From: Florence Davis

In the 1860s the gold mining fever that struck western North America brought hundreds of Easterners to British Columbia, all anxious to "strike it rich." Among them were three Van Volkenburgh brothers, Benjamin, Isaac, and Abraham. But these brothers were destined to make their fortunes in another field.

Ben, Isaac, and Abraham were born in North Rose, Wayne Co., NY, sons of Abram H. VV (Br. 5) and Deborah Craft.* Ben was the first of the family to head west, leaving Buffalo in 1861, when he was 23. After crossing the Isthmus of Panama, he sailed to Victoria, British Columbia, and then headed for the latest gold strike up the Fraser River in the upland basin known as the Cariboo district. Here he met his future wife, Anna Rhoddy Cameron, a widow with three young daughters, whom he married about 1867.

Isaac, who was four years younger, must have left home soon after Ben did, because he was already in British Columbia when Ben decided that instead of gold mining, he wanted to raise cattle. Isaac joined him in this venture and in 1867 opened a butcher shop in Williams Creek to make their cattle available to the consumers.

The younger brother, Abraham, left New York state in 1872, at age 25, and headed west, joining Ben and Isaac. He stayed for about three years, but then returned to Lyons, NY, to marry Eudora Elizabeth Barton. Abraham wasn’t gone for long, however. The young couple immediately began the honeymoon trip that would take them across the country to San Francisco, then up the British Columbia coast, to a trail that led them to the Cariboo.

Once the three brothers were together again, they set about establishing a business that would make the name Van Volkenburgh synonymous with fresh beef! Together with another rancher and another butcher, the three brothers formed the Messrs’ Van Volkenburgh & Co. They raised their own cattle on the ranches and then opened butcher shops in Barkerville, Richfield, Van Winkle, and Grouse Creek to sell the meat. Soon the company had a virtual monopoly on beef throughout the Cariboo mining area and the profits were rolling in.

In the early 1870s, however, the gold boom came slowly to an end. The ore had been found in running water or in the alluvial soils deposited by rivers and streams. This supply had been exhausted and if mining were to continue in the Cariboo, it would require expensive machinery and apparatus for mining underground. Few miners had enough money to do that, so many left for new areas where gold could still be found by panning or digging on the surface.

By the late 1870s, the brothers saw they could no longer continue. The company was dissolved and the brothers struck out in different directions.

Isaac started up his own ranch near the town of Clinton, and in 1882 was married to Christina Laymeister in Yale, BC. Their first three children, Effie, Stephen, and Madge were born in British Columbia. The last child, Harold, was born in Washington in 1892/3 indicating that perhaps Isaac and his family had moved back to the States by that time.

Abraham and Eudora with their young daughter went to Yale, BC, a rapidly growing town on the Fraser River. Here he established a butcher shop at the corner of Regent and Front Streets.

Only a year later, the heart of Yale’s downtown area was destroyed by fire. The fire came so close to Abraham’s home and shop that the Yale "Inland Sentinel" for Aug. 25, 1881 reported "the boards were smoking and are left brown." But the buildings themselves were intact and Abraham continued providing the town of Yale with meat for their roast beef dinners for many years.

Ben and Annie and their children moved down to the coast and settled in the city of Victoria. Here Ben bought a former saloon in the center of downtown and opened the "British Columbia Meat Market" in the spring of 1881. Thaddeus Harper, a rancher and brother of one of Ben’s former partners, agreed to sell Ben his cattle, sheep and pigs. So Ben fenced in an area for the stock to graze and built a slaughterhouse nearby.

J.B. Greaves, who had formerly worked in Isaac’s butcher shop as well as raising cattle, had approached Ben with a plan for controlling the cattle market in BC.

The Canadian Pacific Railway had taken over the task of completing a transcontinental railroad in 1880, and by the following year were employing over 5000 men in the British Columbian interior. In order to feed these workers the CP Railway invited bids in June 1881, for a fresh and reliable supply of beef. Greaves had figured out how many cattle would have to be bought up in order to establish a monopoly of beef and also to win the bid with the CPR. Only one problem –the cost would be at least $80,000, more than either Greaves or Ben VV could raise.

By this time, Ben was well established in Victoria business circles. So while Greaves surveyed which cattle would be available for the 1882 market, Ben sought out persons who would help to finance the undertaking.

Both were successful. First Ben persuaded Joseph Pembleton, a retired civil engineer and representative of Victoria in the House of Assembly, whose estate adjoined Ben’s wharf. Then he approached William Ward, a young banker who was one of the most important financiers in the province. Ward agreed to discuss the matter with some of his friends: Charles Thomson, manager of the Victoria Gas company, and Judge Peter O’Reilly. Thomson knew Ben because he had sold Ben the property for the butcher shop, so he agreed to become part of the scheme. O’Reilly knew neither Greaves nor Ben, but since the proposal was backed by Ward and Thomson , he too agreed. On January 14, 1882, Ben Van Volkenburgh, Joseph Greaves, Joseph Pemberton, William Ward, Charles Thomson and Judge Peter O’Reilly each put up $5,000. The syndicate was now a reality.

Meanwhile Greaves, who had been made syndicate manager in charge of buying the cattle, was busy trying to corner the beef market. But he didn’t want the syndicate’s operations made known to the public. So his scheme was to buy up a herd of cattle, leave them with the seller until they were needed, and give the seller a note to cover the cost. The bills of sale would be recorded in Victoria rather than locally. Ben Van Volkenburgh was notified of these "sales" and would then arrange for the notes to be paid.

All went well for not only the syndicate but also the ranchers raising the cattle. As Greaves drew closer to getting a monopoly on beef, he would raise the amount he paid for cattle so ranchers would sell to him rather than a rival. This meant that the ranchers earned more. And as more cattle were bought up, Ben had more beef to sell and his prices also went up. In short, everyone profited, except perhaps the consumers. A local paper announced, "It is reported that some shrewd speculators have secured a corner in Mainland beef, and that in consequence meat will have an upward tendency. It is estimated that a cool $150,000 will be made out of the unfortunate consumers, unless the ‘corner is broke’ by some means not at present discovered."

In 1884 the syndicate, including Ben, merged with a partnership of two ranchers who were producing hay and grain, which would be needed to winter the syndicate’s cattle and to feed them up just prior to slaughter. This merger marked the beginning of a great cattle business that still is in existence today. Known as the Douglas Lake Ranch, it is now the largest ranch of its kind in Canada and one of the few ranches where one can still see cowboys riding the range as they did 100 years ago when Ben and his friends were alive.** In addition to raising 18,000 cattle annually on 500,000 acres, the ranch also welcomes fishermen, naturalists and tourists in general. It is the greatest resort destination in Canada today.

We know little more about the rest of Ben Van Volkenburgh’s life. He is thought to have left Victoria after his wife’s death in 1898, and it is known that he spent some time in Dawson in the Yukon with one of his sons and owned some property there. He was 85 years of age when he died in 1923 at the home of his daughter Dora VV Thorndyke in Seattle, WA. The building that housed his butcher shop in Victoria is still standing, but there is nothing in the area that bears his name or keeps alive the memory of these pioneer brothers