Langley Centennial Museum
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Object Description
Object ID
0173
Title
The Drummond family house.
Description
The Drummond family house. The McIntosh House can be seen in the background.
Photo Inscription/Caption
Inscription in ink: "This house was torn down for building supply Walter Wilke house"
People/Subject
Drummond House
Located in Fort Langley - roughly where Frontier Hardware now stands (2005). James Morton Drummond came to the HBC shop in the village in July of 1887. A younger man with a good mind, Drummond was to see how it ran and make improvements. Around the time of his arrival in the summer of 1887, or early the following year in preparation for marriage, Drummond built (or had built) this house. He married Ida Emma Towle, daughter of local Commercial Hotel owners Wilson and Eliza Towle, on March 14, 1888. Drummond was also the postmaster. Drummond resigned from the HBC in March 1892. In the directory of this year, he is listed as the Justice of the Peace and the Treasurer of the Municipal Council, and in 1895 was the Graveyard Commissioner for what is now the Fort Langley Cemetery. His wife Emma was the postmaster for a short time during 1896, after which time the Drummond family seems to have left Langley. Where they went is unclear.
In 1897 David Moss Coulter came to Langley and sent for friend John Berry. The men opened a store in Murrayville and Fort Langley, in the old HBC store. While Berry manned the Murrayville store, Coulter ran the store in the village. The Coulter family joined David in Langley, and they all lived in the back of the old HBC store for a few months until the new Coulter & Berry store was built on the corner of Mavis and Glover, at the site of the current IGA store. At this point, the family moved into the Drummond house and lived there for two years, until their family house just north of the Drummond House was completed. The Coulter family would have moved out of the Drummond house in approximately 1899. This was roughly when the Wilkie family moved in. It is believed that Henry and his wife Catherine lived in the Drummond house in about 1899 or so, when the Coulters moved out, as that is where they appear to be in the 1901 census, living with their grandson, Henry Holding.
Henry Wilkie died in 1905, but it seems that his son Walter Wilkie lived in the house with his wife and children after his marriage the same year to Louisa Anne Edwards, as Agatha Vera Primrose (nee Coulter) remembered the Wilkies being neighbours for a time as she would play with Walter Wilkie's children.
Longtime local resident Alf Trattle also remembered the Wilkie's living in the Drummond house, but remembers the Plaxton's living there for a time, too. Robert Plaxton arrived in Fort Langley with his family in 1886. He was a school teacher, and the family spent time living in Fort Langley and in Langley Prairie. Plaxton's daughter, Elsie Wark, remembered that after her father passed away in 1913, her mother Nancy rented the old Drummond house.
Who lived in the house during the 1920s and 1930s is unclear, but some remember members of Henry West's family residing here later, in about the 1940s.
After the Wests, the Czorny family lived in the Drummond house. Not much is known about this family, but they would have lived there in roughly the 1950s and/or the early 1960s. A long-time resident remembered this family, and believed that the house was torn down after this family moved away.
Although the exact age of the current building at 9202 Glover Road is unknown, it is believed to have been built sometime between 1956 and 1962. The location was used as a building supply store before the Dyck family started running the business as Frontier Building Supplies in December 1971. Frontier Building Supplies closed in May 2011.
Drummond, Ida (nee Towle), 1868-?
Ida Drummond (nee Towle) married James Morton Drummond.
Term Source: The Langley Story pg. 266 (Waite)
McIntosh House
William John McIntosh built his house in 1895. It was situated along with his blacksmith shop across the road from the Coulter and Berry General Store. The house was built with wood bevelled siding; gable roof type; wood shingle roof; rectangular plan shape; a front verandah and decorated fascia in roof verge. The house was later occupied by the Moorehouse family after 1920. The McIntoshs moved into another home in Fort Langley at this time. The house was originally a two storey structure with a prominent bay-style front entrance. The house was moved up the street in the late 1970s/early 1980s, to Mavis and Royal Street. To facilitate moving the building, it was necessary to collapse the second storey. The building was demolished.
residences
Wilkie, Walter Gerald Edward Hope
Walter Gerald Edward Hope Wilkie was born September 17, 1871 in Dublin. He came to Canada with his parents. He served as Post-master/Clerk for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Langley between June 1892 and January 1893. He married a nurse, Louisa Anne Edwards on February 28, 1905 in Langley. Louisa died on December 16, 1936. Eventually Walter took up surveying, working at times with his younger brother Octavius surveying roads, railways, and land. Walter was the last surviving son of Henry and Alicia. He retired in Fort Langley, and died February 3, 1954 leaving one sister, Jessie. (Info provided by family descendants Tannis Pond).
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