Fort Vancouver Historic Structures Report

Construction details

The "Cooper's Shed" of the 1846 Covington map was far from being a shed, as is demonstrated by a number of drawings, whereas, as has been discussed earlier, Covington's "Cooper's Shop" down by the river was indeed a shed. The reasons for Covington's labels are not known, but in this study the term "Cooper's Shop" will refer to the seventy by thirty-foot Cooper's Shop of the 1846-47 inventory that stood just east of the southeast stockade corner.

In point of fact, very little is known about this structure. Because its site has not yet been explored by archeologists and because existing maps are too small in scale to be accurately read, the inventory dimensions of seventy by thirty feet constitute the only reliable information available about the size of the building, and even that, it will be seen, is not entirely correct.

The Warre pencil sketch of 1845-46 (Plate XLII) and the Paul Kane pencil sketch of 1846-47 (Plate XIV, vol. I) show clearly that the Cooper Shop actually consisted of two gable-roofed buildings joined together. The one to the east was somewhat smaller in width and height than that on the west. The ridges of the roofs ran east and west. According to the Kane sketch and the 1847-48 painting by an unknown artist, a low, gable-roofed appendage projected at right angles from the rear (north side) of the eastern section of the Cooper's Shop. [16] As a guess, then, the true dimensions probably were closer to forty by thirty feet for the western half of the structure and thirty by twenty-eight feet for the eastern half.

The Warre sketch and the lithograph made from it (Plate IX, vol. I) seem quite clearly to show that both sections of the Cooper's Shop were built of heavy squared logs that were half-lapped or dovetailed at the corners in log cabin fashion. This type of construction was not unknown at Company posts, but it would have been unusual in the Columbia District at such an early date. If other evidence were not available, Warre's eyewitness testimony would have to be accepted no matter how unlikely it might seem. Fortunately, the 1847-48 painting by an unknown artist provides a good view of the east end of the Cooper's Shop, and in it the two upright posts that could be expected in a post-on-sill wall approximately thirty feet long are abundantly evident. It would appear, therefore, that the Cooper's Shop was, after all, built in the Canadian style.

The Warre sketch also appears to show that the roofs of the Cooper's Shop were covered with lapped, vertically laid planks. Again, this would have been an unusual technique at Fort Vancouver, although it was not unknown at many Company posts. This writer believes it more likely that the roof was covered with long shakes, with two or more feet exposed to the weather, as apparently is shown in the 1841 Agate sketch (Plate LIII, vol. I).

Two windows and a centered door are shown on the front wall of each section of the Cooper's Shop on the Warre sketch; the east wall is represented as being without doors or windows. No other available views provide meaningful information concerning the front (south) walls, but the 1847-48 painting by an unknown artist and the Kane sketch appear to agree with Warre as to the east wall. No openings in the north wall can be discerned in the available pictures. No view of the west wall has yet been found.

The pictures produced by Warre definitely indicate that the Cooper's Shop windows contained diamond-shaped panes. No proof to the contrary is known, but such a design would have been highly un usual for a Hudson's Bay Company establishment. Seemingly there was a fairly wide step, or possibly two, before each door.

Nothing whatever is known about the interior arrangement or finish. Presumably each section of the shop was a single large room.