Author: Vancouver History

January 30 The Native Daughters of B.C. was formed in Vancouver. The group’s objective was to pay tribute to the pioneers and history of the province. Today, they operate the Hastings Mill Store Museum at the north foot of Alma Street.

January 31 Prisoner Joseph Smith, who had killed guard J.H. Joynson in 1912, was executed at the B.C. Penitentiary, the first and only hanging there. (Most executions occurred at Oakalla.)

January 1 The first train of the North Shore Division of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway runs from North Vancouver to Dundarave in West Vancouver. By July 1 the PGE line would be extended to “Whytecliff” station. The interior section started at Squamish and went north; the two sections are not connected. The North Vancouver line was used mostly by residents or holiday-makers rather than for freight.

January 11 Mewa Singh died in New Westminster. After the 1914 Komagata Maru incident (see the 1914 Chronology) tensions arose among members of Vancouver’s Sikh community. Some had a particular enmity for William Hopkinson, a local customs official, formerly with the Calcutta Police Force. Mewa, a supporter of India’s independence movement and the passengers of the Komagata Maru, shot Hopkinson to death at the Vancouver provincial court house in 1914.