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April 2014
Sheringham Point Lighthouse, taken by James Ellsworth
The More Things Change, The More They Remain The Same: Neighbours Over The Years – Feud at the Sheringham Point Lighthouse
It was a different world in the 1921, or was it? The Stanley Cup playoffs would still end in frustration for a Vancouver hockey team (Ottawa Senators defeated the Millionaires); Ford Motor Company was experimenting with the 8-hour day, and the Hudson Bay Company store was still trying to make it on Douglas Street in Victoria.
So much for progress. In fact, neighbours got along much the same then as they do now. In the Times Colonist (July 28, 2012), an article appeared outlining recent complaints over by-laws on noise, unsightly property and parking. It seems that often good fences aren’t enough to ensure good neighbours. It wasn’t good enough between Poland and Russia who went to war in 1921, and certainly not good enough between the Ardens and the Clarks of Shirley, near Sooke, that same year.
I came across some primary documents recently after revealing to a hockey colleague, Norm Arden, that I had visited Point No Point, which included discovering the delightful lighthouse at Sheringham Point. He said his ancestors were from that area and he had a stack of handwritten family letters about the village of Shirley’s environs that I might find interesting. It included 28 pages on a land and road dispute. It seems Mr. Edwin Clark purchased some land which abutted the federal lighthouse property and a fight flared over crossing the land to access the road out. It is a local illustration of the concept, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”.
The Ardens were pioneers and settlers in Metchosin. Mr. William Arden was born in Cheshire, England in 1836, served in the Crimean War (speaking of times not changing) before emigrating and carving out a homestead from the virgin forest west of Victoria. He was honoured by B.C. Premier S. Tolmie on Oct. 20, 1928 as Metchosin’s oldest citizen, aged 92. Old William was a model of friendly and generous citizenship, even donating a pump to the school for a clear water supply on Nov. 25, 1927.
The Ardens were community stalwarts around Metchosin, Shirley and Otter Point. In fact, the Victoria Times reported several times in Social News that Eustace Trevanian (E.T.) Arden and family of Sheringham Point, the lighthouse keepers from 1911-1946, were instrumental in cultural events held at the lighthouse. For instance, Mrs. Arden hosted the Shirley Women’s Institute regularly; there was a family party in May, 1929 where “a jolly evening was spent”; a Christmas party was held in 1931, chaired by E.T. who was also a Board of Education Trustee then; and a community coming-of-age party for 21 year old son, Phillip in 1933. But there was a blemish in the upstanding Arden family because, for a short time, November 1920 to October 1922, they were at the centre of a sour neighbourly feud.
The first mention of disharmony between Arden and Clark reached officialdom in November 1921. Col. A.W. Wilby, the agent for the Department of Marine and Fisheries, responded by letter to Eustace Arden that Mr. Edwin Clark had claimed he had a problem with Arden and the right-of-way access from the lighthouse which traversed Clark land. He added that a Major Campbell, a provincial government superintendent, agreed with Clark and that Arden and others must not use private land to connect to the public road. The plot thickened in the New Year when Arden sent a letter to Wilby, counter-complaining. He wrote that Clark’s beef about cattle grazing on his property was unfair, and that Arden having to remove a garage and a gate from a right of way was ridiculous. Furthermore, others were using the land for grazing too and Campbell himself permitted Arden’s garage in 1915 and its continued use in August, 1920. Clark was being puerile, Arden wrote, acting in “pure meanness and wants to show his authority”.
So the matter went to review. In February, Wilby, awaiting an official decision, suggested that Arden and Clark try to reach a solution. Arden complied and wrote that Clark objected to the garage and “did not want to be bothered with it.” The ante went up on March 18th when Arden wrote Wilby to say that Clark had secured fencing and a gate with heavy wire, effectively closing off the road to the lighthouse, and to Arden and his children who used it to go to school. It also inconvenienced Mrs. Arden who had been in Victoria. When she returned by stage at night she had to work with stones, sticks and even a button hook in the dark to try to gain access and in the process hurt her side. E.T. said, “I cannot stand much more of this kind of treatment.” One can sense the tension escalating and lines being drawn. Wiley wanted a settlement but was growing frustrated with governmental dilatoriness. The Ardens and Clarks were merely hardening their points of view.
When J.E. Griffith, Deputy Minister of Public Works for B.C., ruled on March 24, 1921 that Arden was being ‘unneighbourly’, Wiley leapt to his light keeper’s defense, accusing Griffith of being one-sided and that “Clark’s family are almost impossible people to get on with.” And Clark responded in a three-page letter that Mrs. Arden was leaving the gate open, releasing cows, because she considered the road to be a public highway, even though Clark offered to build a turnstile, certainly not wanting to deny a right of access to the lighthouse. He then threatened to write the federal government in Ottawa and ended with a demand for expenses that were still owing for fence and gate repairs. Thus, the month ended with the players being mad as March hares.
Then in June, Clark offered a compromise. He would allow a separate right of way to the lighthouse by granting a logging outfit to build a logging road which the Arden’s could use. Not suitable, Arden said on June 4th; Milligan’s Logging Company’s road would be too narrow and too dangerous for his children to use. In July the Department of Fisheries and Marines refused the compromise too. The impasse continued, the letters revealing a variation on “he said, she said”.
There is a post-script. The following year, June 1922, Clark wrote a letter complaining that Arden’s cattle were still grazing on his land. It must have seemed like déjà vu when Arden replied that he would do his best to stop the cows from roaming. On June 10, 1922, Clark wrote in desperation that “I shall have the entire use of my land for myself and family even if I have to write to His Majesty King George V.”
What happens to otherwise sane people’s behaviour? Notwithstanding Steven Pinker, the Harvard Professor of Psychology who wrote optimistically about “the better angels of our nature”, we’re probably doomed to repeat our flaws. I confess I agree more with Cleo, the Muse of History, and the Greeks who believed that life moves in cycles, alas even circles.
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