McKenzie Family
Kenneth Mckenzie born in Scotland at Renton Hall in 1811, built and lived at Craigflower Farm 1853 - 1868.
Craigflower Farm was established in 1852 as one of four Vancouver Island farms of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. (PSAC) a closely held subsidiary of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Writing from London on March 12, 1852 to James Douglas, in Fort Victoria, the P.S.A.C. directors, Colville & Pelly said: "We have now to inform you that we have...an arrangement with....(a)... Mr. K. McKenzie (of) East Lothian, (&) Mr. Skinner in Essex...We have to request that you will...select two good situations of land, to be purchased by the P.S.A.C., where farms of 500 to 1000 acres may advantageously be established..."
Mckenzie arrived in Victoria to take charge of Craigflower with his young family. Agnes Mckenzie, nee Russel, his wife was born in 1823 in Scotland. In 1853 she was 30 and their six children were ages eight months to ten years old.
McKenzie and 20 Scottish farmhands many with wives and children, left Britain forever in 1852, travelling five months aboard the ship Norman Morrison to Esquimalt Harbour near Fort Victoria. Recalling their arrival, one of the Mckenzie girls later wrote:
...a cold winter day and no one to meet us and we were so eager to be welcomed...by and by along came Mr. McDonald, who was then a clerk in the Hudson's Bay Company Store. He took us to the only place available, a great loft with two partitions, and there we were housed. (p. 75, Pioneer Women)
James Douglas wrote to Barclay (PSAC director) on Jan. 20, 1853 saying
"Mr. McKenzie has just returned from the place selected for his residence, and is pleased with the spot and the buildings already put up, consisting of one house of 50 ft. and two cottages 25 ft. in length which he can soon render habitable."
The McKenzie men; sons, Kenneth, 1846; William, 1850; and the two Vancouver Island born sons; Andrew, 1854; Robert 1856. Husband and father, Kenneth McKenzie; born at Renton Hall, Scotland, well educated and bailiff of Craigflower at £60/annum and later Agent of all 4 PSAC farms on Vancouver Island. Helmcken recalls him as "hale, robust and powerful - a good specimen of a hospitable, warm-hearted 'Scotch laird' a kind of whole souled proper gentleman" (p. 232,233 Reminiscences) but Annie Deans, carpenter George's wife, call him "a deceitful blaguard."
The McKenzie women; wife and mother, Agnes McKenzie (nee Russel) and daughters, Agnes, born 1843; Jesse, 1844; Dorothea, 1848 and Wilhelmina, known as Goody (named by Capt. Wishart aboard the Norman Morrison for being such a good infant) born in 1852. One of the daughter's remembering their childhood said.
We were happy as children for it was a great change for us to run wild after a more or less restricted nursery life in Scotland.
But our mother found it very difficult. She had brought two servants with her, but there was such a lack of white women that they married almost at once. So, we were obliged to have Indian help. At first we were afraid of the natives, we little girls and mother.... but soon we children could talk Chinook fluently….
At first our cooking was all done out of doors.... we had to make our own bricks for the fireplace and chimneys. I remember how delighted father was when he discovered the deposit of limestone." (p. 77, Pioneer Women)"
McKenzie purchased his own land near Christmas Hill in Victoria. He named his farm Lake Hill. The family moved their in 1868, when McKenzie quit the Hudson’s Bay Company and Craigflower Farm.
Andrew and William went to the U.S.A. Andrew married. After his death, Robert his brother, married Andrew’s widow. William and Kenneth did not marry.
Jessie married Alexander Watson in 1863 at Craigflower. They later lived in California. Their son, Alexander Watson lived at the McKenzie home at Lake Hill until his death in 1947.
In 1882, Dorothea married T.s. Dobbin from her home in Lake Hill. Agnes and Wilhelmina Blair did not marry.
Kenneth McKenzie Sr. died April 10, 1874 at Lake Hill. Agnes, his wife, died 14th July, 1897 at Lake Hill. Daughters Agnes died Feb, 1928 and Wilhelmina died 1929, both at Lake Hill.
The McKenzies were clearly an intimate, loving family; hard working, high spirited, welcome in Royal Navy circles yet comfortable with the Craigflower farmhands. Kenneth McKenzie was a stubborn, resourceful but somewhat violent man, often at odds with Douglas and others but clearly well liked by some and loved by his family.
Bibliography
Blakey Smith, D. The Reminiscences of Doctor John Sebastian Helmcken, University of B.C. Press, 1975, p. 81,120,121
Gill, Sandra, Unpublished information "Regarding families that lived at Craigflower; Jan, 1998.
Lugrin, N. de, Pioneer Women of Vancouver Island, 1843 - 1866, Women's Canadian Club of Victoria, Vancouver Island, 1928, page 77