COGHLAN COMMUNITY part one – The Place Between Volume 1
Coghlan, named for settlers Nathaniel & Henry Coghlan, began to emerge as a community in the early 1880s. The majority of early settlers fished the Fraser River in the summer & held jobs in New Westminster during winter. They survived on barrels of salted salmon & pork, home cured hams & bacon, wild fowl & deer, and root cellars stocked with fruits & vegetables.
Early settlers walked to Fort Langley for mail & food supplies, taking butter & produce to exchange. Travel to New Westminster was by river boat from Fort Langley.
The roads were often just trails, curving around large stumps & water holes. Settlers worked their taxes out on road work & if a new section was to be opened a contract went to the lowest bidder. Taxes were $3.75 per 160 acres in the 1890s.
After the railway line was put through from Vancouver to Chilliwack in 1910, logging & millwork became the main occupation with many shingle & rough lumber mills operating in the area. The passenger service had 3 trains daily, with an extra train on Friday for market day in New West, and a late special on Saturday nights.
It was common to see freight cars loaded with huge logs going to Beaver, a large mill between County Line & Jackman Roads. Other mills were dotted throughout the area, so logging, cutting poles & railway ties created work for locals.
Land was gradually cleared for farming & orchards, and milk & cream was shipped to town on the milk train. Hay was cut by scythe & loaded by pitchfork onto horse-driven hay racks to be taken to the barn. Eventually the scythe was replaced by horse-drawn mowers or binders, and either stooked or loaded into the barn with hay slings & pitchfork.
Residents near the BC Electric Railway had power installed soon after the trains started to run. In 1924, other Coghlan Road settlers tried to get power by laying out poles. Linemen refused to climb the poles if the farmers put them up, so power didn’t arrive until 1936 when it was installed by BC Electric at $5.40 per month per farm.
