Collections - Township of Langley

salishan Place

Collections

salishan Place by the River currently maintains a collection of over 9000 photographs, 2000 archival documents, 9000 objects, 500 works of art, and 300 oral history recordings. This collection, spanning hundreds of years, is a wonderful window on the past and present life of our community.

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Object Description

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Object Name

Oral History

,

Recording

Object ID

SR-126

Title

Alfred B. "Benny" Anderson oral history interview conducted by Paul Stortz on 24 Aug. 1988.

Extent

1 audio cassette.

Date

24 Aug. 1988.

Description

SR-126: Tracks 1 - 4 discuss the Anderson family, including A. R. Anderson and a woman named Plaxton. Anderson's work driving school buses is described. Anderson's family, including his wife Ruth, is discussed.
Track 5 discusses the Depression and its effect on inhabitants of Langley. Harry Berry is mentioned.
Tracks 6 - 7 discuss Japanese farmers and reactions to internment, and World War II. World War I and World War II are compared.
Track 8 briefly mentions the 1948 flood.
Tracks 9 - 11 discuss municipal politics in Langley. Sharon Presbyterian Church (later Sharon United Church) is discussed. The separation of Langley City and Langley Municipality is mentioned. Transportation is discussed, including local roads, the Great Northern Railway, and the BC Electric. Danny Cummings' butchershop is mentioned, and the markets in New Westminster are described.
Tracks 12 - 13 discuss changes over time in Langley.

People/Subject

Anderson, Alfred B. "Benny"

Alfred B. "Benny" Anderson was born at Murrayville on November 24, 1909, to A. R. Anderson and a Plaxton, who were both originally from Ontario. He quit school in grade 8 to work in his father's garage, where he worked until an accident in 1942. He then drove school buses for 32 years. He married Ruth on August 29, 1929, and they had two daughters.

Berry, "Harry" William Berry

William Henry "Harry" Berry was born in 1894, in Devonshire, England, to Melinda Smith (nee Baglow) and William Smith. His father died in 1898. His family came to Langley when he was 13. His mother got married again, to James Berry. He played on the Milner Men's Basketball Team in 1921-22. He started keeping a general store on the Old Yale Road in 1920, and in 1930, when the Fraser Highway became a part of the Trans-Canada Highway system, built the Berry General Store on the south-east corner of 232nd Street (Livingstone Road) and Fraser Highway (23210 Fraser Highway). He lived at 4290 Livingstone Road, near the store. He married Ruth and they had four children, William D., Audrey, Linda and Judy. Much of the local community survived the Depression due to Berry's extension of credit. Berry was quite involved in the Masonic Order and the Eureka Lodge. Berry's nephew Jack Maitland began working in the store in 1946, and managed it until 1980. He and then partner Ernie Morelli sold and turned the management over to Kyung Il Chun. During the 1980s (and up until at least 2008) the store was run as "Ye Olde Country General Store." He died at the age of 70 on July 6, 1965 at Langley Memorial Hospital, and was buried in the Fort Langley Cemetery.

British Columbia Electric Railway Company Ltd. (BCER)

The British Columbia Electric Railway's interurban passenger service for the Fraser Valley, B.C., area came through Langley in 1910. The company was building rail lines into Langley as early as 1906, when they signed an agreement with Langley government. The company itself began as a merger of the National Electric Tramway and Lighting Company (Victoria), Vancouver Electric Railway and Light Company Ltd., and Vancouver & Westminster Tramway Company, and was responsible for hydroelectric power generation, power transmission, and electric rail lines on Vancouver Island and in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. All three companies had gone into receivership in 1895, and the BCER was met with receivership in 1896, following the Point Ellice Bridge Disaster in Victoria. The company was only able to survive through assistance from London financers, and began operations in 1897 as an English-owned company. A station built at 240 St. in the general area formerly known as Harmsworth in Langley was named after Rochfort Henry Sperling, general manager of the B.C. Electric Company, and the area subsequently came to be known as Sperling community. In 1910, a substation was built at Coghlan, and still stands (2021). The substation stepped the voltage from the power transmission lines down for use by the trains passing through. It did not provide power to the surrounding community. Interurban passenger services on the B.C.E.R's Fraser Valley Line ceased in 1950. The company ended all service in 1958, and broke up into the branches it is modernly: BC Hydro, Translink, and BC Transit.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_Electric_Railway

Canadian Northern Railway

Cummings' Meat Market

Roderick Cumming took up a homestead in Langley in 1888, with his wife Flora Matheson, and began slaughtering hogs and cattle to supply meat to district logging camps and then opened the Cumming’s Meat Market at Murrayville’s Five Corners.

Rod Cumming and his son Daniel Cumming owned and operated the meat market together and photos show them working a meat stall at the New Westminster Market, known as the “City Market”, from 1898-1906. Daniel took over the meat market in 1953 when Roderick passed away at the age of 90.

Fraser River Flood of 1948

Refers to the large, Fraser River flood of 1948. Similar subject term, "floods and flooding" refers more generally to floods and flooding.

Japanese Canadians

Japanese Internment

Sharon Presbyterian (United) Church

During the Presbyterian ministry of Reverend Alexander Tait in the late 1880's this site was donated by Henry Mutrie for the construction of a new church. The lumber was obtained from a mill located two miles to the east. The name for the church is taken from the Song of Solomon, chapter1, verse 2, "I am the rose of sharon and the lily of the valleys". In 1925, with the unification of the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches, this became the home of the United Church; those that remained Presbyterian constructed a new church on 216A Street. A new entry has been added to the simple form of the church, and a new hall built at the rear. It is, however, a well maintained local area landmark and provides the community with important link to it first settlement.

World War, 1914-1918

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