BFH: John Boultbee (1851-1906)

John Boultbee (1851- 1906)

(written by the Editors)

JOHN BOULTBEE
1851 - 1906

     John was the eldest son of Washington Boultbee and Elizabeth Sophia Bourne. He was born at the family homestead Thornvale in Ancaster Township, Ontario on October 5, 1851. His early education would have been at one of the nearby towns and villages of Hamilton, Dundas or Ancaster. He studied law in the offices of a Mr. Wardell in Dundas.
     Upon graduating in law, about 1871, he entered the solicitor's office of the Great Western Railway in Hamilton, where his cousin William had been employed as a Civil Engineer a decade earlier. He remained with the railway until 1880, one year before its financial difficulties forced it to merge with the Grand Trunk Railway.
     On July 5, 1876, he married Elizabeth Hampton at Little Trinity Church, Toronto. They had a family of seven daughters and three sons.
     In 1880, he opened a legal partnership with Judge McMahon in London, Ontario, about 75 miles to the west of Hamilton. The partnership lasted one year.
     In 1881, he moved ahead of his family to the town of Portage la Prairie 50 miles west of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Canadian Pacific Railway line from Winnipeg had reached the town the year before, but the rail line around the north shore of Lake Superior was not completed until 1885. Railway travel during that period was through the States, and north to Winnipeg. His wife Elizabeth, and children Helen, William and Gertrude, and also his sister Frances, arrived in Portage la Prairie on October 20, 1881. Presumably, he set up a law business in town.
      His restless spirit, however, seems to have prevented him from remaining in one place for very long, for late in 1885 he moved to Tacoma in Washington State, and early in 1886 to Vancouver, British Columbia. He was appointed a Police Court Magistrate at Vancouver, and in this position he prepared a petition to incorporate the City of Vancouver and presented the petition to the provincial government at Victoria on February 15, 1886. The petition received Royal Assent on April 4, 1886.
     On June 13th of that year, a tremendous fire burned Vancouver in 20 minutes, the buildings literally exploded due to the winds, dry material, and intense heat. John made for False Creek to save his life, and his escape is recorded in The Vancouver Book published by Charles H. Davis in 1976:

Among those who made for False Creek were Magistrate Boultbee, C. Gardner Johnson [his brotherinlaw, Ed.], Bailey the bartender of Balfour's Hotel, and a stranger who was carrying a valise. They had been surrounded by flames while taking part in an attempt to save the hotel. On their way, they passed a man throwing water from the side of the road onto a woodpile, he refused to join them and was burned to death. At Pender and Carrall they could go no farther and lay down in a small patch of gravel. To the westward side, said Gardner Johnson, a large frame house was burning and it was so near that the burning timber came falling about us, causing us agonies I cannot describe. Bailey said he could not stand this and said he was going to get through at any cost, but he could not penetrate a foot in the flames, and after running around for a few seconds, he dropped and burned up before our eyes.

     John opened his Vancouver law office in the new Ferguson Block, at the southeast corner of Powell and Carrall streets. He stayed in Vancouver for about 12 years, when ill health necessitated his moving in 1898 to Rossland in the southern interior of B.C. Rossland was, and is, a city at the base of Red Mountain in which gold and copper had recently been discovered. The ore was transported by rail 4 miles to the city of Trail where a large smelter was located. In 1898, Rossland was experiencing a mining boom, and it continued for a few decades. Perhaps John thought that his legal services would be needed in Rossland, and in fact, he held the position of Stipendiary Magistrate, a paid magistrate in provincial towns.
     Elizabeth, his wife, died on December 27, 1903. Subsequently, John moved to Vernon, B.C., where he opened a Real Estate Office.
     John Boultbee died August 23, 1906 in Vernon. He was buried in Vancouver.