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William Innes was born in 1833 in Elgin, Banffshire, Scotland. William is believed to have participated in the California Gold Rush in 1849. He and his younger brother Adam emigrated to Canada in about 1851 and settled near London Ontario. William was in B.C. by 1862, when he moved to the Cariboo and became a partner of Isaac Saul at the 59 Mile House. The two had previously done work on the construction of Cariboo Rd. By 1867 William had sold out his part of the business to Isaac and had gone into the freighting business with his brother, Adam. By the early 1870s both men claimed land at Langley Prairie, and were Langley Prairie's first long-term European residents. William's land was west of Glover Road, but spanned both sides of what is now (2005) the Langley Bypass. His brother Adam owned the land to the south, at what is now called Innes Corners. Adam and William shared a common household with their families in Langley, and it is believed that their house was probably the same one that was later occupied by the Logan family, not far from Innes Corners. In the early 1880s, William moved to Victoria. His brother Adam died there while visiting him in 1889. William was a teamster in Victoria from 1887-1889. He kept possession of his land in Langley, and returned to farm it from about 1892-1901. He married Margaret Moore in Vancouver in 1892, and the couple had three sons, William, Jr., Robert and Adam. William left Langley and moved to Port Moody in about 1901. He worked at this time as a mill hand in the Royal City Planing Mills in New Westminster, and then in Port Moody's Emerson Lumber Company mill. He retired in 1910. William died in Port Moody in 1915, and is buried in New Westminster. His wife Margaret died in Port Moody in 1927.
Term Source: From Prairie to City" by Warren Sommer