Looking back article from May 2013

The newest addition to the collections at the Pitt Meadows Museum is a postcard that we already have multiple blank copies of and could easily acquire a few more from eBay if we so chose.  The postcard dates to the early part of the 20th century, is colourized and shows a farm scene along the lowlands next to the Fraser River.  The south side of the river is far enough away to indicate it is not part of Barnston Island but, rather, Surrey, thus leading us to believe the Pitt Meadows side is near the bottom of Bonson Road to the west of Katzie but, admittedly, this is just an educated guess.  In the upper left corner of the card, imprinted in red is “Pitt Meadows, on the Fraser River, B.C.  Love photo”. 

Now, this is where the donation gets interesting.  This post card is not a blank.  It was sent by Thomas Blackmun from Vancouver to his parents in Sussex, England on December 5th 190?  The question mark is due to the fact the cancellation stamp is in perfect shape with the exception the year is totally obscured.  Again, we must make an educated guess as to the date and this is made easier by the fact the donor, a member of our Society, is descended from the Blackmun’s and dates the postcard to between 1906 and 1910. 

We think the date must be earlier than 1908 for the following reason:  the hand writing in the body of the card and in the address area are different, perhaps Thomas wrote the text but someone else, maybe his brother James, addressed it prior to mailing it out of Vancouver.  Thomas, who likely worked and lived in Pitt Meadows at that time, could not mail it from here as we did not have a post office until January 1908.  More interesting still is what Thomas wrote, in part, in the body of the card:  “Dear Dad, how do you like this place?  I am working in a grocery store right close to the Fraser River..”.

For those who are unaware, the history of the building the Museum occupies is that it was a general store and the first Post Office in Pitt Meadows opening in January 1908 at its present site.  However, the story of the building is that it was dragged by horses to the site shortly before it opened and that it was originally on a site at the south end of Herring Road.  Herring Road disappeared under the Pitt Meadows Airport when construction began in the early 1960’s but its south end would have been very close to the Fraser River.

Given that we know Thomas lived and, likely, worked in Pitt Meadows for a short time in the early part of the century and that Pitt Meadows was so small at the time there would have been no need for more than one grocery store “right close” to the Fraser River, could he have been working in the store on Herring Road that was the bones for the building we know today as the Pitt Meadows Museum?  We can never be sure but we can make an educated guess that this is the case, and that is part of what makes the donation so exciting.

 

Leslie Norman, Curator, Pitt Meadows Museum and Archives