@ BY REV. WM. STOTT

The Early Story of North Vancouver

MAGNIFICENT stand of timber, plus a mountain stream that was easily
harnessed for power, first drew settlement to the north shore of Burrard Inlet.
The water-power sawmill which stood about a mile east of the present ferry
landing formed the nucleus of a community that for a quarter of a century was the
principal settlement on the Inlet. The first avenues that traversed the wooded slopes
on which the City of North Vancouver now sits, were the skidroads on which logs
were hauled by long ox-teams to the water’s edge. The logging-off process continued
for forty years.

Prominent among those who led in this enterprise were lumbermen from New
Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the State of Maine. The settlement, which eventually,
in 1872, became known as Moodyville, was so named after Sewell P. Moody, a
State-of-Mainer, who acquired control of the mill in 1865,
after it had been running tor the better part of two years
and had had two previous owners. In 1868 a second mill,
run by steam, larger and more efficient than the first, was
built alongside. This latter was burned to the ground three
days before Christmas, 1873, but Moody had a new and
better one erected in five months’ time. In its construction
he had the services of a New Brunswick millwright named
John Hendry, who later on appears again in our story.

On November 9, 1864, at the first mill, the barque Ellen
Lewis finished loading a cargo of lumber for Adelaide,
Australia. She was the forerunner of an export trade that
grew to large proportions. For forty years Moodyville con-
tinued to load ships for Mexico, Australia, China and Britain. E

The village of Moodyville lay within the bounds of what S. P. MOODY
is now the City of North Vancouver. The development of
its community life therefore forms an integral part of our story. The community
centre was the “Mechanics’ Institute”. It was a two-storey building. Upstairs was
the Masonic Hall, for the leading men at the mill were also Masons, and had a two-
fold object in the erection of the building.

Mount Hermon Lodge No. 493 received its charter by dispensation from Scotland
in 1868, but did not officially function until January 15, 1869, when the Masonic
Hall was consecrated and officers installed by Dr. Israel W. Powell, Provincial Grand
Master of the Scottish Rite. When the Grand Lodge of British Columbia came into
being in 1872, Mount Hermon Lodge became No. 7, and in 1886 it moved across
the Inlet to the infant city of Vancouver. It still has in its possession and in regular
use, the little organ that it had in Moodyville. This organ was taken downstairs on
special occasions, on condition that it be played by Coote Milloy Chambers, who
was secretary both of the mill and of the Lodge.

The “Mechanics” Institute’ downstairs, which was to be used primarily as a library
and reading room, was officially opened a few days after the Masonic dedication.
The speaker on that occasion was Rey. Arthur Browning of New Westminster, one
of the Wesleyan Ministers that had included “Moody's Mills” in their itinerary since
June 19, 1865. On that date Rev. Ebenezer Robson conducted the first service of
worship in the cookhouse. Other denominations appeared on the scene in the
eighties, but no church was ever erected in Moodyville. The “Institute” was regu-
larly used for worship whenever a minister of any denomination came.

A wedding which took place in Bangor, Maine, on September 20, 1869, led to the
establishment of the first school on Burrard Inlet. George Washington Haynes,
foreman at Moody’s Mills, travelled thither for his bride, Miss Adelaide Hart. She

was, however, a bit dubious about going out to where white women had not yet
al