INQUIRY IDEA D -MOODYVILLE: LIFE AND DEATH OF A COMPANY TOWN

Consult these excerpts linked to the Web activity Inquiry Idea D "Moodyville: Life and Death of a Company Town."

30. How were commercial activities in Burrard Inlet significant to Vancouver’s development?
31. How big was the forest industry in British Columbia during the 1870s?
32. What was the financial state of Sewell Moody’s sawmill around 1870?
33. How did the Great Depression of 1873 impact Canada?
34. How did the late-19^th century economic crisis impact the British Columbia forest industry?
35. How did building the railway impact the British Columbia forest industry?
36. What has become of Moodyville?

 30) How were commercial activities in Burrard Inlet significant to Vancouver’s development?

“But perhaps the most important development of the 1860s, in view of the later importance of Vancouver, was the emergence of Burrard Inlet as a harbour whose activities began already to rival those of Victoria and New Westminster. The inlet’s trade was then based entirely on logging. On the south shore Edward Stamp in 1865 began to build his Hastings Mill, and two years later “Gassy Jack” Deighton founded the Deighton hotel on the first urban nucleus of Vancouver, Gastown, whose respectable name was Granville. Farther west, Jeremiah Rogers began a spar-cutting operation at Jerry’s Cove, which later became Jericho Beach. On the north shore, at Moodyville, which later became North Vancouver, “Sue” Moody had already built a steam-driven mill. From both Hastings and Moodyville, sailing ships carried sawn lumber and spars to San Francisco and Latin America, to Australia and China, and even to Britain. The Burrard Inlet mills and their tiny settlements still seemed appendages to New Westminster, to which the inlet was linked by overland trails. Only a few foresightful people yet envisaged the inlet’s future as one of Canada’s great seaports.”

Woodcock, George. British Columbia, a History of the Province, Vancouver/Toronto, Douglas & McIntyre, 1990, p. 123.

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 31) How big was the forest industry in British Columbia during the 1870s?

“Logging, which would become the dominant staple of British Columbia industry, still operated on a relatively minor scale [in the 1870s], with little demand for lumber in the stagnating local towns, though there was already an export trade on which the Burrard Inlet mills depended; in all there were twenty-seven sawmills, employing about four hundred people."

Woodcock, George. British Columbia, a History of the Province, Vancouver/Toronto, Douglas & McIntyre, 1990, p. 152.

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 32) What was the financial state of Sewell Moody’s sawmill around 1870?

“As early as mid-1868, Moody’s mill (now steam powered) had shipped almost 6,000,000 feet of lumber and 800,000 shingles (all cut by hand) in a year, compared to Stamp’s 4,000,000 feet of lumber and 100,000 shingles. Another difference in figures was more noteworthy: Stamp had bellied up, whereas Moody continued to prosper. As evidence of his financial health, he ventured farther afield by building a telegraph line between Hastings Mill and the Royal City. Moody had become so comfortable that, when his mill burned down, he was merely inconvenienced and soon back in production.”

Paterson, Thomas W. British Columbia, The Pioneer Years, Langley (B.C.), Stagecoach Publishing, 1977, p. 67.

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 33) How did the Great Depression of 1873 impact Canada?

“Six years after the founding of modern Canada the economy, along with most of the then developed world, was reeling from the shock of an economic depression of unprecedented severity. This contraction of international economy activity began in 1873 and lasted for varying lengths of time in different countries. In Great Britain, the Great Depression, as it was often called, probably continued to exert its influence until almost the end of the century. On the other hand, the contraction of the pace of economic activity in the United States was much more pronounced than elsewhere but also shorter lived. In Canada, as already seen, the Depression was responsible for creating high unemployment, the problem to which the framers of the national policy addressed themselves. Although there is no direct evidence about the extent of the unemployment, the concern at the time, as well as the drop in imports of more than twenty per cent in the 1870s, suggest that the problem was more acute; imports changes provide a reasonable proxy for the movements of national income in a simple economy.”

Marr, William L. and Donald G. Paterson. Canada: An Economic History, Toronto, Gage Publishing, 1980, p. 340.

“By the time of the crash in 1873, there were thirty mills in Canada producing pulp and /or paper. By 1878, ten had failed and seven were idle; only thirteen were operational.”

Naylor, R.T. The History of Canadian Business 1867-1914, Volume Two - Industrial Development, Toronto, James Lorimer & Company, 1975, p. 79.

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 34) How did the late-19^th century economic crisis impact the British Columbia forest industry?

“Between 1890 and 1914, economic factors played a major role in the development of the industry, government legislation, and, eventually, forestry policy. British Columbia suffered with the rest of Canada through the long depression that plagued the latter half of the nineteenth century. During the early 1890s, the number of sawmills in the province dropped drastically. In general, the industry languished until 1898 when the arrival of significant numbers of settlers on the prairies finally created an expanding demand for west coast lumber.”

Gillis, Peter R. and Thomas R. Roach. “A Touch of Pinchotism: Forestry in British Columbia, 1912-1939”, In A History of British Columbia, Selected Readings (Patricia E. Roy (eds.), Toronto, Copp Clark Pitman Ltd, 1989, p. 76.

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 35) How did building the railway impact the British Columbia forest industry?

“The construction of the transcontinental railway consumed tremendous quantities of timber. In the interior, mills moved to concentrate along the right-of-way. On the coast, they opened on the banks of the lower Fraser and around Burrard Inlet. This geographical realignment of the industry was to have results that lasted into the 1950s as, increasingly, the largest timber conversion plants were concentrated in the southwestern corner of the province. By 1891, … the city of Vancouver… had replaced Victoria as the largest community in the province. Its population stood at 14 000 or 14 percent of the provincial total. By 1900 Vancouver was the financial capital of the area, holding control of the resource-rich hinterland to its north and east.”

Gillis, Peter R. and Thomas R. Roach. “A Touch of Pinchotism: Forestry in British Columbia, 1912-1939”, In A History of British Columbia, Selected Readings (Patricia E. Roy, eds.), Toronto, Copp Clark Pitman, 1989, p. 74.

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 36) What has become of Moodyville?

“Today Moodyville is a suburb of Canada’s third largest metropolis and continues to prosper under the name North Shore. Each January 30, residents honor Moodyville Day, recalling the aeara’s former glory – and Sewell Prescott Moody, the timber prophet who showed the way. The coming of the railway in the 1880s may have been Vancouver’s guarantee of maturity, but lumber had rocked the cradle.”

Paterson, Thomas W. British Columbia, The Pioneer Years, Langley (B.C.), Stagecoach Publishing, 1977, p. 69.

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