Anyone hailing from my home city of Hull, Yorkshire and having the nickname “Gassy Jack” just appeals to my inquisitive nature. His story is a fascinating one indeed and worthy of mention to a wider audience.
Actual name, John Deighton, this Gassy Jack character was born in Hull in 1830 and spent a good part of his adult life in what is now modern day Canada, the part still retaining the Imperial connection as British Columbia.
Consistent with many of the male population of that era in Kingston Upon Hull (to give its full name) which was and remains a major seaport, it was largely predestined that a life and livelihood with some connection to seafaring would be the case. The city was in the 19th Century and well before that the base for a fleet of merchant vessels carrying all manner of goods and passengers globally and also the largest whaling and trawling operation in the UK battling into Arctic and Baltic waters.
John Deighton and his brothers took to the waters and Tom and Richard became apprenticed on British ships which was a significant commitment of their best years. Jack however was something of a free agent which gave him a degree of choice over where he would eventually work. The California Gold Rush saw a huge demand for shipping for the transport of good and supplies as well as those seeking to make their fortune from prospecting.
In 1850 the sea journey from New York to San Francisco (pre Panama Canal) involved a passage of Cape Horn and took up to 160 days. Deighton signed up to work on American ships and one of his first postings was on the Clipper, Invincible which when fully rigged and with favourable winds and tides could cut the time to 115 days. As a 21 year old Third Officer on the crew he also sailed on the pan- Pacific route to Hong Kong in the Far East. After a brief return to England, which would be his last time on home soil, he settled in the Americas.
Seduced by a chance to get rich quick , Deighton joined the thousands in the Gold Rush to California and worked a staked claim for the next 6 years. Fickle as prospecting is by nature, the news of a gold strike much farther north in the New Caledonia Territory saw many optimists make the journey to what was known as the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush.
It was wild and untamed country and the harsh climate in the winters took its toll on the prospectors but Deighton obviously a resolute and determined individual stayed on for 5 years. It was a great endeavour and although others did find gold this was not to be a source of wealth for him. New Caledonia was now the Colony of British Columbia.
He soon returned to what he knew best, shipping, and served as a well respected pilot for local steamships and paddle steamers on the supply lines on the Fraser River which were ever more in demand as hordes of miners and their tag-along families arrived.
By 1864, a life of constant activity took its toll on his health and suffering from swollen legs and feet Deighton was forced to pursue other lines of work on shore.
Until 1867, he ran a bar called the Globe Saloon in New Westminster in British Columbia. It was a town and area that had benefitted from the prosperous years of yet another discovery of the yellow precious metal in the Cariboo Gold Rush.
The prospecting fever attracted all sorts of charlatans, fraudsters and conmen and in 1867 when Deighton went out of town on a short vacation to take the hot springs for his ill health near Harrison Lake, he entrusted his saloon to an old shipmate, an American. On July 4 a contemporary account is that the friend invested Deighton's hard earned cash and reputation in powder, rockets and fire-crackers for what must have been a glorious display on the Glorious fourth, and there was even whiskey on the house that day. Deighton came home to find his business ruined.
Deighton who knew the liquor business well sought to open another bar on the south side of Burrat Inlet. This was on the recommendation of an old seafaring acquaintance who himself had a similar establishment in that area. It became named after his ill fated former bar, the Globe Saloon.
The set back to his livelihood and income meant that he had to start over from scratch and he arrived in Burrat with little more than $6 to his name, a few simple pieces of furniture, his native wife (whose name has been lost to the years), and a yellow dog.
The new bar was built by idle sawmill workers in exchange for all the whiskey they could drink in one sitting (the nearest drinking hole was 25 miles away). The saloon was described as a makeshift structure - a 12' by 24' board-and-batten shack.
Deighton himself, although no stranger to starting up in adverse situations did express some of his own concerns and fears. In a letter to an acquaintance he stated that it was "A lonesome place when I came here first, surrounded by Indians. I care not to look outdoors after dark. There was a friend of mine about a mile distant found with his head cut in two. The Indian was caught and hanged."
His regular clientele were mainly sailors and workers from the nearby sawmill. When business dwindled there, Deighton tried to diversify his interests by attempting to acquire 20 waterfront acres near Moody's Mill and build a new saloon there. The local native peoples protested and with the Governor taking the side of the indigenous population Deighton had no option but to persist with the Globe Saloon.
Rapid expansion of the region meant that the bar was demolished when the township of Granville was established but Deighton stayed in the area, now as an established entrepreneur and businessman and bought a nearby lot for $135 at the south-west corner of Carrall and Water Streets, where he built a residence.
This establishment was quite grand in comparison with previous shacks and sheds comprising a two-storey building with a bar-room, billiard room, several bedrooms upstairs, and facing Water Street, a verandah shaded by a maple tree. It was more than a saloon - it was called Deighton Hotel.
Deighton's native wife died shortly after but before she died she arranged for Deighton to marry her 12-year-old niece Quahail-ya, also known as Madeline or Matrine. In 1871 she gave birth to Richard Mason Deighton. He was described as "a chubby little Indian boy with a very broad face who used to play around Gastown. He was such a dear little fellow, and they nicknamed him the Earl of Granville."
It was in the same year that the Colony of British Columbia became a province of the Dominion of Canada.. During this period the Gastown settlement was attracting a diverse range of races, nationalities and religions. This inevitably led to friction between the communities and a number of robberies, fights and stabbings.
Deighton, now known as Gassy Jack, as a concerned citizen and to protect his own vested interests was one of petitioners of the Governor for better police protection. The outcome was the appointment in 1871 of a police constable who would be billeted in a government owned cottage called the Court House next to the Deighton Hotel. Behind it stood the jail consisting of two log cells without locks on the doors. Gastown was becoming established as a proper and permanent town.
Jack's brother Tom Deighton after his own life at sea accompanied by his wife took over the business in 1873, an advertisement in the local press reporting "large and comfortable parlors, single and double bedrooms, extensive dining rooms under the experienced management of Mrs. Tom Deighton . Jack , perhaps indicating his first love, returned to working a steamship that plied the Fraser River this time as a Captain of the steamer Onward.
However, this was to be a short lived return to ships as after a reputed family quarrel a few months later, Jack was forced to resume management of the saloon and operated it until he became ill.
Legend has it that Jack's mastiff dog began to howl on the night of May 29, 1875. Jack hearing it howl said "You son of a bitch! There's something going to happen." Captain John Deighton- Gassy Jack of Gastown- was ,after a very full life ,only 44 years old when he died that night.
He was buried at the Fraser Cemetery in New Westminster, British Columbia. For his services to the town a monument was erected.
You may still be wondering where the nickname Gassy Jack came from. It was not because of an intestinal or gastric health affliction but because of his talkative nature and his penchant for storytelling.
Those lucky enough to hear him talk were evidently enthralled by “desperate adventures and hairbreadth escapes from Sydney docks, Yankee road agents, Mexican bandits, grizzly bears, etc
He was succeeded by his son, Richard but he died before Jack's meagre estate (about $300) was assessed. Quahail-ya , his second wife, returned to the North Shore and re-married. She died August 10, 1948, aged 90
The Deighton House was later burned down in June 1886 in the Great Vancouver Fire. An eyewitness account is that"One huge flame, a hundred feet long, burst from the Deighton Hotel, leaped Maple Tree Square, and swallowed up the buildings"
In honour of Jack Deighton, the Gassy Jack statue stands in Maple Tree Square, in Gastown.
A fitting tribute is that "At some future day when Vancouver becomes the emporium of the Pacific shores the name of the first permanent settler will be sought out by historians and given a name as great as that for which many thousands have ventured limbs, lives and fortunes. Yet the already-locally famous Gassy Jack never sought for fame, nor had he the least atom of hero about him."
That is definetly a character trait of someone from Hull
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