The discovery of gold in British Columbia led to it becoming a colony in 1858, and as thousands of fortune-seekers flowed into the territory it was realized that roads were needed to expedite their travel and, more importantly, the shipment of goods. Where there are roads, and tired and hungry men travelling them, places for them (and their horses, if they had one) to eat, drink, and sleep soon follow; and the Cariboo Wagon Road was no exception.
In this area, several roadhouses sprung up in the early 1860s to cater to travelers. Some of them, such as the one at what is now Ashcroft Manor, were known for their comfort, hospitality, and amenities (such as all the latest newspapers from Great Britain, only three months old), while others did not enjoy such a high reputation. In 1862 the Reverend Mr. Ebenezer Robson gave a description of the roadhouse at Hat Creek:
“Decided to put up at [Mr. McLean’s] wayside house in the Bonaparte valley. When I arrived at the sprawling group of cabins, I was amazed, for never, since I started my journey, had I come across such a gathering of men, women, children, cattle, horses, dogs, and insects. I waited long for my supper; the meal, when I got it, was not inviting but which I ate as I felt I must fortify myself against the coming day’s work.
“I did not take a bed, for the bunks were as hard as boards, the pillows seemed to be flour sacks filled with grass, and the dark-looking blankets had enwrapped too many sweaty, unwashed bodies. So placing my Mexican saddle against the wall, and spreading my saddle cloth over it, I pulled off my boots, said my prayers, and using my coat as a blanket, slept the sleep of the weary.”
A fuller account of Hat Creek House (and its reported hauntings) will come in the future; but here is a look at two local roadhouses, both sadly long gone, that are much less well known.
The Basque Ranch roadhouse, located between Cook’s Ferry (now Spences Bridge) and Ashcroft was established by Louis Antoine Minnaberriet (the original spelling of the surname; there is a Minnaberriet Creek in the Cornwall Hills that appears with that spelling in very early maps of the region). Louis, the son of a French aristocrat from the Basque area of France, had first come to British Columbia in the early 1850s. He left the colony to raise cattle on a ranch in Oregon, then returned to the area in 1860, to establish a farm and roadhouse on his new home beside the Thompson River. By 1862, Minnaberriet and his partners had pre-empted more than 1,000 acres of good farmland, growing grain and hay as their main crops. They also grew grapes, which they turned into wine that was sold at their roadhouse.
That roadhouse—known as Basque Ranch—also acted as a stagecoach stop; but with the coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1883, the property—2,000 acres of land, as well as stock, buildings, and machinery—was sold to two English brothers, Leonard and Walter Langley, for $40,000. It is not known when the roadhouse ceased operation.
The Basque Ranch roadhouse seems not to have attracted any negative attention; but the same could not be said of Oregon Jack’s roadhouse, which was not too far away. Jack (or John) Dowling was an American settler whose place of origin gave rise to his nickname, “Oregon Jack”. He started off as a gold miner, but by 1858 had decided there was more money to be made in packing supplies to others, and did well enough at that trade that by 1862 he and a partner, Dominic Gavin, were able to purchase land about 16 miles northwest of Cook’s Ferry and establish a roadhouse there, which opened in 1863 and catered mostly to packers and freight-team operators.
History has left us a contradictory picture of Oregon Jack. On the one hand, Dowling and Gavin were known to be responsible farmers, and good friends to the aristocratic Cornwall brothers, their neighbours to the north at Ashcroft. The Cornwalls spoke well of both men, and invited them to Christmas dinners, which carried considerable weight, for the Cornwalls were English gentlemen, educated at Cambridge University, who did not need to tolerate undesirable people in their home. And while it was agreed that things could get a tad wild at Jack’s roadhouse—Henry Cornwall noted that “Oregon Jack gave a dance, at which everybody got very drunk, I believe!”—it was generally felt that the host was as hospitable and friendly as most travellers could wish. The Cornwalls themselves were known to visit; on January 15, 1865 Henry Cornwall wrote in his diary “[D]rove over to Oregon Jack’s for dinner and back again the same night – got home about 1:00 am… we were feasted in great style having a really fine dinner with excellent pastry and egg nog afterwards.”
On the other hand, not everyone shared this charitable view of Oregon Jack. One guest described him as a vile-looking man, with a red face, bald head, and bowed legs, with the red face attributed to the fact that Jack had not, during his years in the area, drawn one sober breath. And the Indians of the Oregon Jack band (Dowling had given his name to a valley in the region, and thence to the natives who lived there for some of the year) were constantly having run-ins with him. His land near the Thompson adjoined Oregon Jack reserve land, and Dowling seemed to go out of his way to antagonize the reserve’s inhabitants; so much so that in 1882 the government Indian Agent for the region advised that someone should have a word with Dowling over his misuse of water rights, which was affecting the Oregon Jack Indians.
Both Dowling and Gavin died in the 1890s, and their property became part of the Basque Ranch. No traces of their roadhouse, or the one at Basque, remain.