Fort Vancouver Historic Structures Report

Construction details

a. Dimensions and footings. Building no. 5 scales out on the Vavasour ground plan of late 1845 to measure about 38 feet wide and 93 feet long (plate VII). The inventory of 1846-1847 lists a "Store No. 2" with dimensions of 90 feet by 40 feet. [36] This structure, through a process of comparing the measurements of all the warehouses listed with the sizes of the warehouses as shown on the Vavasour plan, can be identified beyond reasonable doubt as the structure presently known as Building no. 5. Archeological excavations in 1952 uncovered the footings at three corners of this "New Store" and most of the wall footings. According to the footings, as plotted by Mr. Caywood, the building was about 40 feet wide and 92.5 feet long. [37] As usual, the footings were spaced 10 feet between centers.

Building no. 7 was depicted on the Vavasour map as being about 40 feet by 98 feet. The 1846-1847 lists two warehouses, "Stores Nos. 3 & 4," of which Building no. 7 certainly was one, as measuring 40 feet by 100 feet. All four corners were located by archeologists in 1952. According to their findings, the building dimensions were very close to those in the inventory, 40' x 100'. The footings were spaced as in the other warehouses. [38]

b. General construction. The two stores here under discussion were built in the same general manner as was the sale shop described in the previous chapter except that, being longer, they had more 10-foot sections or bays in their front and rear walls. The general appearance and construction of such massive timber structures so typical of Hudson's Bay Company posts are well illustrated by two photographs of the so-called "Athabasco Building" at Fort Edmonton, Alberta (plates LXXXVIII and LXXXIX). Both were two-story structures with the usual "Hudson Bay" hipped roofs. They were not weather-boarded, and most probably the timbers of which they were made were sawed not hand-hewn. No chinking is visible in the 1860 photograph which shows part of the "New Store." The roofs were shingled, probably with boards at the ridges.

From the 1860 photograph it appears that Building no. 5 may have been slightly higher than the sale shop, but the eaves seem to have been at about the same level on both structures. No available picture permits one to judge the relative height of Building no. 7 beyond the fact that it was a two-story structure.

The fact that there were no stoves or fireplaces, and hence no chimneys, in Company warehouses has already been mentioned in connection with the treatment of the sale shop. This point seems to require reiteration here. [39]

Doors. The only knowledge we have of the doors in these buildings comes from the Coode sketch of 1846-1847 (plate XI). This drawing shows one door in the center of the front wall of each structure. These doors seem to be wider than that on the front of the sale shop, and they have arched tops. One can almost be certain that they were double doors.

Fortunately, an excellent example of this type of double, arched door and arched door frame survives in the original granary at the restored Fort Nisqually, Tacoma, Washington, (see plate CXI). There are H.A.B.S. measured drawings of this latter structure.

Probably the door in the front or north wall of Building no. 7 was the only exterior door in the receiving store. But in the case of the "New Store," Building no. 5, there undoubtedly was at least one other exterior door besides that visible in the Coode sketch. As has been observed, this building was linked to its neighbor on the north, the sale shop, by a roofed passage way or platform of some sort. Almost certainly there were doors in both structures to permit the transfer of goods from one to the other.

Very probably a ramp rather than stairs led from the yard level to the threshold of the front door to facilitate the movement of heavy bales and barrels. Such a ramp at Fort Vancouver may be seen at the entrance to the granary in one of the 1860 photographs (plate XXVIII).

Windows. The windows in the two warehouses under consideration here pose several difficult problems. It will simplify matters to treat each structure separately.

(1) Building no. 5, the "New Store." The Coode water color of 1845-1846 pictures almost all of the front wall of this structure. Assuming that the most southerly window on the first floor is hidden behind the corner of Building no. 7, the sketch seems to indicate that there were six windows on the lower floor and three windows on the upper floor (plate XI).

But most of the northern half of Building no. 5 is visible in the photograph of the northwest corner of the fort enclosure taken in May, 1860 (plate XXVIII). This picture shows the four northern 10-foot bays in the front wall, and in the center of each bay there is a window. Since this building had nine bays across its entire front, one of which contained the door, there must have been eight windows across the lower story front if the same window spacing was used in the southern half as was employed in the northern. As can be seen from pictures of the warehouses at Fort Edmonton (plates LXXXVIII and LXXXIX) and the structures at Fort Langley (plate XXXVII), it was common Company practice to place windows in the centers of each bay across the fronts of major buildings.

Therefore, the present writer is inclined toward the conclusion that Coode erred in this instance as he seems to have in others. The alternative, that the number of windows was changed from six to eight between 1847 and 1860, does not seem so probable.

On the other hand, the 1860 photograph seems to confirm the information given by Coode to the effect that there were three windows across the second story front of the "New Store." The photograph shows one upper-story window, in the third bay from the north end of the building. If this same spacing was followed in the southern half of the wall, and if there was one window in the center over the door as shown by Coode, the total number of windows on the second story would have been three.

Turning to the rear or west wall of Building no. 5, we find no picture which shows the first-floor windows. One can only assume that there were nine windows, one in the center of each bay to match those in the front wall. Undoubtedly such openings were heavily barred and shuttered. When it comes to the second story, however, there is a plethora of conflicting information. One sketch said to have been drawn in 1854 shows six upper-story windows (plate XX); the Sohon lithograph of 1854 and the very similar Covington view of the next year show four windows (plates XXI and XXII); and a drawing by an army officer about 1860 shows five (plate XXVI). Because the Sohon and Covington drawings agreed with the very accurate Gibbs sketch in the case of the sale shop (the "New Store" windows are obscured in the Gibbs picture), the present writer is inclined to credit their evidence.

No known picture shows the windows on the south wall of the "New Store," and only one, the 1854 drawing by an unidentified artist, depicts the windows on the north wall, and then only for the second story. According to this view, there were four windows upstairs in the north wall (plate XX). This sketch contains many inaccuracies, and it is particularly suspect with regard to the "New Store" because it does not show the roof linking that structure to the sale shop. Nevertheless, in view of what is known about the windows on the end walls of the Receiving Store, as will be brought out under the next heading, one is inclined to accept the evidence given by the 1854 picture.

In fact, if one were to guess, as one must in this case, one might suspect that there were four windows on each floor in the south wall, four on the second floor in the north wall, and three windows and a door at the main floor level in the north wall.

As shown by the 1860 photograph, the windows in the "New Store" were smaller than those in the sale shop. From the prints available one cannot make out the number of panes or ascertain whether the windows were double-hung or casement in type. It is clear, however, that the openings were protected by large, single shutters which opened toward the south.

(2) Building no. 7, the "Receiving Store." Only two pictures thus far known give any information about the windows in the Receiving Store. The Coode water color shows this structure as having only two windows, in addition to the door, on the lower story of the front or north wall and three windows on the second story. It will be recalled that this wall was about 100 feet long. Although it scarcely seems possible that such a lengthy wall would have had so few windows, there seems no choice but to accept Coode's evidence, which is all there is.

The credibility of Coode's sketch is enhanced by what he shows of the east wall of the Receiving Store. Although only a small sector of the wall is visible, it is evident from the spacing of the windows shown that there were four windows on each floor. In other words, there was a window in the center of each bay on each story of the east wall. Such an arrangement would have gone far to compensate for the lack of light through front wall openings.

A drawing of Fort Vancouver by Lieutenant J. W. Hopkins about 1860 provides a distant and indistinct view of the west end of the Receiving Store. Only one window is shown (plate XXVI). Probably, however, the west wall was much the same as the east wall.

No view showing the windows on the south wall is known. It can only be assumed that the arrangement was similar to that on the front wall, that is three windows on the upper floor and three windows on the lower (in place of the two windows and one door in the north wall).

Exterior finish. The outside walls of these two warehouses were unpainted. However, the Coode water color shows the doors and windows as being much darker than the walls and reddish brown in color. The 1860 photograph which includes the northern part of the "New Store" also seems to indicate that the shutters were darker than the walls. Thus it is possible that the doors and shutters on these buildings were painted the "Spanish brown" color so widely favored at fur-trade establishments.

Although the structural details of the "New Store" are rather indistinctly visible in the 1860 photograph, a careful study of the best prints available fails to produce any signs of chinking between the timbers. Here again we must conclude that the practice in this regard differed from that at many other Company posts. Sawed timbers evidently did not require visible chinking.

e. Interior finish and arrangement. As was discussed in the previous chapter on the sale shop, practically nothing is known about the interior finish and room arrangement of the Fort Vancouver warehouses. But we can be certain that Buildings nos. 5 and 7 differed from the sale shop only in being somewhat cruder and in lacking the counters and other equipment of the trading room itself. Perhaps one end of the "New Store" was partitioned off to make a baling room, but otherwise these large structures probably were without interior walls. The plank floors, the exposed beams, the deal siding, and the open-tread stairs without handrails were as described in the previous chapter.

One feature of the interior finish seldom mentioned in written sources are the inscriptions often found on the walls and beams inside the warehouses. Speaking of the interior of the great store at York Factory in 1879, George Simpson McTavish wrote: "The names of many officers and workers with the weights of their respective persons were inscribed on the walls." [40] In 1967 Mr. A. Lewis Koue and the writer found pencilled lists of furs on the deals lining the walls in the loft of the abandoned warehouse at Fort St. James. What seem to be chalked markings indicating the locations of various types of goods can be seen in a 1923 photograph of the depot at York Factory (see plate CXII). It seems likely that a practice in vogue by 1879 and later so widespread was known in the 1840's.

d. Connection with stockade. One version of the Vavasour ground plan of late 1845 (plate VI) indicates that the southeast corner of Building no. 7 was linked to the south palisade wall by a fence or barrier of some type. This connection, which undoubtedly was a line of pickets, was shown by Vavasour as running at an angle southwesterly to join the main stockade directly west of the opening for the southwest fort gate. What appears to be the same connecting barrier is also shown on the "Line of Fire" map of September, 1844, though on such a small scale as to provide no structural information (plate V).