Most people think Vancouver started in Gastown. But the early city actually sprang up a few blocks east, at the foot of Dunlevy Avenue.
That was where Capt. Edward Stamp decided to build a lumber mill in 1865. Incredibly, Stamp’s accounting ledger for the mill still exists, 155 years later. And on Feb. 29 it will go up for sale at an All Nations Stamp and Coin online auction. writes John Mackie in the Vancouver Sun.
“I view this as a foundational document for the B.C. forest industry and for the city of Vancouver,” said Brian Grant Duff of All Nations Stamp and Coin. “It’s Edward Stamp’s accounting journal from 1865 to 1869, listing out all his expenses for his English investors establishing lumber mills on Vancouver Island and the first main lumber mill in the Vancouver area.”
closeup of the top of the first page of Capt. Edward Stamp’s ledger. PNG
Pioneer Vancouverites called it Stamp’s Mill, but the ledger shows the official name was the British Columbia and Vancouver Island Spar Lumber and Sawmill Co. Ltd. Stamp left the mill in 1869 after a dispute with investors and it was sold and renamed Hastings Mill in 1870. (It closed in 1930.)
Detail from Capt. Edward Stamp’s ledger showing payments to colonial B.C. Gov. Frederick Seymour / PNG
Capt. Edward Stamp, circa 1860s / PNG
The Feb. 29 auction — the last day of a leap year — also includes a medal for a soldier who fought in the Riel Rebellion and a letter from poet Pauline Johnson.
It’s the 1,250th All Nations Stamp and Coin auction, so Brian Grant Duff has placed several historically important B.C. items in the sale.
