James Murray Yale

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James Murray Yale
Chief trader, Clerk
SpouseUnknown
Children3
FamilyYale
The creation of the Colony of British Columbia in 1858, at Fort Langley, with Yale as Commander of the Fort, and Sir James Douglas as first Governor

James Murray Yale (c. 1798 – 7 May 1871) was a clerk, and later, a

Yale during the gold rush, and later on, became the name of the Yaletown district of downtown Vancouver.[1]

Yale also became

Chief Factor of the Columbia District, opposing Astor's Pacific Fur Company and NWC's dominance along the Columbia department, including the Pacific Northwest and Oregon Country.[2] Notably, the Colony of British Columbia was created at his fort in 1858, with Sir James Douglas
elected as first Governor, and the fort as capital.

Biography

George Simpson
, his in-law

Yale was born in 1798 in

seafaring family.[5][6] His father was a tenant of the Seigneur of Argenteuil James Murray, and died when he was young, drowning in North River, Newfoundland.[7] His mother abandoned him and left for Scotland. He was named and raised by Col. James Murray, friend of North West fur trader Colin Robertson, who initiated him to the fur trade.[8]

In 1815, he joined the

George III of Britain, until 1824. During his tenure there, he would narrowly escape death, as during his absence, the Fort was attacked, and his men, murdered by the Indians.[9]

"No, do not try to hurt the Sky-people; you can not kill them because they are supernatural. They come from the sky. There are as many of them as the stars. If you try to kill them, more will come and they will kill us all. You saw how they took fire into their stomachs and were not burned; you saw the thunder-stick. No, you must not do what you plan."[10]
- The entry in Fort Langley: Outpost of Empire, by Chief Whattlekainuma, a sub-chief of the Kwantlen First Nation (Halkomelem: qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓), referring to the fur traders as Sky-people

In 1826, he is recorded as a correspondent of fur trader

Columbia district by allying himself with the North West Company, who were qualified as "Lords of the fur trade" in Montreal, but they had refused the offer, as they were able to challenge the monopoly of the HBC by themselves.[13]

Chief trader

Fort Langley, British Columbia, main trading post of Yale's merchant business career
Fort Langley is on the mid left, at the entrance of the Fraser River, while Fort Astoria is at the bottom left, entrance of the Columbia River

Yale then replaced Deputy Governor

pelts with the Indians, manufacturing wood barrels, and exporting cured salmons, which commanded high prices during the Crimean War of Napoleon III.[15]

During his tenure, Yale would be saved by his

Russian America and Minister of the Navy. The Baron was the representative of the Russian-American Company, a fur trading enterprise chartered by Tsar Paul I of Russia, son of Catherine the Great
.

The discussions evolved into an agreement for the HBC, and they obainted a lease for a part of Alaska, which belonged to Russia at the time. The aim of that lease was to block the American fur traders from dealing with the Russian trading posts in Alaskan territory and have them deal with the Hudson's Bay Company instead, thus increasing the trade volume at Fort Langley for Yale.[18] They started making caviar, as the recipe for making this delicacy was part of the deal obtained from Russia. The salmon trade would eventually become a world-trade industry for the Fort and the area, developed by him and chief trader Archibald McDonald.[19]

Disputes with the chief factor of

pelts. Yale also developed during his tenure much of the largest farms of what is now called British Columbia, exporting products as far as Hawaii and Alaska.[22][3]

Gold rush

Fort Yale, gold rush era Fort that evolved into the city of Yale
Otter steamship, successor of the Beaver steamship, used during the gold rush era near Fort Langley, and changed the economics of the fur trade

During the

wagon road was built named Old Yale Road and was used to move men and supplies to the gold mines. The city of Yale, British Columbia, became one of the biggest city in the region west of Chicago and all the way to the north of San Francisco, due to its positioning.[24] They initially didn't want to participate in the gold rush as they anticipated future conflicts and wars with the Indians.[25]

With unwelcomed foreigners and

Washington and Oregon, as well as Europeans and other Indians tribes, were excited and came by all means of travel. The HBC would start using the Beaver steamship and the Otter steamship to serve the gold industry.[26]

With the arrival of the

Royal colony of British Columbia.[28]

Chief factor Douglas would announce the formation of the colony to the

Edward Bulwer Lytton, in company of Admiral Robert Lambert Baynes, Chief Justice David Cameron, and Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie. Many administrative positions were created to better handle the gold rush and the monopoly agreement with the Hudson's Bay Company was revoked.[29]
Having worked so hard at building the trading operations at Fort Langley for the last 30 years, and seeing the HBC being displaced by the British, Yale decided he had enough and took his retirement.

He returned for a brief time to

Montreal, Canada, the area where he was born. He then later came back to Vancouver Island and bought land near his old friends of the HBC in Victoria, British Columbia, and resided there thereafter. He never returned to Fort Langley.[30] In its heyday, the fort consisted of assistant traders, blacksmiths, boat builders, baril makers, carpenters, coopers, interpreters, laborers, and middlemen.[31]

Family

Plateau-Mount Royal
Alveston Manor, Alveston, Warwickshire, ancient seat of the Peers family of Henry Newsham Peers, was sold by his great-grandfather

Yale married a local Princess (Halkomelem: qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓) named Quaitlin, daughter of the Chief of

Kwantlen Nation.[32][33]
He was also later married to two other women. He had three daughters.

Sir Hugh Allan of Ravenscrag.[42][43][44][38]

Simpson was also a member of the

Sir Hugh Allan, Sir John Rose, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, President David Torrance, minister Luther H. Holton, Senator George Crawford, Senator Thomas Ryan, banker John Redpath, and bankers John Molson and William Molson.[45][38][46] At his death in 1860, he left an estate worth over £100,000, which in relation to GDP, amounted to half a billion dollars in 2023 Canadian money, or the equivalent building cost of an estate like Harlaxton Manor in England.[47][38][48]

Members

Plateau-Mont-Royal

Other members of the

tanneries, with his three brothers under Yale, Laurent & Company.[51][55] Another nephew, Edward J. Yale, was a jewelry manufacturer and inventor under Yale Jewelry Co. in Rhode Island and Chicago, in partnership with banker Frederick A. Ballou of the Rhode Island Hospital Trust.[50][56][57]

Plateau Mont-Royal, Montreal, 1926, named after François de Lorimier, member of the French-Canadian nobility

A grandnephew, Joseph Yale Blake, was the father-in-law of druggist Kenneth B. Dalby, son of the Mayor of

Outremont, and one of the founding & largest shareholders of the Provincial Bank of Canada, now the National Bank of Canada.[60][61]

Notable shareholders in the charter of 1900 included Senator Sir

Chateau Dufresne in Montreal.[63]

Plateau-Mont-Royal (Lorimier and old Rosemont), and one of its landowners.[64][65][66][67][68][69] He owned the Yale Islands in Saint-Eustache, Quebec on Rivière des Mille Îles, with its Moulin à eau de la Dalle, and would be inherited by his daughter Claire Yale, mother of artist John Yale, and godmother of Dr. Pierre-Paul Yale.[70] One of the Yale Islands was on the market in 2015 for 15 million dollars.[71]

His cousin, Mary Victoria Yale (1847), married to

Yale Lock Company, and a distant cousin of artist James Carroll Beckwith, president of the Fencers Club of New York and member of the Social Register.[74][75][76]

Legacy

Vancouver Skyline - Yaletown

When the city of

Fort Yale, then as Yale, which eventually gave its name to the Yaletown district of Downtown Vancouver.[1]

James was a distant cousin of Gov.

Harvard Corporation
, now the oldest corporation in America.

Yale was known as “Little Yale” because of his short stature about which he was sensitive. Chief Factor Sir James Douglas, Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, his superior in the HBC, a big man, took a quiet delight in standing near Yale and observing his discomfiture. In his famous “Character Book”, Governor Simpson devoted an entry to Yale:

“A sharp active well conducted very little man but full of fire with the courage of a Lion. Deficient in Education, but has a good deal of address & Management with Indians and notwithstanding his diminutive size is more feared and respected than some of our 6 feet men.”[3]“
--The entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume X

External links

References

  1. ^ a b c Here's how Vancouver's Yaletown got its name from the 'wickedest little settlement in B.C., VancouverIsAwesome, Brendan Kergin, Nov. 22, 2022
  2. ^ Waite, Donald E. (2015) British Columbia and Yukon Gold Hunters: A History in Photographs, Heritage House, Victoria, BC, p. 148-149
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Biography – Yale, James Murray – Volume X (1871-1880) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography".
  4. ^ Rodney Horace Yale (1908). "Yale genealogy and history of Wales. The British kings and princes. Life of Owen Glyndwr. Biographies of Governor Elihu Yale". Archive.org. Milburn and Scott company. p. 143.
  5. ^ Theophilus Yale, National Portrait Gallery, 1818, China trade portrait, Seaman\Sea captain, Slater Memorial Museum
  6. ^ The Muse : Newsletter of the Slater Memorial Museum, NFA Foundation, Summer 2010, p. 6-7
  7. ^ The World of Captain James Murray, A Scion of Heroes, Stuart McCulloch, 2015, p. 287
  8. ^ The apprenticeship of James Murray Yale, Klan, Yvonne.  B.C. Historical News; Vancouver Vol. 32, N° 4, (Fall 1999): 37-42.
  9. ^ McKelvie, B. A. (Bruce Alistair) (1947). "Fort Langley: Outpost of Empire". www.open.library.ubc.ca. Vancouver: The Vancouver Daily Province. p. 42. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
  10. ^ McKelvie, B. A. (Bruce Alistair) (1947). "Fort Langley: Outpost of Empire". www.open.library.ubc.ca. Vancouver: The Vancouver Daily Province. pp. 5–6. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
  11. ^ John Stuart fonds, Fonds PR-1504 -, BC Archives, Royal BC Museum.
  12. ^ "McMillan, James". Encyclopedia of British Columbia (2000). Harbour Publishing.
  13. ^ McKelvie, B. A. (Bruce Alistair) (1947). "Fort Langley: Outpost of Empire". www.open.library.ubc.ca. Vancouver: The Vancouver Daily Province. p. 10. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
  14. ^ Galbraith, John S. (1957) Hudson's Bay Company As an Imperial Factor 1821–1869. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Retrieved 13 April 2022
  15. ^ McKelvie, B. A. (Bruce Alistair) (1947). "Fort Langley: Outpost of Empire". www.open.library.ubc.ca. Vancouver: The Vancouver Daily Province. pp. 54–65. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
  16. ^ McKelvie, B. A. (Bruce Alistair) (1947). "Fort Langley: Outpost of Empire". www.open.library.ubc.ca. Vancouver: The Vancouver Daily Province. p. 76. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
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  21. ^ McKelvie, B. A. (Bruce Alistair) (1947). "Fort Langley: Outpost of Empire". www.open.library.ubc.ca. Vancouver: The Vancouver Daily Province. p. 51. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
  22. ^ The Vancouver Sun, 20 Feb 2006, Mon ·Page 11
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  24. ^ "Yale in Fraser Valley, British Columbia — Canada's West Coast, Historic Yale". www.hmdb.org. The historical marker database. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
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  26. ^ McKelvie, B. A. (Bruce Alistair) (1947). "Fort Langley: Outpost of Empire". www.open.library.ubc.ca. Vancouver: The Vancouver Daily Province. pp. 78–79–80–81. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
  27. ^ McKelvie, B. A. (Bruce Alistair) (1947). "Fort Langley: Outpost of Empire". www.open.library.ubc.ca. Vancouver: The Vancouver Daily Province. p. 83. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
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  32. ^ Exchange Dynamics, Native Studies Review 11, no 1., 1996, Keith Thor Carlson, p.21
  33. ^ James Murray Yale was the enigmatic chief trader of Fort Langley
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  43. ^ BMO : Celebrating 205 Years
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  74. ^ "Yale genealogy and history of Wales. The British kings and princes. Life of Owen Glyndwr. Biographies of Governor Elihu Yale". Archive.org. Milburn and Scott company. 1908. pp. 174–222–437.
  75. ^ "Yale genealogy and history of Wales. The British kings and princes. Life of Owen Glyndwr. Biographies of Governor Elihu Yale". Archive.org. Milburn and Scott company. 1908. pp. 143–144–250–389–390–532.
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