Hi Lawrence, and welcome to the BC list, A little help I think. We have already released a reproduction on CD of Lovell's 1874 Gazetteer of British North America, our cat. # CA0104, but it has no reference to any of the place names you mentioned (except New Westminster of course but I'll get back to that.) We also have a copy of the 1895 edition waiting to be scanned and had more luck in that edition in that there is an uncharacteristically long entry for Cassiar which looks like a good possibility for you. Because of the length of the entry I'm only going to try and pick out the relevant bits for you: NB: These are literal quotes so the stilted language comes directly from the book. I left it like that because it leaves some room for ambiguity and you should be aware of this. "......" indicates text left out.) "Cassiar is a mineral country, producing gold placer mining. It was discovered in 1873 by McCullough & Thibert ......" (Hence no entry in the 1874 gazeetter.) "Cassiar is reached by steamer from Fort Wrangel, Alaska Territory, 700 miles (time 4 days), thence by river steamer to Glenora, 140 miles, on Stickeen river (time 2 days). A fine government trail commences here and brings the traveler to head of Dease Lake, a distance of 84 miles; thence 18 miles by steamer to Laketown - principal town in district ........ *80 miles down Dease River is Sylvester's Landing, at the mouth of the McDames Creek; 12 miles, on good trail, the trail is reached, and the mines are working. Defot Creek, 12 miles from Thibert, is also a gold-bearing creek. There are also a number of small creeks in the area paying wages and over, but the former are generally considered the principal ones." I didn't go looking for the relevant detailed maps but I would expect there to be enough here to locate the area using modern recourses. The entry goes on to further describe access routes for goods and mail, which was said to be forwarded from Victoria "in earlier years" which makes me wonder if the "New Westminster" reference might be a mail route since it is clearly no where near "Cassiar." No mention of Lightning Creek anywhere (in either gazetteer) but consider the ".... There are also a number of small creeks in the area ..." part of the quote above. Again uncharacteristically, the entry goes on to describe the hunting and growing prospects of the area and it looks to have been a good area to set up "wilderness" housekeeping. It does also say, however, that the winters were long and hard, the area being above 59 degN. The temperature dropped to 72 deg (F presumably) below during the 1879-80 winter. (It's about -58 degC.) These gazetteers can be absolute gold mines (pardon the pun) of information - as evidenced by the extract above - but we receive very little encouragement to publish the reproductions which is why this one is still still sitting on the "waiting to be scanned" shelf. I wonder if it's because people don't realize what they contain which is partly why I'm glad to be able to help you out with the above information. Incidentally, if this is your man I suspect you will have difficulty getting a more specific location for him as there is an implication in the entry that the area was in decline because the gold was running out and these mining camps tended to be transient affairs with little or no "government." Good luck though - a throughly fascinating area of research into Canadian development. Malcolm Archive CD Books Canada Inc. President: Malcolm Moody PO Box 11 Manotick Ontario, K4M 1A2 Canada. (613) 692-2667 WEB SITE: http://www.ArchiveCDBooks.ca > Message: 1 > Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 13:17:00 -0000 > From: "Lawrence Ollier" <lorenzo.9@talk21.com> > Subject: [CAN-BC] New to list, help needed > To: <CAN-BRITISH-COLUMBIA@rootsweb.com> > Message-ID: <002d01c72c14$cbb62b30$f9337ad5@SN038855820640> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Hi there, I am new to this list and need a bit of guidence, I have an > IGI 1881 Canadian Census Record for a Peter OLLIER it only lists the > place as the following: > > Cassiar & Northern Interior, New Westminster, British Columbia. > > I have also found another reference to a Peter OLLIER on the 1875 B.C. > voters list, his location is given as Lightning Creek. > > Would these two locations tie up? or could someone tell me where they > are? > > Many thanks. > > Lawrence Ollier. >

RE: OLLIER in Cassiar If your man was a miner, there could be something on him in the BC Archives records of that mining district. I did some work on the Rath brothers in Cassiar district, 1873-4 and found their miner's licences. Other information about the miners in that district at that date was found in the Colonist newspaper of Victoria, when William Rath came as the representative of the miners to fight for their rights with bureaucracy over registration problems caused by their extreme distance from the capital. There was often news of the mining districts published in the city papers, and this sort of information could give you a good idea of what was going on, month to month, so that you'd have a pretty good idea of what your ancestor was doing there, even if there was never a mention of his name. The BC government's Sessional Papers could contain more detailed information about mining activity in the report of the Ministry of Mines. (also held at BC Archives) Maps of all the mining districts probably exist too, with the contemporary names for creeks, so you could figure out exactly where he was. If there was some other industry starting up at the time in Cassiar, such as farming or forestry, records should be found in BC Archives. You might also find some court records, and government agent records, but you won't find local newspapers! I couldn't even get regular newspaper coverage for that area for the 1980s! Fortunately, the Colonist (Victoria) and Columbian (New Westminster), both held at BC Archives, would cover news from Cassiar. Photographs of Cassiar area in general would be found in the BC Archives collection. Unfortunately, there are two other Lightning Creeks in the province, one in Cariboo and one on the southern border of B.C. The Cariboo Lightning Creek near Barkerville was also the name of the town situated there, with gold mining, and you'll find there are plenty of photos of that one but perhaps nothing of the Lightning Creek in Cassiar. For Lightning Creek in Cassiar, the best bet is probably to try for old mining maps, and see what the later name for the creek was. Claudia Claudia Cole Archival Research Agent 5640 Jordans Lane Duncan, BC V9L 6J1 250 748-0836 claudialc@telus.net Visit my website at http://www3.telus.net/bcresearch -----Original Message----- From: can-british-columbia-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:can-british-columbia-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Malcolm Moody Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 8:46 AM To: CAN-BRITISH-COLUMBIA@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [CAN-BC] New to list, help needed-Lawrence Hi Lawrence, and welcome to the BC list, A little help I think. We have already released a reproduction on CD of Lovell's 1874 Gazetteer of British North America, our cat. # CA0104, but it has no reference to any of the place names you mentioned (except New Westminster of course but I'll get back to that.) We also have a copy of the 1895 edition waiting to be scanned and had more luck in that edition in that there is an uncharacteristically long entry for Cassiar which looks like a good possibility for you. Because of the length of the entry I'm only going to try and pick out the relevant bits for you: NB: These are literal quotes so the stilted language comes directly from the book. I left it like that because it leaves some room for ambiguity and you should be aware of this. "......" indicates text left out.) "Cassiar is a mineral country, producing gold placer mining. It was discovered in 1873 by McCullough & Thibert ......" (Hence no entry in the 1874 gazeetter.) "Cassiar is reached by steamer from Fort Wrangel, Alaska Territory, 700 miles (time 4 days), thence by river steamer to Glenora, 140 miles, on Stickeen river (time 2 days). A fine government trail commences here and brings the traveler to head of Dease Lake, a distance of 84 miles; thence 18 miles by steamer to Laketown - principal town in district ........ *80 miles down Dease River is Sylvester's Landing, at the mouth of the McDames Creek; 12 miles, on good trail, the trail is reached, and the mines are working. Defot Creek, 12 miles from Thibert, is also a gold-bearing creek. There are also a number of small creeks in the area paying wages and over, but the former are generally considered the principal ones." I didn't go looking for the relevant detailed maps but I would expect there to be enough here to locate the area using modern recourses. The entry goes on to further describe access routes for goods and mail, which was said to be forwarded from Victoria "in earlier years" which makes me wonder if the "New Westminster" reference might be a mail route since it is clearly no where near "Cassiar." No mention of Lightning Creek anywhere (in either gazetteer) but consider the ".... There are also a number of small creeks in the area ..." part of the quote above. Again uncharacteristically, the entry goes on to describe the hunting and growing prospects of the area and it looks to have been a good area to set up "wilderness" housekeeping. It does also say, however, that the winters were long and hard, the area being above 59 degN. The temperature dropped to 72 deg (F presumably) below during the 1879-80 winter. (It's about -58 degC.) These gazetteers can be absolute gold mines (pardon the pun) of information - as evidenced by the extract above - but we receive very little encouragement to publish the reproductions which is why this one is still still sitting on the "waiting to be scanned" shelf. I wonder if it's because people don't realize what they contain which is partly why I'm glad to be able to help you out with the above information. Incidentally, if this is your man I suspect you will have difficulty getting a more specific location for him as there is an implication in the entry that the area was in decline because the gold was running out and these mining camps tended to be transient affairs with little or no "government." Good luck though - a throughly fascinating area of research into Canadian development. Malcolm Archive CD Books Canada Inc. President: Malcolm Moody PO Box 11 Manotick Ontario, K4M 1A2 Canada. (613) 692-2667 WEB SITE: http://www.ArchiveCDBooks.ca > Message: 1 > Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 13:17:00 -0000 > From: "Lawrence Ollier" <lorenzo.9@talk21.com> > Subject: [CAN-BC] New to list, help needed > To: <CAN-BRITISH-COLUMBIA@rootsweb.com> > Message-ID: <002d01c72c14$cbb62b30$f9337ad5@SN038855820640> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Hi there, I am new to this list and need a bit of guidence, I have an > IGI 1881 Canadian Census Record for a Peter OLLIER it only lists the > place as the following: > > Cassiar & Northern Interior, New Westminster, British Columbia. > > I have also found another reference to a Peter OLLIER on the 1875 B.C. > voters list, his location is given as Lightning Creek. > > Would these two locations tie up? or could someone tell me where they > are? > > Many thanks. > > Lawrence Ollier. > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CAN-BRITISH-COLUMBIA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message