¹²

In winter the pace of building slowed. Besides making a mess house and chimneys in the kitchen,¹³ the men concentrated on shoring up the defence structure. A 4-ft.-wide gallery was carried round the fort inside the pickets. The gallery was supported by squared posts at various intervals and faced in the bastion corners with thick boards to render it more secure from shot. In these same corners, stairs 16 ft. by 4 ft. led to the gallery. Doors were cut in the upper stories of the bastions to permit entrance for the guard on lookout.¹⁴ For further security the inside of the palisade wall was lined with small pickets to fill any gaps.¹⁵

Four new buildings were undertaken in the summer of 1828. A house 30 ft. by 20 ft. containing two rooms of 15 ft. by 20 ft. was put up at the west side of the gate. By September a house 20 ft. square and a blacksmith shop was also finished.¹⁶ The most ambitious project, however, was the Big House, the manager's residence at Company forts and the most important building at a post. The sills and six posts of the Big House were laid on 15 May 1828. In five days the walls had been filled up and the roof put on. The floor was then laid, followed by the building of the cellar. The house had a front and back door and 12 windows although five of these were later filled up.¹⁷ At the end of the summer some exterior and all interior arrangements still remained to be completed.

One year after its commencement Fort Langley contained ten buildings: a store, dwelling house for the gentlemen, wintering house (30 ft. by 15 ft.), wintering house of three apartments, salmon shed, mess house, house (30 ft. by 20 ft.), house (20 ft. square), blacksmith shop and Big House. When McDonald arrived to assume charge of the post in October 1828, he described the principal buildings of this complex in his private journal:

The Fort is 135 feet by 120, with two good bastions, and a gallery of four feet wide all round. A building ______ feet long, of three compartments for the men, a small log house of two compartments, in which the gentlemen themselves now reside, and a store of about______ feet are now occupied, besides which there are two other buildings, one a good dwelling house, with an excellent cellar and a spacious garret, a couple of well finished chimnies are up, and the whole inside now ready for wainscoting and partitioning, four large windows in front, one in each end, and one with a corresponding door in the back. The other is a low building with only two square rooms and a fire place in each, and a kitchen adjoining made of slab.¹⁸ McDonald's omission in this description of the houses 30 ft. by 20 ft. and 20 ft. square, and the salmon shed, blacksmith shop and mess house is not immediately clear although such structures as a salmon shed and mess house may have been considered so basic as to be assumed.

A month after the arrival of the new officer in charge, the palisade was extended 35 ft. backwards "finding a space of 135 x f 20 feet even with the present buildings far too Confined." The southeast bastion was moved to its new position, a gallery and corner platform finished, and a swivel gun mounted thereon. During December picketing was erected to shut up the spaces between the front gate and the corners of the houses.¹⁹

Work continued in the Big House throughout the winter of 1828-29. Stairs were built to the garret. Extra windows and a blank space behind the chimneys were filled up with logs and a kitchen with outside chimney and oven was constructed adjoining the main structure.²⁰

McDonald felt there was need for some inside sanitary facilities. On 3 November 1828 he wrote, "began a place of convenience for the Gentlemen inside the Fort, and Similar accommodation is absolutely necessary for our men on various accounts." "The little House" was finished on 5 November and another later made for the staff. The journal entry for 27 June 1829 indicates the fort also had a bathhouse.²¹

An Indian shop, mechanic's shop, cooper's shop and new store completed McDonald's building program. Although reference is made to the first three structures,²² no details or description appear in the journal. During June 1829 wood was squared for a 53-ft. store requiring an estimated 240 pieces. The wall plate was put on in December and in June 1830 the store was covered with shingles which had been originally intended for export.²³ The completion of the fort was announced in McDonald's report to the governor and council, 25 February 1830, which stated, For the nature of all the Business that is likely to be carried on here the Fort is now sufficiently well arranged. To finish the Buildings inside, a good spacious Store of 55 feet long and a large Coopers Shop are erected, both indispensible should any thing extensive be undertaken in the way of fish curing.²⁴

From 1833 to 1836 when the abandonment of Fort Langley was being considered, it might be assumed that few additions and minimal repairs were made in structure. As the post became of growing importance to the provisioning of coastal vessels and forts, Company attention focused on its "delapitated" state and inconvenient situation for both the fishery and farm.²⁵ By 1839 a decision was made to build a new Fort Langley "a few miles higher up on the banks of Fraser's River."²⁶

Fort Langley 1839

The 1839 site, 2-1/2 miles upstream from the original fort, was chosen since it was "fully as convenient for the fur and Salmon trade, as the former site and, moreover, possesses the important and desirable advantage of being much nearer the farm."²⁷

Work started on the new fort in the spring of 1839. As had been the procedure for the 1827 fort, the palisading and bastions were built first to form a protected square and a store was made to receive the goods. After moving from the old place was completed on 25 June, construction continued until October when Douglas reported "the stockades ..., four block houses, and nearly all the necessary buildings are now erected."²⁸

Virtually nothing is recorded of the number of buildings or physical dimensions of this fort. From its completion in October the establishment lasted barely six months. During the night of 11 April 1840 Fort Langley was totally destroyed by a fire which broke out in its forge. Yale described the conflagration in a letter to McLoughlin, dated 15 April 1850.

The fire burst forth from the Blacksmiths shop, and the wind blowing fresh from that quarter, the whole range of buildings on that side were in flames in less than two minutes after the fire was observed, but we still for a moment hoped to save the Big House, and a effort was made to that effect, but alas in vain.²⁹

Two weeks after the fire, Douglas visited the ruins and wrote "the work of destruction has been fearfully complete extending to every part of the premises of which a few blackened stumps alone remain."³⁰

Fort Langley 1840

By 1 May 1840 Yale had erected on or near the ruins of the 1839 fort a temporary stockade for a new fort which enclosed a space of 108 ft. by 70 ft.³¹ This was the beginning of the Fort Langley complex which became an important focus of Company trade on the lower mainland of British Columbia for 46 years. Nearly 120 years after its creation this fort became the subject of a partial restoration by the governments of Canada and British Columbia.³²

Unfortunately, historical documentation on the physical appearance of the 1840 fort is scattered and scanty. Unlike the 1827 fort, there is no post journal extant for the building period. Similarities in construction can be expected, however, since local building materials remained unchanged and many of the same personnel built all three forts.³³ From correspondence, plans, sketches and photos we gain some idea of the constituent elements and building fabric of this complex, if little of interior layouts and furnishings.

During his visit to the Pacific in 1841, Simpson noted that the 1840 post had been built on a "larger scale" than the other two.³⁴ The single plan of the fort which has been discovered, a scaled drawing by Royal Engineer Sergeant McColl dated 17 September 1862, reveals the final enclosed area of the 1840 fort measured 250 ft. by 675 ft. (Fig. 26). The rectangular palisade was constructed of logs which stood about 15 ft. high and were 12 in. in diameter (much thicker than the 4 in. to 5 in. pickets of McMillan's fort).³⁵ These were held in place by a single horizontal girth in the internal face about 3 ft. from the top (Fig. 19).

Set into the palisade were three sets of gates (Fig. 26). One centrally placed in the southern wall directly behind the Big House provided access from the hinterland. The remaining two were situated on the western side: one of these, located 165 ft. from the southwest corner, led to a small barnyard and 40-acre garden adjacent to the fort; the other gate, located approximately 2-1/3 chains or 143 ft. from the bastion at the northwest corner of the palisade, was the main entrance to the fort from the pier on the banks of the Fraser.

Malladaine's north view of the fort from the Fraser (Fig. 22) shows the gate to be level with the height of the palisade. Its width is difficult to ascertain. The gate seems to be divided into two parts which swing inward about 3 ft. from the top of the palisade, probably just beneath the horizontal girth. This would make the actual entranceway 11 ft. to 12 ft. high.

In addition to the gates there were also three bastions set into the walls. These were located at the northeast and northwest corners and in the east wall about 55 ft. from the southeast corner (Fig. 26). Several sketches (Figs. 22, 24) and a photograph (Fig. 27) of the northwest bastion clearly show the exterior appearance of this structure. Each bastion, resting directly on the ground, was about 14 ft. square and about 18 ft. high to the top of the plate. An ornamental timber finial about 4 ft. high adorned its bark roof. The position of the ports suggests a two-storey structure as was the case in the 1827 fort. A sketch of the southeast bastion from the interior of the fort (Fig. 19) shows a window but no entrance door, suggesting approach may have been made by a ladder. There is no evidence of the elaborate gallery and corner platform arrangements of the 1827 fort at this post. Inventories record that the bastion carried a 9-pounder carronade, a swivel and some smaller pieces such as muskets, bayonets and blunderbusses.³⁶

Within this palisade there were probably from 12 to 15 buildings at any one time. Here, as at other Company posts, building was an ongoing process, structures being altered or added in response to the changing needs of the service and its families. McColl's plan (Fig. 26) shows the buildings situated in a rectangle facing an open square: the officers' quarters at the south, five buildings on its east running northward, two buildings parallel to the north palisade and four along the west wall. There were also three buildings behind and to the side of the officers' quarters.

Architecturally, these buildings were simple and utilitarian in design, presenting an almost stark aspect to the unaccustomed eyes of a young British officer who in 1858 described the fort as "a miserable old place." A Prince Edward Islander wrote home that its buildings were "strongly built of logs, the roofs of which are covered with bark." Construction appears to have followed the post-on-sill style used in the 1827 fort and common to other Company posts. After a horizontal timber or sill was laid on short blocks, vertical posts at the corners and at 6-ft. to 10-ft. intervals were mortised into the sills and top plates, and the walls filled up with horizontal members fitted into the grooves in the posts. Pictoral evidence indicates that the roofs, either gabled or hipped, were covered with bark although shingles may have been used in some instances. With the exception of the Big House which one photo (Fig. 23) shows as whitewashed, the buildings were unpainted, giving a warehouse appearance to the whole complex which emphasized its essentially commercial function.

At its height in the 1850s Fort Langley contained a Big House, kitchen(s?), saleshop, Indian shop, blacksmith's shop, boatbuilder's shop, cooper's shop, dwelling houses for the men and their families, and various storage houses. McColl's plan unfortunately identifies just two buildings although some comfort can be gained from the knowledge that building function and location frequently changed. Historical documentation enables us to establish with exactness the location of five buildings in specific years. These buildings and their known or documented features are discussed in the following paragraphs.

The Big House

Variously known as the "Manager's Residence" and the "Hall," the Big House was situated by itself in the centre of the south side of the fort (Figs. 19, 26). This location at the back of the fort on an upward incline from the river provided a view of the river and McMillan Island directly in front of the fort. Visitors, usually entering by the northwest gate, walked the length of the fort square before reaching the Big House. Lieutenant Charles Wilson notes this practice in his private diary for 23 June 1859 which states, "As I was smoking my pipe after breakfast, who should come up the fort square but the Governor [James Douglas] & Good [his secretary]."³⁷

Malladaine's 1858 sketch of the Big House records a two-storey hipped structure of about 70 ft. by 33 ft. and 21 ft. high. In the front elevation there were 12 windows, 6 in each storey, located centrally in 6 equal bays between 7 vertical posts. The main entrance was placed about 4 ft. above ground slightly to the right of the fourth or middle vertical post. In an 1862 photograph (Fig. 23) of W.H. Newton and his wife in front of the Big House, a veranda has been added. This photo provides a good close-up of double-style windows set back from a foot-wide window sill, side-hung and opening inward. Although no chimneys are shown on these sketches, it is probable this Big House had a "couple of well finished chimnies" similar to those that heated the same house in the 1827 fort.

During the 1850s Langley Big House would have housed manager Yale and one or more of his daughters as well as the clerk assistant and his family. This would require an office, private sitting room and sleeping accommodation for each family. A central hall, an important feature of most Big Houses, served as the dining place for the officers and scene of various fort ceremonies. Here the annual ball for the brigade was held and, on New Year's Day, the men came to pay their respects to the officer in charge and receive a tot of rum. Here, too, about 100 people convened on 19 November 1858 to witness the proclamation of the crown colony of British Columbia.³⁸

The Saleshop

This structure labelled the Salesroom in McColl's plan was on the east side of the fort northeast of the Big House. It is undoubtedly the structure shown in Malladaine's 1858 drawing of the fort interior (Fig. 19) for an article on Fort Langley in Harper's Weekly, 9 October 1858, states the salesroom was "in the loft next to the northeastward of the Chief Trader's residence."³⁹ At the height of the gold rush this saleshop was considered too small and inconvenient for business and a contractor was sent to Langley to fit up a new saleshop in the building on the northwest side of the Big House. Although the new saleshop was finished, it was never used for the purpose, hence the 1862 label on the east side building.⁴⁰

Like the Big House, the saleshop building was a two-storey, hipped roof structure about the same height with five bays across the main elevation. Nine front windows are shown in the Malladaine sketch (Fig. 19), five in the upper storey and four in the lower. An arched doorway was cut front centre in the middle bay. The south side of the building which is also shown has no windows but a door several feet off the ground. This may have been the entrance to the second floor saleshop although the 1862 plan (Fig. 26) only indicates a door on the north side. The garret saleshop was probably similar to the new saleshop whose specifications suggest a large central counter and walls lined with stalls, gun racks and shelves to the ceiling or, in this case, the roof.⁴¹ The ground floor of this building may have housed a baling room for sorting goods, packing servants orders and other purposes.

The Cooper's Shop

The cooper's shop, where barrels and kegs were turned out for the salmon and cranberry trades, was located on the north side of the fort in 1852. In a letter of that year dated 25 May, Douglas reported "a fire ... broke out in the Cooper's shop which was burnt to the ground with another small building and a part of the stockade on the north side of the Fort."⁴² It appears that the cooper's shop was later resituated on the east side. Correspondence of January 1872 states that "Cromarty is fixing the Cooper shop for a Sale Shop and a roof has already been put on."⁴³ This cooper's shop converted to a saleshop is shown on the east side in an 1873 ground plan (Fig. 31) of the remaining buildings at Fort Langley. Pictures of the store after the Company moved off the site in 1886 (Fig. 37) indicate the building was subsequently used as a dwelling and barn. The building survived into the 20th century, becoming a museum in the 1920s and the focus of the partial restoration of the fort in the 1950s.

This unique living example of a Hudson's Bay Company building at Fort Langley shows the one-time dimensions of the cooper's shop to be about 52 ft. long and 23 ft. deep (Fig. 39). The front face divided into four bays by vertical posts has two main windows and one small window on ground level, with three smaller windows serving the upper floor. One window exists on the north elevation. Besides the addition of a new roof to this building when it was made into a store, it is highly probable that other changes were made in the exterior face from the time it served as a cooper's shop. The interior, of course, would have been vastly altered.

Residence

The residence for accommodation of visitors and the officers of the brigades was located to the northwest side of the Big House. Instructions to Yale to have this house fitted up as a saleshop in April 1858 state this was the building "where Mr. Manson was living last winter."⁴⁴ On retiring from the service in 1857, Manson, former officer in charge of the New Caledonia brigade, lived at Langley for a year before settling in Oregon.⁴⁵ That this residence also housed the brigade officers on their annual visit is indicated by Douglas's comment that "we will put up another building here after for the accommodation of the Gentlemen from the Interior, who must this year occupy the big house."⁴⁶

Indian Shop

The Indian trade shop at Company forts was commonly built into the palisade, allowing trade without admitting the natives to the fort proper. This practice seems to have been adopted at Langley for an entry in Wilson's diary notes "the usual precautions are taken to prevent a surprise from the Indians, only a limited number being admitted at one time."⁴⁷ The building forming part of the northern palisade on McColl's 1862 plan most likely served as Indian trade shop until Indians were admitted to trade in the saleshop in 1860.

Other Buildings

There is less evidence of the location or appearance of other buildings inside the 1840 fort: equipment shop, blacksmith's shop, boatbuilder's shop, kitchen and various warehouses. When Langley assumed the role of interior depot, an equipment shop was established to receive the interior requisitions from Fort Victoria and make up the inland pieces.⁴⁸ In addition, batteaux for the brigade route were repaired and built at Langley.⁴⁹ At least one kitchen or cookhouse existed, situated in the southwest corner of the fort near the Big House.⁵⁰ If the blacksmith's shop, fitted up as a dwelling house in 1871,⁵¹ is the Cromarty house shown in the 1873 ground plan, this structure was located on the west or north side of the fort near the northwest bastion.

Several buildings were located outside the palisade walls. In an 1844 letter to Simpson, Yale reported "that part of the Establishment constituting the Fort with the outdoor buildings for curing etc. affords every desireable convenience."⁵² A watercolour, "View from Fort Langley Downriver," drawn by an American boundary surveyor in 1860 (Fig. 25) shows these salmon sheds on the riverbank just west of the fort. Other sheds here were used for storing cranberries.⁵³ A dairy was located immediately behind the fort and other outbuildings there perhaps served as storage places for the tools and produce of the adjacent garden. At Langley Farm, about one mile south of the fort on Langley prairie, there were dwelling houses for farm labourers, two dairies, cattle sheds and hay barns.⁵⁴

As commercial activity on the lower mainland shifted away from Langley with the opening of navigation to Yale and the establishment of the capital at New Westminster, the buildings of Fort Langley gradually fell into disrepair. On a visit to the fort 10 December 1861, Chief Factors Dugald McTavish and A.G. Dallas reported, "the stores and warehouses are in a fearful state with dirt and confusion for which there is no excuse."⁵⁵ By 1866 the buildings were "fast decaying" and material from the fort was being used to erect sheds on the farm.⁵⁶ The blacksmith's shop was made into a dwelling house in 1861 and in 1872 a new roof was put on the cooper's shop which was fixed up as a saleshop⁵⁷ The Big House, so long the hub of fort life and the birthplace of British Columbia, was torn down in the fall of 1872. The same year a new residence was built for the manager in charge of the store.⁵⁸ An 1873 ground plan of the property shows three remaining buildings: the Company store (cooper's shop), Company House (1872) and Cromarty's house (the converted blacksmith's shop?).

In view of its poor situation for business approximately 400 yards east of the steamboat landing for Langley town, the Company determined to leave its 1840 site in 1885. The Company built a new store on the far northwest corner of lot 19 (official survey of New Westminster district, group 2). The move was made from "Fort Langley" in April 1886.⁵⁹ The fort property, with the exception of the one-acre site of the new store and an acre on Langley sandspit, was sold to Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Mavis in January 1888.