Heritage Register
Fernwood

1334 Johnson Street

Built 1912
Heritage-Designated 1999

For: John & Margaret Wescott

ARCHITECTURE:

This is a two-storey Foursquare, with a bellcast hipped roof and matching dormer in front. On the front and left side are a pair of two-storey, cantilevered box bays with diamond-paned leaded glass transoms. On the right rear is a small hip-roofed entry porch. Dentils in the beltcourse and a Tuscan column on the corner front porch are Classical Revival details. The porch has been enclosed and the door has sidelights and a transom. The dormer, upper floor, and foundation level on the sides and back are shingled. The main floor has double-bevelled siding. The front foundation and the porch balustrade are now stone. The house was not built according to the plans at City Hall.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1912-19: John “Russell” Wescott (b. Chatham, ON, 1868-1957) and Margaret Jane “Jennie” Kearns (b. Bruce County, ON, 1873-1935) were both living in Victoria in 1891. Russell was working as a clerk in Manchester House drygoods store with his brothers Alfred (1924 Belmont Av, Fernwood) and Elmer (1702 Fernwood Rd, Fernwood), and “batching it.” Jennie was living with her cousins Maggie and William Agnew, a carpenter. They married in 1892 and had one child: Virgil Denton became a dental surgeon and orthodontist and moved to Vancouver. Virgil served as a Captain with the Canadian Army Dental Corps (CADC) in the CEF from 1916.

The Wescotts lived at 103 North Chatham (1427 Gladstone Av, Fernwood) from 1898-1904, then 1321, 1330 and 1336 Johnson before 1334. Russell and Elmer bought Manchester House and renamed it Wescott Bros. Russell retired in 1919. He and Jennie later lived at 1720 Fernwood, just up the street from Elmer. Jennie was an active member of Emmanuel Baptist Church and OES. Russell was a Sunday School superintendent and a member of Vancouver Quadra Lodge, AF&AM.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1924: Grocer William Henry and Emily Sarah Garcin were born in Newfoundland, came to Victoria c.1908, and lived in Victoria until their deaths.
1925: Frederick J. Merriman, a reporter for the Victoria Daily Times.
1926-29: Walter and Fannie Eliza Flindell came from London, ENG, married in Vancouver in 1907 and came to Victoria in 1909. Walter was a bookkeeper for Capital City Construction.

1930-40: David Bennet Derbyshire (1864-1937) and Mabel Graham (née Paterson, 1877-1960) were early farmers in the Swift Current, SK district who retired to Victoria in 1930. Mabel then left Victoria, and was residing in Vernon, BC, when she died.
1941-43: Norma V. Curtis, whose husband Roger R. was on WWII active service.
1944-53: Miss Clara Myrtle Eyre (b. Fenelon Falls, ON, 1885-1979) ran this as a rooming house. She died at The Priory in Colwood.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Fernwood History

• Fernwood Heritage Register


• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume One: Fernwood & Victoria West