Elida Peers | Contributed
A gallant little steam tug, built in Victoria, 30.5-metres in length and five metres in the beam, is the centre of this maritime scene in Sooke harbour in 1869. She’d been christened Emily Harris, for the youngest daughter of the first mayor of Victoria – Thomas Harris.
The steam tug is standing by, within the lee of Whiffin Spit, as she waits for the three clipper ships alongside to be loaded from the Muir sawmill, situated near where Wright Road meets the harbour shoreline today.
Lighters were used to load the vessels, as the shallow waterfront did not allow vessels of any size to reach the mill itself, and the Emily Harris would tow the loaded vessels through the narrow channel around the spit to the open sea.
First of the pictured three-masted clipper ships was the Lady Lampson, alongside the Robert Cowan (named for Ann Muir’s stepfather) while the Dominion is at the right.
When Thomas Harris embarked from Liverpool in 1853, bringing his family to the new world, his daughters Eliza and Emily were but toddlers when he first stopped in California.
By 1858 the Fraser River gold rush was on, the lure of gold bringing men to the gravel beds of the river, and the Harris family joined the rush to Victoria.
While the goldfields attracted many, business-minded gentlemen were more likely to set up in the fledgling town, acting as suppliers of one sort or another. It’s been said that Thomas Harris established his first butcher shop in a tent. Before long he was partnered with a grocer named Carroll, and in 1861 the two commissioned a screw steamer, estimating correctly that the Emily Harris would be in much demand.
When the City of Victoria was incorporated in 1862, mayors and councilmen were elected annually. Three times the electorate voted in Thomas Harris as mayor, a position he held proudly. When he later sold his butcher shop, he became sheriff of Vancouver Island.
The Emily Harris was kept busy with jobbing, and was purchased and operated by a well-known mariner, Capt. James Frain.
In 1871, leaving Nanaimo loaded with coal and bound for Victoria, the gallant little vessel met tragic misfortune. Her boiler blew, taking the life of the captain and several crew – a sad ending for the pioneering vessel.
We’re grateful to Lorne Frizzell for his research assistance in remembering Victoria’s first mayor and his daughter and their Sooke connection.
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Elida Peers is the historian of the Sooke Region Museum.
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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