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
before 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 whisky
on the house that day. Deighton came home to find his business ruined.
Deighton who knew the liquor business well by 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. 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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