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"DASHING JACK" -
a real
pioneer
In
what was a new and raw country in the second half of the
19th century, John Flewin was a true pioneer of British
Columbia. The son of Thomas Flewin, one of the flock of
mid-century immigrants from England, John was the only
settler born inside Fort Victoria, the barricaded
headquarters and home of the Hudson's Bay Company on
Vancouver Island.
As a newspaper printer, he helped
in the formative years of the press in Victoria; as a
railway surveyor he went into the wild hills and canyons to
help chart the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway; as a
policeman paddling his own canoe he brought law and order to
British Columbia's northern lands where native Indians had
formerly done things their way; and as Government Agent in
those same northern territories was overseer of the arrival
of white settlers for twenty years. In his active years in
the province, John was known far and wide as "Dashing Jack,"
and when interviewed in retirement by newspaper reporters in
1934, when he was aged 76, he was said to "talk and write as
a well educated man."
His school days were spent at
Victoria's Collegiate School, where he rubbed shoulders with
the sons of the first Governor of British Columbia, Sir
James Douglas, and his first job aged 15 was in the print
room of The Colonist newspaper. He stayed just three years.
He was a keen baseball player and a volunteer member of the
first fire brigade.
After trying his hand at other
work, John joined the team carrying out the first
exploration for the Canadian Pacific Railway in British
Columbia in 1876. He was to go on three such expeditions
each last ing up to 18 months. Journeys with pack trains of
mules involved walking hundreds of miles at a time over
often uncharted territory.
John joined the police force in
1880, becoming one of the six officers responsible for
provincial policing.  In
Victoria he led one of the few raids on gambling premises
which had the effect of closing down most of the city's
gambling dens. Having been promoted to Sergeant, he
investigated two murders, the first where two white settlers
called Miller and Dring were killed in Cowichan and the
second in which the captain and "three other white men" were
murdered on board the schooner "Seabird," which was then
scuttled and burned. The investigations took two years, much
of it involving single-handed canoe journeys through Indian
country, but the culprits, Indians, were eventually arrested
by John, tried, found guilty and hanged.
A year after joining the police
force, John married Helen Copeland, whose parents had
emigrated from Scotland. Their wedding ceremony, conducted
by one Bishop Cridge at the Reformed Church, Victoria, was
reported in the local press to have attracted "numerous
assemblages."
Soon afterwards, John was put in
charge of a 30-strong party who sailed north on a government
vessel called HMS Caroline to rescue officials of
the
Hudson's Bay Company who were besieged in their fort at
Hazleton by Indians. In his own words, John and his men
"straightened the affair out ..... and there was no further
trouble there for many years."
After his work in the northern
territories, John was enlisted as a Government Agent and was
sent to the north again for a year. He stayed 20 years and
with his son, Issac, administered the territory for the
Government, and where necessary upheld the law. In one
report (see images for top and tail of report) to the
Attorney-General in Victoria, John tells of a journey in
September 1900 when "accompanied by a strong canoe crew and
white special officers I proceeded up the Naas River and,
after a most stormy passage through continuous wind and rain
storms" reached a village where, it had been reported,
Indians were consuming locally manufactured illegal
alcohol.
His report, written in his own hand
the following month, says: "Taking the Indians, who did not
expect us, completely by surprise, by a series of rapid
movements, we were most successful........the arrests
 were
attended by no little personal risk as the Indians have made
threats as to what they would do if officers came to arrest
them." Charges followed ranging from that of "manufacturing
intoxicants" and "rescuing a prisoner from lawful
custody."
John Flewin and his wife, Helen,
had eight children. One, James Arthur Flewin, who was born
at Port Simpson in 1894, drowned in February 1909 at the age
of 15 while trying to save the life of a another boy who was
in difficulties in Port Simpson Harbour.
John retired from Government duties
in the early 1920s. His wife died in Port Simpson 1925 and
he died agd 84 in Victoria, where he had lived at the home
of one of his daughters, in 1942. Four of his five sons and
two daughters outlived him.
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