Pioneer Car Needed Handy Horse Trough

Car Fee Only $2 in First Motor Act

by Cecil Clark

Times-Colonist

July 21, 1971

On November 26, 1896, a Colonial editorial introduced British Columbians to the automotive age in these terms:

"The horseless carriage is likely to come into general use. It is found to be perfectly manageable and can be used in large cities where the traffic is great. Its sustained speed during a long journey is better than that of a horse . . . It will in the near future be seen on the streets and roads of every civilized country."

Lucky were our first motorist for they paid no license tax, had no insurance or parking problems and knew nothing of speed limits. April 1, 1900, however, only three that impaired their ability to drive was darkness. They had no lights. Proof that the first automobiles weren't meant to be driven at night was the classic instance of a California driver who was prosecuted for this nocturnal performance.

Fifty automobile in B.C. was a home-grown product built by Armstrong-Morrison Co. who ran a machine shop at the foot of Van Horne's Heatley Avenue.

A steam powered wagon, with wooden wheels and iron tires, apparently it only made one trip. Perhaps because of its tendency to shake itself to pieces on the unpaved roads.

Armstrong, however, still had the bug and later commissioned his friend W. C. Dittmar to travel east and get into a car. At Toronto, Dittmar found the only man operating an automobile was later Sir John Eaton, who had a one-cylinder Winton motor recently an open carriage. Dittmar viewed it, then went on to Hartford, Connecticut. Consequently, to see the Pope Mfg. Co. who turned out the Pope Hartford. Finally he ended up at Newton, Mass, where he then the eccentric Stanely brothers, bearded twins, who dressed alike and previously manufactured photographic plates.

Now they were building Stanley steamers with ran on bicycle wheels and tires, steered by tiller and had a foot-operated warning bell. Dittmar bought one for $650, shipped it back to Vancouver and on Sept. 26, 1899 it made its first appearance on Vancouver's streets. Although Major Gardner took a ride in it, his mind was probably more occupied with getting rid of septic tanks and putting in sewerage.  A News-Advertiser man covered the event although from his assembled report,  it is plain to see the whole thing was over his head. The new-born Daily Province didn’t thing the event work covering.

Anyway it was the first steam car to operate in Canada, and the first automobile seen west of the Great Lakes.

The first car in Victoria was Dr. E. C. Hart's one cylinder, four-horsepower, curved dash Oldsmobile which he and his mechanically minded friend, Ben Hutchison operated at the E&N Depot on May 24, 1902.   Filling its four-gallon tank with 9-cent gas, they cranked it up to drive up Johnson Street to the cheers of an admiring throng.

It was just before his death in 1960 that I chatted with Doc Hart about this car, when he told me that back in 1902 the only gasoline in town was sold by the Hudson's Bay Company.

Apparently it came from Seattle, two four-gallon cans to a case, and for safety's sake was kept on a scow moored to the Hudson Bay wharf. He bought their entire stock, 18 gallons and, for a moment in our city history, one man owned all the gas in town. Which, as he told me, was a bit of a nuisance for after that all the plumbers in town were running after him for gas for their blow torches!

Second car to arrive in Victoria was a White steamer made by the White Sewing Machine Company and bought by A. E. "Bet" Todd from the town's first motor dealer, Bagster Seabrook.

When Seabrook handed over the car in front of his Wharf Street office on May 28, 1903, he little realized has was not only shaking hands with a future son-in-law, but also a future mayor of Victoria.

These early days the steamers had to fill up with both gas and water to feed burner and boiler.  Every 50 miles you filled the water tank, and it was some years before obliging manufacturers supplied a bucket with the tool kit.  Then all you had to do was keep an eye open for a horse trough.

However, from all reports they were quiet, powerful, and, despite rumours, comparatively safe cars.

Their tubular boilers were tested far beyond safety limits and, in addition, some were wrapped with piano wire.  They had no gear box.  You merely opened the throttle and went.  Of course you had to watch you didn’t open the throttle too wide going up a hill, otherwise you ran out. Of steam faster than you could make it!

It was the year after Todd’s purchase, 1904, that the hand of fate struck down his free and easy motoring habits.  The passage of the Motor Vehicle Act required each car to be registered with the Superintendent of Provincial Police for a $2 fee, and the number of the owner’s permit had to be displayed on the back of the car in letters not less than three inches in height.

Which meant you had to go and get your number plate, usually made by a saddler and of shoe leathers with metal house numbers attached.

In addition the Act spelled that cars had to have an “alarm bell, gong or horn” and carry a lamp or lamps between dusk and dawn.  Speed limits were set a 10 miles and hour in cities and 15 miles an hour in open country.

The following year came a single, one word amendment to the Act:  the word “annually” applied to the $2 fee.

Though it’s a time-worn cliché to remark that the automobile radically changed our lives, there are still a few old-timers among us who can look back with a certain degree of nostalgia to the days when motoring wore a sportive air.

For with the engineering failures in tires and engines, any long-distance run was a holy grail of a triumph. Which accounted for the landlines soon after Bert Todd acquired his Steele acquired his White steamer, he drove it from Gorge Road and Douglas to Wight’s Hotel, about where Resthaven is today, in 18 minutes.

A day later he set another record by driving to Shawnigan Lake and back.  No Malahat in those days, so he used to old Sooke Lake Road which you can still enter behind the Goldstream Hotel.

Probably the last of the pioneer auto dealers in this town was JM “Jim” Wood and talking with him the other afternoon I learned how, in 1907, he participated in a run to Alberni and back.

This was the era when the Hutchison brothers were running their machine shop and garage at 16 Broughton Street, the year Tom Plimley opened the first garage at the corner of Government and Superior.  Jim’s Wood Motor Company then served the public from the old Philharmonic Hall of Fort Street.

It was on Dominion Day 1907, the sporty motorists took off on their up-island run.  The Plimley entry was a red Beeston-Humber driven by Hal Holton which, by the way, was the first car back in town.  A Stanley Steamer only got to Duncan, where it had to be shipped home by rail.  Most expensive car entered was a Thomas Flyer, and according to the newspaper report, “Capt JW Troup’s car performed well.”

Jim Wood piloted one of the two Oldsmobile entries, his passengers being Colonist Editor Charles Lugrin, Bob Tatlow, Dick McBride’s minister of finance, and newspaperman RJ “Dick” Burde, who had just founded the Port Alberni News.

It was in continuance of the endurance theme that in August 1913, another group of Victorians left Seattle for the 2000 mile run to San Fancisco and back.  Who won isn’t clear, but there were gold and silver medals for first and second place.

Earliest motor vehicle statistics that have survived show 175 cars in BC in 1907.

Today over a million trucks and cars are annually licensed with about the same number of operators and, where once a single Provincial Policeman entered car registrations in a book, now it takes a province-wide staff of over 400 to handle the task.

Here is town Bagster Seabrooks early day agency has transformed into a force of 21 dealers.  More per capita than any other city in Canada, according to the president of their association, Bob Carere of National Motors.