Fort Vancouver Historic Structures Report

Construction details

a. Dimensions and footings. As has been seen, Thomas Lowe, at the time the foundations were set in place, said the New Office measured thirty-eight by thirty-two feet. The three versions of the Vavasour map of 1845 agree in showing the length as being about thirty-eight feet, but one of the original drawings (Plate VI, vol. I) gives the width as about twenty-eight feet, while the other two versions (Plates VII and VIII, vol. I) show it as about thirty feet. The Company's inventory of 1846-47 gives the dimensions as thirty-six by thirty feet. [14]

In view of these conflicts in the historical evidence, it is indeed fortunate that archeological excavations in 1950 succeeded in locating all four corner footings of the New Office as well as all of those spaced along the lines of the walls. According to Mr. Louis R. Caywood, who supervised the dig, "from center to center of the corner footings the building measured 31 by 37.5 feet." [15] Because the sills probably extended somewhat beyond the centers of the footings, however, Lowe's figures of thirty-eight by thirty-two feet for the dimensions of the New Office were probably quite accurate.

There were five footings, including those at the corners, for each of the long walls (north wall and south wall) and four for each of the short walls. Thus they were centered somewhat less than ten feet apart on the long walls and somewhat more than ten feet apart on the short ones. This spacing is what might be expected for Canadian-type construction. Mr. Caywood found the footings to be "large slabs and well preserved"; they were set with their long dimensions perpendicular to the lines of the walls except perhaps on the south side where the evidence is not clear. Unfortunately, Mr. Caywood does not indicate whether the footings rested on the surface of the 1845 ground level, partly beneath it, or entirely beneath it. [16]

b. General construction. The written record provides very little information about the physical structure of the New Office, but this lack is partially remedied by the existence of two pictures that contain partial views of the building. Most useful, perhaps, is the Coode watercolor of 1846-47 (Plates XI and XII, vol. 1), which shows the entire front and part of the east wall of the countinghouse. At the extreme right of the 1860 photograph of the northwest portion of the fort (Plate XXVIII, vol. I), a small section of the New Office is visible.

A print of this latter picture in the Provincial Archives of British Columbia shows more of the New Office than the copies previously seen by this writer. The very helpful staff of that repository enlarged the portion of the print showing the New Office and the Granary, and the enlargement is reproduced in this report as Plate LXIII.

The footing pattern and the words of Lowe mentioning "preparing the wood for the New Office" prior to the laying of the foundation would seem to point toward a Canadian-type construction for this building. The general practice for such post-on-sill construction was to cut and shape to size all the timbers required before the actual erection commenced. In essence, the erection of a Canadian- frame building was merely an assembly operation. [17]

However, at least one later witness stated that he thought all of the buildings at Fort Vancouver were "of the Canadian pattern" except the office and the Big House. [18] The implication is that these two structures were of ordinary frame construction, though because he was mistaken in the case of the manager's residence, he may also have been with respect to the office. Because both of these structures were weatherboarded on the outside and lined on the inside, an untrained observer may not have been able to discern the underlying squared-log construction.

The opinion of the witness appears to receive some support from the fact that, according to the Coode drawing, the front or south wall of the New Office contained one door and four windows, with the door centered on the wall. Ordinarily in Canadian-style construction such a spacing of the openings would indicate five "bays" of infill logs in the wall. But the footing pattern in this instance would seem to show that there were only four bays, because usually there was an up right framing timber over each footing. If such a condition had held true for the New Office, the center upright would have been in the middle of the centered door. Obviously, such was not actually the case.

Of course the upright posts did not necessarily have to be centered directly over the footings. There could have been an upright on each side of the door, and the locations of the windows could have been adjusted to give even spacing across the front of the building. The Canadian style permitted considerable freedom in the placing of wall openings.

It seems impossible to make a firm decision on this matter from the information at hand. In the opinion of the writer, however, the evidence--including the height and general configuration of the building--balances out in favor of the Canadian style.

From the pictures, the New Office appears to have been a one- story structure with a windowless garret. The roof was hipped, with the ridge running east and west. The sills were close to the ground, and the weatherboarding that covered the walls on the out side seems to have extended to, or very nearly to, the ground surface.

Walls. Estimating the height of the New Office walls appears to The exterior weatherboarding makes interior structure of the walls or floor ceiling joists were placed. the character of the weatherboards of the door as six feet, the height have been thirteen feet or a bit more. it impossible to determine the the height at which the ground- The 1860 photograph clearly shows and their trim.

Roof. As shown by the Coode watercolor, the 1860 photograph, and the 1847-48 painting by an unknown artist (Plates XV and XVI, vol. I), the New Office unmistakably possessed a hipped roof. [19] The short ridge line lay in an east-west direction. The overhang was minimal, and there were no gutters. Close under the eaves above the front door a drip board, supported by solid-board, scalloped brackets at each end, projected for possibly a foot to shelter the stoop. There may have been a narrow metal gutter at the outer edge of this board. The design of the brackets is not readily discernable in the enlarge ment reproduced in Plate LXIII, but the original print in the British Columbia archives shows them to have been about as illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3
Design of bracket supporting drip board above front door, New Office

Beyond any reasonable doubt the roof was covered with shingles. They would have been the best available, probably finished shakes with about six inches exposed to the weather. The 1860 photograph shows a row of cleats ascending along the angle of the hip at the southwest corner of the building. It is not possible to determine from the pictures whether there were hip boards and ridge boards.

Chimney. No chimney is shown on any known picture of the New Office, but there must have been one of some type because the building possessed a stove. [20] Perhaps future archeological explorations will throw light upon the structure and location of this chimney.

Doors. The only door about which anything is known is that in the center of the south wall shown in the Coode drawing and the 1860 photograph. Apparently this door was paneled, although its exact design cannot be made out in the photograph.

The semicircular, sunburst-type transom, or light, over the door that is shown in the 1860 photograph seems uncharacteristic of Hudson's Bay Company architecture. Unfortunately the Coode watercolor, which appears to show a different sort of emblem or transom over the door, is so indistinct in this respect that it throws no useful light on the subject. In a reconstruction, therefore, one apparently is left with no alternative but to follow the photograph. But it would not be too surprising if someday evidence should be produced demonstrating that this semicircular transom was an installation of the 1850s.

Both the watercolor and the photograph appear to show two steps in front of the south wall door. Evidently the bottom one was wider than that on top.

There is no known evidence that there was a second door to the New Office. It is possible that there was a rear entrance for the convenience of any resident clerks, but on the other hand the Company's officers, for several reasons, might have preferred a single entry placed where it could have been kept under surveillance.

Windows. Only two windows can be seen in the section of the east wall visible in the Coode sketch, but it can safely be assumed that there were three windows on the entire wall as well as on the west wall. The same picture demonstrates that there were four windows on the south or front wall. If the structure was built in the Canadian style there probably were only four windows on the rear wall, one in the center of each bay. This assumption may be confirmed by the four windows shown in the north wall in the rather unreliable 1854 drawing by an unknown artist (Plate XX, vol. I). As is shown in the 1860 photograph, the windows in this building were double hung, with twelve panes in each section.

This might be a good point at which to mention a few facts about window construction at Hudson's Bay Company posts in general and at Fort Vancouver in particular. Inventories and indents show that the most generally used size of window pane imported from England for use in the Columbia District measured 7-1/2 by 8-1/2 inches. Panes measuring 9 by 7 inches were also commonly employed, as were those of 9 by 8 inches. [21]

Double-hung windows in the Big House at Lower Fort Garry, which was built in the same general time period as was the New Office at Fort Vancouver, contained twelve panes in each section, and the exposed portion of each pane measured 7-1/4 by 8-1/4 inches. The glass, of course, was somewhat larger. The exposed sash inside the window frames was about 33 inches wide and 56-1/2 inches high. [22] The con struction of this type of window in Canada about the middle of the ninteenth century is detailed in Plate XLIX.

The general similarity between the Fort Carry windows and those depicted in the 1860 photograph of the New Office is obvious. As very roughly scaled off, the height of the sash on the latter structure appears to be somewhat more than 4-1/2 feet, very close to that of the Fort Garry sash.

The Coode watercolor appears to show the windows on the east wall as being taller than those on the south wall. It seems impossible to determine if such was actually the case or if the young naval officer was having difficulty with perspective, yet it is difficult to see why the windows would differ in height.

Exterior finish. The fact that the exterior of the New Office was weatherboarded has already been mentioned. There is a remarkable unanimity of evidence on another point: the exterior was painted white, not only on the front but on all sides. The Coode sketch, the 1847-48 painting by an unknown artist, and the 1860 photograph are all clear on that point. And the latter view depicts walls, door, trim, and sash as white--everything but the roof.

The Coode watercolor does portray the front steps, the doorway, and the ornament, or whatever feature is over the door, as being brown or brownish gray; but perhaps this color, except on the stairs, is intended to indicate shadow. On the version of this painting reproduced in the autumn 1970 issue of The Beaver, page 52, there appears to be brown trim around the window openings, but on the original copy in the Company's archives no distinct trim color could be detected. All in all, it would seem safest to follow the evidence given in the 1860 photograph to the effect that only white paint was used on the exterior of the New Office.

c. Interior finish and arrangement. No documentary or pictorial evidence that would throw light upon the number or location of rooms in the New Office is known to exist. One can only assume that the arrangement was approximately the same as that hypothesized for the Old Office--a large office proper in the front half with three or four small rooms at the rear.

Lloyd Brooke, a civilian employee of the United States Army, testified in 1866 that the "counting-room" was "weatherboarded on the outside and ceiled on the inside" when he first saw it in 1849.23 If the interior was ceiled it undoubtedly was also lined. It seems safe to assume that the New Office was finished in the same manner as was its predecessor, with planed floors, chair rail, and simple trim.