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Heritage Register
James Bay

615 Niagara Street

Built 1929
Heritage-Designated 2013

For: Elizabeth J. Mustard

615 Niagara

ARCHITECTURE:

This side-gabled, 1½-storey Cottage has wide, open soffits and birdsmouth bargeboards in the Arts & Crafts-style. The projecting, centrally-located, gabled front porch has three eliptical arches which flow directly onto three square posts supported on solid balustrades. The front door has glass above a ledge on square brackets. The side-facing porch steps have a period wrought-iron railing on a sloped and stepped balustrade. There are two windows to the left of the front porch and three to the right with a bracketed window box. The windows are multi-panes-over-one; the style of the multi-panes is typical of the 1920s & 30s. The rear has a shed-roofed extension on the main floor, and a shed-roofed dormer which is shingled, instead of stuccoed. The cladding is a trowelled stucco, also typical of the period. There is one chimney, and a period garage to the left rear of the property.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1929-82: Elizabeth Jane Mustard (née Riley, b. ON 1867-1953) moved to Manitoba in 1882 with her husband, accountant John Blakeway Mustard (b. Rosshire, SCT 1845-1916), and Victoria in 1909. Elizabeth worked for the BCER. [Note: From 1943-45, she rented the house to William G. Bide, on WWII active service, and his wife Florence.] John and Elizabeth had four sons and two daughters, one of whom married a Seattle doctor. Sons John, Henry and Hugh “Roy” were doctors living in Vancouver or Washington State. Capt. Hugh Roy Mustard served with the No. 12 (Vancouver) Canadian Field Ambulance in France and was awarded the Military Cross in 1917, ‘for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in dressing WIA...in open, exposed to heavy shell fire, for 2 hrs...continued at an exposed post for 3 days dressing WIA, and has, on several occasions, exhibited great courage and devotion of the same kind.’

Son Walter Alexander Mustard (b. Stoney Mtn, MB 1884-1963), farmed in Creelman, SK. A widower by 1950, he moved to Victoria to live with his mother and his widowed sister Edith Rive (b. Balmoral, MB, 1890-1982). She and her husband Henry Rive (b. St. Heliers, Jersey, Channel Islands, 1881-1946) a Dairy Commissioner, had resided in Sidney. Edith, a musician and secretary, lived in this house until 1980. The house was vacant for several years when she moved to Glengarry Hospital where she died at 92.


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:


• James Bay History

• James Bay Heritage Register

• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Two: James Bay


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