Langley Centennial Museum
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Object Description
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Object ID
1058
Title
The village of Fort Langley with tree and field in foreground.
Date
[ca. 1910].
Description
The village of Fort Langley with tree and field in foreground. St. George's Anglican can be seen in the centre of the image, with the original Fort Langley Community Hall just beyond it to the right.
People/Subject
Fort Langley (village)
Fort Langley Community Hall
This location was the site of the first town hall, although it was closer to the north-east corner of the lot, near the Fort Grocery. In 1924 the Fort Langley Women's Institute, led by the second Mrs. Hector Morrison, started the Fort Langley Community Improvement Society with the idea of building a new town hall. In 1925 the old town hall grounds are purchased from the municipality for $137.13, the amount of the tax bill still owing.
Although the Fort Langley Community Improvement Association had been primarily founded in 1924 by the second Mrs. Hector Morrison (nee Hadden), George Young became a very active influential member as well. Archibald Campbell Hope, architect brother of local Charles Edward Hope, was commissioned to plan the new hall. Construction on the building did not begin until 1930. On March 6, 1931, the formal opening and Inaugural Dance was held, and that same year maple trees were planted by members of the board, those along the north by the women and along the south by the men, and the cherry trees were later donated by another supporter. Originally the hall was painted dark brown.
The Community Hall became a designated Heritage site September 10, 1979.
Landscapes
Saint George's (St. George's) Anglican Church
(Now at 9160 Church Street). The Hudson's Bay Company sold the south-west section of their Fort Langley property to Alexander Mavis in the 1880s. The local cemetery, where many early settlers and HBC employees were laid to rest, was included in this sale. Mavis erected a fence around the cemetery to keep wandering cattle from grazing amongst the gravestones. He later subdivided his farm and sold the cemetery with adjacent land to the Anglican Parish for $50. In October 1901, St. George's Anglican, a small Carpenter Gothic Revival style church, opened on the site to serve the surrounding communities (including Milner, Glen Valley and Langley). It was built by Duncan Buie, with BC Mills providing the building supplies and the Coulter & Berry General Store supplying the hardware. The original windows were all single-hung sash with plate glass. The total cost for building St. George's, including the land and some furnishings, came to $744.40. A local craftsman by the name of Joe Sailes created the lectern and other fixtures. A striking iron cross is mounted over the front door and details the artistic aspect of the blacksmith's craft. It is thought to be a marker once gracing the grave of a Hawaiian (Kanaka) HBC employee. 1912 saw the Chancel enlarged and the installation of the stained glass window over the altar. A small bell tower was added in 1914 and rebuilt in 1982. The bell is purported to have come from the estate of Port Kells' Carl von Mackensen, a German loyalist interned during WWI. Billy Brown donated new front doors to St. George's in 1935 (after finding they were the wrong size for the church that originally commissioned them). A hall with full basement was constructed at the rear of the church in the late 1940s to facilitate growing social functions. Memorial gifts (often stained glass) add to the church's interior decoration.
See Also: Pioneer Cemetery
Term Source: Langley's Heritage
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Argus v4.4.0.36 - Langley Centennial Museum