Hudson's Bay Company Pioneer Cemetery

This little churchyard is easy to walk past on the way to the fort. There’s not much to see: a cairn, a memorial garden, a plaque on a boulder and only a few old markers. What’s underneath is the story of who actually lived and worked at Fort Langley.

About

The Langley Heritage Society calls it the Hudson’s Bay Company’s second cemetery at Fort Langley. The first was at Derby, near the original 1827 fort. When the company rebuilt the fort at its current spot in 1839, this ground came into use. The museum says roughly 30 people were buried here before the Fort Langley Cemetery opened in the 1880s.

History

The markers were mostly wood and didn’t last. The walking tour says an archaeologist found 24 burials with ground-penetrating radar in 1999, and the Heritage Society says there may be more. Those buried here came from right across the fur-trade world: British, French Canadian, Métis, Stó:lō, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and Kanaka (Hawaiian) people.

After the fort closed in 1886, Alexander Mavis bought the land, cemetery included. The museum says he sold it to members of an Anglican congregation in 1900; the walking tour puts the price at $50. St. George’s Church went up in 1901.

A few people are remembered by name in the heritage sources:

• Katrina and Peopeoh. The wrought-iron cross above the church door once stood in the cemetery. The walking tour links it to Peopeoh (also spelled Peppeoh or Pion Pion), a Hawaiian-born HBC employee; the Heritage Society’s 2021 article says it honours his wife Katrina, a high-ranking Kwantlen woman, and is an Oblate Catholic symbol.
• Sarah Brousseau. Her headstone is here, but the museum says she was probably buried at Derby and the stone was moved for safekeeping as the river ate away that cemetery.
• Ovid Allard. A 1954 bronze plaque on a granite boulder remembers him. The Allard name, the walking tour notes, goes back to Hudson’s Bay Company days.

The museum’s page lists known and presumed burials, from research by Bob and Sheila Puls, and says about 15 more fort employees whose graves haven’t been found will be added if evidence turns up.

Visiting

This is an active church’s yard, so treat it that way: come outside service times, keep voices low and stay off the garden beds. There’s no Township grave search for this site; the museum list and the BC Genealogical Society’s transcriptions are the best records.

Nearby

The Fort Langley National Historic Site is a short walk away, as is Fort Langley Cemetery. Our pages on Kwantlen First Nation and heritage sites fill in more of the story. All Langley cemeteries are on our cemeteries page.

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