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(Now at 9160 Church Street). The Hudson's Bay Company sold the south-west section of their Fort Langley property to Alexander Mavis in the 1880s. The local cemetery, where many early settlers and HBC employees were laid to rest, was included in this sale. Mavis erected a fence around the cemetery to keep wandering cattle from grazing amongst the gravestones. He later subdivided his farm and sold the cemetery with adjacent land to the Anglican Parish for $50. In October 1901, St. George's Anglican, a small Carpenter Gothic Revival style church, opened on the site to serve the surrounding communities (including Milner, Glen Valley and Langley). It was built by Duncan Buie, with BC Mills providing the building supplies and the Coulter & Berry General Store supplying the hardware. The original windows were all single-hung sash with plate glass. The total cost for building St. George's, including the land and some furnishings, came to $744.40. A local craftsman by the name of Joe Sailes created the lectern and other fixtures. A striking iron cross is mounted over the front door and details the artistic aspect of the blacksmith's craft. It is thought to be a marker once gracing the grave of a Hawaiian (Kanaka) HBC employee. 1912 saw the Chancel enlarged and the installation of the stained glass window over the altar. A small bell tower was added in 1914 and rebuilt in 1982. The bell is purported to have come from the estate of Port Kells' Carl von Mackensen, a German loyalist interned during WWI. Billy Brown donated new front doors to St. George's in 1935 (after finding they were the wrong size for the church that originally commissioned them). A hall with full basement was constructed at the rear of the church in the late 1940s to facilitate growing social functions. Memorial gifts (often stained glass) add to the church's interior decoration.
See Also: Pioneer Cemetery
Term Source: Langley's Heritage