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8121 York Ave |
British Columbia Tourism Region : Vancouver Island
Description From Owner:
- Crofton, after Henry Croft, a mining engineer who was a brother-in-law of James Dunsmuir, the coal and lumber magnate. In 1900 Croft, manager of the Lenora, Mt. Sicker Copper Mining Company, bought land on Osborn Bay on which to build a smelter.
- In 1902, when a village was built to house the 400 men working at the smelter, it was named Crofton.
- Mount Richards - After Captain (later Admiral) George H. Richards, RN (1820-1900).
- From 1856 to 1863, commanding first HMS Plumper and then her replacement HMS Hecate, he conducted a most thorough survey of the coasts of the Crown Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia.
- At the end of that period, he returned to England to become Hydrographer of the Navy, leaving his second-in-command, Commander Daniel Pender, to complete the survey using the historic Beaver, which the navy had leased from the HBC.
- One of those remarkable Victorians compounded of energy and purpose, Richards was an English gentleman and English gentlemen did not go around naming places after themselves.
- Accordingly, while he named places after Pender, he named nothing after himself, and the best that posterity has done for him is this one small 'mountain,' named in 1905 by Captain J.F. Parry of HMS Egeria.
- With permission from G.P.V and Helen B. Akrigg 1997 British Columbia Place Names. UBC Press.
Address of this page: http://bc.ruralroutes.com/Crofton