The Cornwall brothers—Henry and Clement—are probably the best-known siblings to have settled in the region during the heyday of the gold rush. They arrived here in 1862 and established a roadhouse alongside the Cariboo Wagon Road which soon became one of the best-known and most popular stopping-places along the route. They gave their surname to a variety of geographic features in the area, the best-known of them Cornwall Mountain, which overlooks their former roadhouse.
However, the Cornwalls were not the first English siblings to arrive here and build a roadhouse. That honour goes to brothers William and George Boothroyd, who crossed the ocean in search of gold in California in the early 1850s. By the time the gold rush there began to peter out the brothers were managing a hotel, but the news that gold had been found in the Fraser River sent them heading north in early 1858.
The Boothroyd brothers seem to have settled in quite quickly. William began teaching in Yale in 1859, and is said to have been the first paid teacher on the mainland of B.C. At some point in 1860 the brothers took over a property 11 miles north of Boston Bar that had been partially developed by a man named Henry Hartnett, with the sale of the property made legal in a document dated Oct. 14, 1862:
“I, Henry Hartnett, of Murderer’s Bar, in consideration of $663 U.S., paid by George W. Boothroyd, have sold all those parcels of land on a flat of land about 22 miles south of Lytton, on the east bank of the Fraser River consisting of 1 Lot of 160 acres of pre-empted land, and 1 Lot of 50 acres of purchased land adjoining, together with the buildings and improvements, I.E. fences.”
By early 1861 the brothers had established a roadhouse at the site which they called Forrest House (Forrest was the maiden name of George Boothroyd’s wife); the roadhouse was also referred to as 36 Mile House. A Royal Engineers map from 1861 shows a store and a blacksmith shop at the site.
The roadhouse offered the usual fare for travellers: meals and lodging for people, and stabling (with hay and oats) for horses. A photograph of the site taken by Frederick Dally in 1867 shows a well-kept property with cleared, fenced land and a number of outbuildings; the many wagons pulled up in front are probably a testament to the popularity of the roadhouse with travellers on the Wagon Road.
The roadhouse appears to have been run by both brothers, who also ranched at the site. Forrest House gained a good reputation along the Wagon Road, and the brothers’ surname was given to the area where the roadhouse was located. Interestingly, one source claims that the area came to be known as Boothroyd in honour of William alone, with the story going that William and one of his sons set out from Yale in a wagon carrying a load of gunpowder in barrels, to be used in the blasting of the Cariboo Wagon Road in 1862.
When the two failed to arrive at their destination searchers went out looking for them, but the only trace they could find was a large hole in the road which seemed to indicate there had been an explosion of some sort. The theory put forward was that there had been a hole in one of the barrels of gunpowder and that some of the contents had trickled out, then been ignited by a spark, possibly from one of the wheels. The wagon, its passengers, and its contents had presumably all been blown to bits, without a trace remaining. Boothroyd, so the story goes, was named in honour of the late William and his son.
It’s a good story, but if something of the sort happened it did not involve William Boothroyd, who has a long and documented history at Forrest House well after the gunpowder incident is said to have taken place. In the early 1870s, during the Omineca gold rush, William headed north, leaving George, his wife, and their nine children at Forrest House.
Although the roadhouse had a good reputation, and appears to have flourished for a decade or so, George Boothroyd ran into some financial difficulties, and had to sell part of the property. When William returned from the north in 1873 George sold out the remainder of his interest in the property to his brother and left with his family for the Lower Mainland, where they settled.
The move was probably inspired by the fact that the brothers were known not to get along with each other, and it seems likely that after being apart while William was gold-seeking up north, they decided they preferred that state of affairs. William was also known to disapprove of his brother’s wife, a woman of First Nations descent, and did not get along well with the Indigenous residents of the area; a newspaper account from 1862 notes that “Indians at Boothroyd’s Hotel attacked William Boothroyd, cutting him severely about the face and body, and would have killed him, had not another white man interfered.”
After George’s departure in 1873 William continued on at the roadhouse for another three years. However, a notice in the Mainland Guardian in March 1876 states: “For Sale by order of the Mortgage, Boothroyd’s Ranch. Situated on the Yale-Lytton wagon road, between Boston Bar and Lytton. Consisting of 80 acres of land thereabouts, with the improvements and dwelling houses. Tenders for the purchase of the above property will be received up to May 15, 1876.”
Quite how things got to this state is unclear: Forrest House appears to have been popular, and traffic along the Wagon Road was still brisk. It has been speculated that the brothers lost a good deal of money in the Omineca gold rush, which was nowhere near as rich or lengthy as had been anticipated, and which bankrupted many people who had staked their fortunes on it.
The property was sold, and William Boothroyd promptly returned to England, where he vanishes from the historical record. George and his family remained on the coast, and eventually Forrest House—like most of the roadhouses along the Cariboo Wagon Road—disappeared. The site was used as a camp for Chinese workers during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1882–84, then faded away.
The area is still known as Boothroyd, with the name having been given to the Boothroyd First Nation, a community of approximately 40 people living on reserve near the site of the long-vanished roadhouse that came to a sad end.
editorial@accjournal.ca
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