In late 1892, Robert Shortreed put his village up for sale, along with 120 acres of his 160 acre quarter section. As you know, we've been working hard going through many sources, trying to follow the growth of the community. Some of the information in the image comes from Voters Lists, some from land records, and some from the census, although the census is not very useful for locale, as the enumerator's trail seems to meander a fair bit.
We know that the Voters List excluded anyone not entitled to vote and is not a complete reflection of who lived in this area. The election process at that time favoured white settler men, and some of the land records we have contradict other second-hand items we have found in the archives. Some of the entries in the Voters List gives section numbers, but many just list "Township 10" (11, 13, 14, etc) or Langley, or Langley Prairie, or Langley Municipality, or Shortreed, or Aldergrove, and many of the Aldergrove entries are actually Matsqui....
We also know there was an Indigenous family living somewhere in the vicinity of what is now Fraser Highway and 260 Street but we're not 100% sure where their residence was located, and we're not sure if the family listed on the census page is the correct family. You'll note that their names have been Anglicized, and other than the Miller family and the children of some of the settlers, they were the only local inhabitants born in British Columbia. We are trying very hard to lift the stories that have been ignored or silenced but with documentation heavily weighted towards white settlers, it continues to be a challenge working backwards to before these lands were called British Columbia.
