The Langley Centennial Museum brings to life one of Aldergrove’s most storied pioneers next month.
The Life and Times of Philip Jackman, running Nov. 12 to Feb. 25, 2018, features information from censuses, directories, council minutes, newspapers, theses, monographs, correspondence, oral histories and other archival records to paint a picture of who Jackman was.
According to the museum’s newsletter, Jackman, a Royal Engineer of the Columbia Detachment, left his small farming village of Northlew, Devon, England to endure a six-month voyage across the Atlantic Ocean and around Cape Horn, arriving in B.C. in 1859.
He and other engineers created the infrastructure for the new colony through building the provincial capital of New Westminster, surveying and constructing town and roads and altering rivers for safer passage.
The Royal Engineers changed the province, both during their time in the Columbia Detachment and as community leaders after their disbandment in 1863. Like other Royal Engineers for whom towns, streets and parks have been named, Jackman was a doer. He participated in the Cariboo Gold Rush, worked for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, was a proprietor of a saloon, general store and post office, patrolled the streets of New Westminster as a night-watchman and the Fraser River as a fisheries guardian, and sat at the head of Langley’s municipal council as Reeve.
The exhibit’s opening reception will be held on Saturday, Nov. 18 from 2 to 4 p.m.
For more information, call the museum at 604-532-3536.