Fort Vancouver Historic Structures Report

Construction details

According to the traced copy of the Vavasour plan (Plate VIII, vol. I), the jail measured about twenty feet square. One of the original versions (Plate VI, vol. I), however, shows the jail as scaling out to about twenty by twenty-five feet, with the longer walls running east and west. The second original version (Plate VII, vol. I) indicates that the dimensions were about twenty feet north and south by about twenty-two feet east and west. The inventory of Fort Vancouver buildings made by the Company in 1846-47 lists "1 Prison, " twenty-one feet square. [19] The actual dimensions, as determined by archeological excavations in 1950, were about twenty by twenty-two feet, with the east-west walls being the longer. [20]

Footings found for the north and south walls (the east and west walls were not excavated) were spaced about ten feet apart, thus indicating the usual Canadian-type construction. Few other structural details are positively known. In several drawings of Fort Vancouver made between 1846 and 1854, what apparently is the roof of the prison can be seen rising behind the palisade. Although positive identification is difficult, it seems reasonably safe to rely upon the evidence of these pictures as demonstrating that the Jail was a rather low, gable-roofed building, with the ridge of the roof running east and west (see Plates XIV, XV, XVI, XVIII, and XX, vol. I). [21]

Unfortunately, there are no comparative data available. No wooden jail of Hudson's Bay Company construction is known to survive, and no pictures of other jails built in the post-on-sill style seem to be available.

One can only surmise that the Jail was of very heavy and rather crude squared-log construction, probably without any window except a small, unglazed, barred one in the sturdy plank door. This door probably was in the center of the south wall where it could have been most easily kept under surveillance. An entry in that location, however, would have been at nearly the maximum distance from the small pit privy that archeologists found to be near the north palisade wall a few feet northwest of the Jail. [22]

Perhaps the walls were not more than nine feet high above the sills. It is quite likely that the timbers for this utilitarian structure were hand-hewn instead of sawed. Probably the center upright grooved posts in the east and west walls extended up to the ridge line to facilitate the use of heavy inf ill timbers to close the ends of the gables. Thick planks may have been laid horizontally over the rafters in order to make a more escape-proof roof.

It is difficult to hazard an opinion as to what type of outer covering may have been placed on the roof, assuming that horizontal planks were actually employed as the undercovering. Two layers of vertical boards would be a logical guess. The Gibbs drawing (Plate XVIII, vol. I) appears to indicate a vertical covering of some type, but it also seems to show a horizontal line partway down the visible roof surface. It will be noted that in his sketch of the village (Plate XVII, vol. I) Gibbs shows roofs covered with what evidently were overlapping rows of short boards or long shakes. Because the ordinary shake used at Fort Vancouver during the 1840s, particularly for rough buildings, was thirty-six inches long, it is entirely possible that such shakes, extensively exposed to the weather, were employed on the Jail. [23]

Undoubtedly the floor planking was of the same heavy type (about three inches thick) as that used in the warehouses. Of course similar planks could have been placed over the ceiling beams, obviating the need for a heavy covering on top of the rafters.