Trappings – Vancouver Island Local History Society

Point Ellice House and the families that lived here have inspired a number of authors over the years. The latest writer to draw inspiration from the historic house is Vanessa Winn; she has contributed this guest post about her latest novel, Trappings (available in the PEH Gift Shop).

Vanessa Winn

After writing my first historical novel, The Chief Factor’s Daughter, I wanted to learn more about younger sister Kate, and her time living at Point Ellice House with her new husband, Charles Wentworth Wallace, Jr. I knew that Kate’s father, Hudson’s Bay Company Chief Factor John Work, gave the Point Ellice House property to the newlyweds just months before he died, selling it to Charles for a token $100 in 1861. A close Work-family friend later characterized Kate’s husband as “dissipating his own and his wife’s fortunes in a long course of riotous living.” The history of women often requires reading between the lines, and I imagined Kate facing these challenges. Such was the germ of my new novel, Trappings.

Unlike her five older sisters, Kate knew her in-laws – they lived across the street at Point Ellice. Coming west from Nova Scotia, her in-laws lived first in San Francisco. Intrigued, I had to dig farther afield. The Wallace family were attached to the name Charles Wentworth, carrying it down for 3 generations. Kate’s father-in-law, Dr. Charles Wentworth Wallace, was named after the son of Sir John Wentworth, then Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. In governing, it seems Sir John relied heavily on Charles’ father, whose name was so linked to the Treasury that Nova Scotia’s money bills were dubbed “Michael Wallaces.” A neighbour, Wallace was almost literally at Sir John’s elbow.

Reading a historical novel about Sir John Wentworth, I was surprised to learn that his first Government House in New Hampshire was on Pleasant Street (today, Point Ellice House is located at 2616 Pleasant Street). Driven out by the American revolution, Wentworth was rewarded for his loyalty (and aristocratic connections) with his appointment in Nova Scotia. In Halifax, he built another mansion (which survives as Government House), with funds approved by Michael Wallace. Part of this street was also once called Pleasant Street. Another coincidence? Having grown up nearby, as the namesake of the governor’s son, Dr. Charles Wentworth Wallace likely influenced the naming of Point Ellice’s Pleasant Street, hearkening back to a lost past. Kate probably knew of the street namesake, yet not why the Wallaces were exiled from such prestige.

Fortunately, Kate had her own family connections located next door to Point Ellice. Her neighbour, Mrs. (Montague Tyrwhitt) Drake, was formerly Joanna Tolmie, a spinster niece of Dr. William Fraser Tolmie, who was married to Kate’s sister. After John Work died, Tolmie was the senior HBC Chief Factor in the west, a powerful position. The doctor wrote that his “gude wife … doated [sic] on her sister Kate whom she had charge of from Infancy” – not surprisingly, in a family of 11 children. Joanna Tolmie was at Kate’s double wedding, the witness for another of Kate’s sisters, Margaret, who also married that day. Later Mrs. Drake was both hated and admired by a young Emily Carr, who was briefly in her care. Apparently she was made of stern stuff.

I questioned further. Margaret became a suffragist, as did other women in the family. Both Dr. Tolmie, with the support of his wife Jane, and Mr. Drake proposed the vote for women in the BC Legislature – remarkable in the 19th century. Were their wives influenced by Kate’s predicament, and seeing her fortunes at the mercy of her husband’s business speculations?

Charles Wentworth Wallace, Jr. was caught in BC’s dire recession when the gold rushes dwindled. He had invested in a bedrock flume in the Cariboo, and replaced the chairman who lost his sanity and confessed to embezzlement at the bank. Ill-timed, Charles went to London to sort out his financial affairs, the day after taking a grossly over-valued mortgage out on Point Ellice House – to a director of the merchant company that Charles managed in Victoria. How would Kate have felt during her husband’s seven-month absence, when some men were ‘skedaddling’ from their debts, and their families, in BC? Tragically, their reunion was marred by the death of their firstborn, Abby, a week after Charles returned. Her post-mortem portrait, featured in the book, speaks to a mother’s devotion, and to Kate’s story. Trappings begins as Kate is coming out of the deep mourning required by the Victorian era, and re-entering society in a precarious position.