Glimpses from our Past

There is a wonderful description of early days in Vancouver in Reflections written by a long time member Renee Jensen: “Recollections for me of early Vancouver, where I was born in 1914 at 26th and Rupert are a far cry from today’s cosmopolitan city. “Memory conjures up frame houses, burned stumps, woods…magic places of wild blackberries, brambles proliferating with luscious fruit which we gathered in large Empress Jam tins and sold for 25 cents .Ferns and wild flowers. Muddy roads and mills spewing forth smoke ….. And fire!

“Two months after its birth in 1885, Vancouver (had) burned to the ground! The tough hard working and hard living individuals rolled up their sleeves and started over, the newly forming churches a central core of motivation…”

It is possible of course to go back even further, to the days of the early missionaries and the first preaching sites in what is now the City of Vancouver.. The Methodist Church was the first of any denomination to hold a preaching service. As early as July 30 1863 The Rev, Ebenezer Robson minister of the church at New Westminster after his Sunday morning service, rode on a clumsy cart horse to Hastings on Burrard Inlet, hired an Indian dug-out and paddled three miles to Stamp’s Mill where he held a service for 6 men.

The Presbyterians trace their British Columbia history back to the Rev. John Hall and Rev. Robert Jamieson whose headquarters in the 1860s and 1870s was also in New Westminster. Early services, alternating with the Methodists were held in the schoolhouse near Hastings Mill. Both the Presbyterian and the Methodist stories are important part of our history. Those early clergy, functioning in a culture very different from [ours] responded to the needs of the society around them and unleashed a chain of events that would eventually culminate in the construction of St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church at the corner of Nelson and Burrard.

There are some fascinating accounts of the life and work of some of the early missionaries: Charles Montgomery Tate who started life as a butcher boy, came to BC looking for gold and through his association with the Wesleyan Church began a lifetime of bringing literacy to the First Nations peoples; Rev. Thomas Crosby who dedicated his life to working with the native Indians of BC. For many years he made his rounds in a 30 foot dug-out canoe. It was called “the Everlasting Canoe”!