Aliceville Now BC 'Deserted Village' - Village of Belcarra

Aliceville Now B.C. “Deserted Village”
By George Green, Vancouver Province, March 4 th , 1944, Magazine Section, Page 6.
When New Westminster was young, three colleens [Irish girls] arrived from the vicinity
of Cork. They were sisters. They married three of New Westminster’s young men, one
of them an Englishman, one a Scotsman and one an Irishman. The oldest [sic], June
Fortune Kemp [1838–1906], became Mrs. Henry Valentine Edmonds, whose husband
[Henry Valentine Edmonds, 1837–1897] was a native of Dublin; her sister, Martha
Wilhelmina Kemp [1835–1902], married John Alfred Webster [1838–1903], an
Englishman; and Elizabeth Kathleen Kemp [1844–1912] married Dr. A. S. W. Black,
who came from Bo’ness in Scotland.
The three families constituted a good share of the prominent people in society of the
young city. Dr. Black was a particularly gifted man, a prominent and successful
physician, and a genial and brilliant entertainer, popular and highly respected.
On Saturday night, March 25, 1871, the three families met at the home of Mrs.
Edmonds, and the polished and urbane doctor was the star of the evening. At midnight
an emergency call came from Burrard Inlet for him — a logger was seriously hurt. Tired
and weary after a bust evening, he set off on horseback over Douglas Road. It was
early morning; cold and blustery.
(British Columbia Archives, BCA A-08076)
Near the foot of the big hill, his horse
stumbled on the loose punsheon [sic] of
the primitive road and pitched his rider
into the ditch, rolling on top of him. It
was not until 11 o’clock on Sunday
morning that the mishap was
discovered. The horse was cast with his
feet well up in the air, but uninjured; its
rider was dead. The funeral was the
largest ever seen in New Westminster.
Five children survived him.
Mr. Edmonds’ family also numbered
five: William Humphries, Henry L. the
magistrate, Beatrice E.E. of Kelowna,
Mrs. Mary G. Paige-Powell and Walter
Erith Edmonds, both of Vancouver.
Of the five children of Mrs. Webster
only two are living: Mrs. Madeleine
Jenns and Mrs. Alice May Jennings
[1870–1948], both of Victoria.
Mr. Webster was one of New
Westminster’s pioneer merchants, a
director of the Canada Southern
Railway; promoter of the Central Park
tramline, and a large land-owner in and
around New Westminster. He owned
property in old Gastown in the time of
Gassy jack.

In 1874 he received a crown grant of 160 acres of land on the eastern side of the North
Road beside Burrard Inlet. This was a beauty spot, giant maples threw a delightful
shade over a wide green sward, and the fresh tang of the evergreen forest which
hemmed in the open clearing at the end of the road mingled with the salt sea breezes
which swept up from the ocean whose rolling waves beckoned enticingly.
Yachting and boating, swimming and bathing under conditions that excluded the
general public — isolated yet close at hand from the city, it was natural that here many
picnic parties should enjoy the leisure to the full. Naiads and water nymphs disported in
clear limpid waters, in “such a tide as moving, seems asleep”, a pleasing contrast to the
turbid and swirling Fraser, beside the city.
Mr. Webster, the opulent landowner, built a hotel to house his guests. A second hotel
appeared on the west side of the road [North Road]. Its owner was Mr. [John] Johnston,
K.C., of New Westminster.
Families cam to spend months at a time, guests at either of the up-to-date hotels or to
camp in the individual cabins along the shore. Mrs. Jenns and her family of young
children were frequent visitors and her sister, Miss Alice May Webster [b.1870], was the
belle of the place.
(British Columbia Archives, BCA I-66415)
It was in the early eighties [1880s], sixty
years ago. Canada’s transcontinental
was coming to Port Moody. Mr. Webster
sold his holdings at Granville and
bought heavily at Port Moody. Had not
Sir Charles Tupper. The minister of
railways, told the House of Commons
that Port Moody was to remain the
Pacific terminus
But in 1884, the railway made a deal
with Premier Smythe at Victoria for
terminal facilities at Coal Harbour.
Webster obtained an injunction
forbidding the extension. His opponents,
however, were too powerful and soon
the injunction was dissolved by the
same court which had granted it. In May
1887, the first transcontinental train
passed the pleasant homelike summer
camp on its way to Vancouver.
For some years the camp continued
with these three families and their
friends, together with those of Mrs.
Johnston, to enjoy their outings.
The era of the scant bathing suit had
not yet arrived, but the sedate eighties
had given place to gay nineties. Gaudy
flower gardens adorned immense hats

with trailing ostrich plumes and stuffed birds. The crinoline and the bustle were gone
and the cyclist sported the bloomer and the leg-o-matic …….
Mrs. Webster decided that a railway station was desirable for the yet unnamed spot
and, with his younger daughter called on his old acquaintance, H.H. Abbott, the railway
superintendent. He agreed that while local traffic might not warrant the stopping of the
transcontinental express, a flag station was not out of place.
“Have you any preference as to the name” “Call it after this young lady, my daughter
Alice.” And so it became Aliceville.
Today [1944] nothing remains of Aliceville except the maples and the sea. Andy
Richardson’s gas station retails gasoline for the horseless buggy, and oil refineries
stand on either hand. Like Goldsmith’s deserted village it has completely disappeared,
and more than half a century has passed since it flourished by the sea.
(British Columbia Archives, BCA A-08070)

British Columbia Archives (BCA B-00493).
Webster’s Hotel, Aliceville, Burrard Inlet, 1887.
Hopeful colonists of an early era, when Aliceville was on the map — and this was about all the population.
Standing, from left to right, Dr. De Wolf Smith, New Westminster, Nellie Homer (Mrs. R. Eden Walker,
Kelowna); May Homer, Mrs. Falding (née Homer); boy with arms around post, A. B. Homer; S. A. Jenns,
J. S. Gaynor, Alice May Jennings (née Webster), Victoria; Mr. Falding, Margie Homer, A. B. Webster,
Kathleen Black (Mrs. H. H. Watson, Vancouver); seated, Mrs. De Wolf Smith, Mrs. Gaynor, California,
holding Homer Falding on her knee; Edith Wilson (Mrs. Charles Hamilton), Nelson; Edith Horton, Alice
Homer (Mrs. E. A. Greame), Mabel Falding; children seated on ground, Ethel Homer, New Westminster;
not known; and Helen Falding. The man standing to the left of the post under the sign “Aliceville” and
having his back to the camera, is not identified.
Mainland Guardian, April 4 th , 1883.
Burnaby Historical Society (BHS 421-001).
Johnston’s Hotel, Aliceville, 1892.