The Caselton Family

So far the earliest Caselton family member has been traced to England and the county of Kent. This was William Caselton born in 1699. In 1832 and some five generations later   Richard Caselton was born in Eltham, Kent. He was the start of theVictoria and Saanich Caselton heritage.

In 1842 James Douglas of the Hudson Bay Co. established the trading post of Fort Camosun, later Fort Victoria, at the south end of Vancouver Island.  In order to establish a permanent settlement a call was put out for new employees, settlers and developers for the fort and the new colony of Vancouver Island.

Economic times were poor in south-east Britain in the mid 1800’s and the thought of an exciting challenge, full employment, and a chance to own a parcel of land (unheard of in Britain for the working class) caught Richard Caselton’s imagination. He jumped at the chance and signed on with the HBC and the long sea voyage to Fort Victoria.

Before leaving for the new world, Richard married his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Ann Williams, at a church in Wilmington, Kent. This was a double ring ceremony as Richard’s sister Jane married Thomas Flewin at the same time. The two newly wed couples together with Sarah’s father, mother and brothers and their wives and children boarded the HBC barque ‘Norman Morison.’ On August 16^th, 1852 at the quayside at Gravesend the ship slipped her lines and was on her perilous voyage to the new colony. There were fifty passengers onboard in addition to the crew.

The trip took four and a half months and experienced storms, bitterly cold winds, a near mutiny, a burial at sea, and even two women gave birth.1 The ‘Norman Morison’ arrived in Esquimalt Harbour on January 16^th, 1853. The Caseltons stayed on the ship until accommodation was found in the fort at Victoria.

At first, Richard Caselton and his family lived on the Hudson Bay Company’s farm at Cadboro Bay where he was employed. After a few years he acquired 27 acres of land at Royal Oak, in what was originally called the Lakes District in Saanich. They were one of the first settlers in the area. Here they raised their family of ten children: Maria, Henry, Frederick, Edith, Agnes, Annie (died in infancy), Adah (Dolly), Edwin, Charles, Alice, and Arthur.

The farm did not produce enough to support the large family so Richard found extra work in the Victoria town area. He also got ‘gold fever’ when the Caribou Gold rush was in full swing and joined the crowds of miners heading to the mainland to make their strike. It was reported that Richard actually walked to the Caribou, an effort that was mostly in vain.

In 1903 there where celebrations for Richard’s fifty years in Victoria. He died four years later in 1907 and was predeceased by his wife Sarah in 1899. Both are buried in the family plot at Ross Bay Cemetary.

Their daughter Maria married Laramie Wallenstein and they had a daughter and son. Richard and Sarah’s son Henry married Leonora Wallenstein2 and they had four children. Frederick married Elizabeth Glide and had three children. He was the manager of Haywards Funeral Home for a number of years. Edith married John Lovell Smith and produced one daughter. Agnes married Austin Sheather, Annie Louise died in infancy, and Adah (Dolly) married Erny Jeeves of the Jeeves Cartage family. Edwin never married. Charles married Alice Harris and had a son Charles who in turn married and had a son Charles who died at an early age of Muscular Dystrophy. Alice married Napoleon St. Onge and had one daughter. And the last child, Arthur, married and had a son Arthur.

The longest line of Richard and Sarah’s family is through son Henry. Henry and Leonora had four children, Henrietta, Florence, Reginald and Clarence. Henry managed the family farm when Richard moved into the city. By 1901 the two daughters were married. Sadly, in 1905, Henry suddenly died of a heart attack while working in the field on the farm. It was reported that Reginald, Henry’s three year old son, was found sitting in the field with his father’s head in his lap thinking he was asleep.

With two boys left to support, Leonora left the farm and went to San Francisco. This was unfortunate for the great San Francisco earthquake struck in 1906 and as a result son Clarence died in the aftermath because of a contaminated water supply. Leonora returned to Victoria with son Reginald. Here she married Charles Palmer, a member of the Victoria Fire Dept. and son of the prominent pianist Digby Palmer. Leonora died in 1941 and Reginald retained ownership of the family farm that was eventually sold around 1937.

Reginald attended the old North Ward School and Victoria High School. In 1924 he married Ida Lillian Mould, the great granddaughter of Richard and Jane Cheeseman who were also passengers on the third trip of the‘Norman Morison’. Reginald took over ownership and operation of the Brookleigh Dairy at Elk Lake until the start of World War II when he joined the Chart Depot staff at HMCS Dockyard. At the end of the war he worked for the Colonist newspaper and later became a real estate salesman for the firm of Pemberton Holmes. He died of a heart attack at an early age of 56 leaving his wife Ida,  two married daughters and four grandchildren. There are now six great grandchildren. Ida passed away in 1990 and both she and Reginald are buried at Royal Oak.

Including Richard and Sarah Caselton there have been six generations of the family that have lived in Victoria and the municipality of Saanich. While the Caselton name has virtually disappeared from the area, the genetic bond to those pioneering forefathers  (Caselton, Cheeseman, and Williams) has created a common tie of which our current families are very proud.

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1 One of these babies was Mary Cheeseman, born off the Galapagoes Islands. She married William Henry Williams whose off-spring married Richard and Sarah Caselton’s grandson.

2 The Wallensteins were German pioneers who came to the west coast from Chicago in covered wagons.

Submitted by M. M. Whitehead