Heritage Register
Victoria West

631 Pine Street

Built 1892
Heritage-Registered

For: Paul & Mary Hall, Joseph Hall

Builder: Paul & Joseph Hall

ARCHITECTURE:

This 1½-storey, front-gabled Homestead house is similar to its brick counterpart at 715 Catherine St, Vic West. The gable, with its scrollsawn bargeboards, has a single window above the verandah. There are angled bays on the front right and on the right side; the centre window on the front bay retains its two-over-one window with horns. The full-width, hip-roofed verandah has three narrow, square, chamfered posts, two pilasters and sunburst brackets. The balusters are tall, thin and square. There are shaped shingles in the upper gable, and the body of the house is clad in drop siding. With its Queen Anne style decorative millwork, it is similar to 723 Powderly St, Vic West, and 2011 Cameron St, Fernwood.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1892-96: Seaman, sealer and building contractor Paul Hall (1859-1941) and Mary (née Campbell, 1865-1947) were Newfoundlanders who came to Canada in 1890 and 1892. Their offspring: Edward Allen worked for the Liquor Distribution Board. Stenographer Amelia Theresa moved to San Francisco. Daniel Joseph, a pile driver then salesman. The Halls lived on Pine St in another house in 1898. Paul retired in 1931. Joseph Hall, whose name appears on assessments with Paul’s in 1892-94, may be the 33-year-old storekeeper from Newfoundland who died of Bright’s Disease on the SS Cutch near Nanaimo in 1898.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1896-1900: Ship broker Hugh Logan (b. Portsmouth, ENG, 1872-1951) and Susan Ann (née Henwood, b. Portsmouth, ENG, 1875-1927) married in Esquimalt in 1895. Hugh came to Canada in 1879 with his parents Hugh Jonah and Ann Logan: his father was an armourer at the Esquimalt naval yard. Susan came to Canada in 1893. They lived in New Westminster for some time, but Hugh was living at the Beverley Hotel on Yates St when he died. He was still working at age 79, as a bookkeeper for F.W. Francis, jewellers on Douglas St; his sister Kathleen was the wife of Frederick W. Francis.

1901-12: Ellen Marie (née Larson, b. Brown Co, MN, 1870-1958) and Alfred Holden Miner (b. Fayette, WI, 1853-1925) came to Victoria in 1894. Alfred, a City labourer and bridge carpenter, became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1898. They moved to 902 Craigflower Rd and lived there until their deaths. Ellen was a member of Eastern Star. Their son Ralph Floyd moved to San Diego, CA.

1912-24: BCER carpenter, signalman, and engineer Henry Stewart “Harry” Brenen (b. Port Sarnia, ON, 1857-1924), his wife Susan and his son Earl. They had a lodger, Jane Booth, the wife of telegraph operator Albert Edward Booth, who married in Nanaimo in 1905. [Note: Harry Brenen first married Margaret “Esther” Elizabeth Evans in Victoria in 1887; she died in 1895.] Harry and Esther’s son Earl Stewart Brenen married 622 Pine St neighbour Kathleen Dunn Todd (b. Victoria, 1890) in her home in 1915; both were clerks at the time, and Earl retired in 1954 after 42 years as a CPR Wharf ticket agent.

1925: Driver Percy Cormack and Lillian Cormack, a packer at Ormond’s Biscuits.

1926-41: Albert Richard Colby (b. Massachussets, 1872-1960) and Clara Helen (née Laurie, Greenwich, ENG, 1867-1937) married in Victoria in 1895. Albert was a bookkeeper for electrical contractors Hawkins & Hayward, then a salesman for MacDonald Electric. By 1939 he ran the firm Colby Electric, A.R. Colby & J.A. Lane, electrical contractors, 645 Pandora. They had three daughters: Amy Dorothy, Marjorie Clare, and Alberta H.

1941-61: Elizabeth Jane Heald (née Reason, b. Whittlesey, Cambs, ENG, 1865-1961), widow of grocer and merchant Sidney Joseph Heald (b. Edwinstowe, Notts, ENG, 1868-1935) whom she married in Victoria in 1891.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Vic West History

• Vic West Heritage Register


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