Albert Elgin Howse was born in Lincoln County, Ontario in 1855. He was the younger of two children born to Frederick Howse and Sarah Beamer.

The Howse brick home had sixteen rooms. When William Lyon Mackenzie King, a prominent political leader and the tenth Prime Minister of Canada, had to go into hiding due to his political activity, he hid in a little room below the staircase. When young Albert was behaving badly his parents would frighten him by saying he would have to spend some time in “Mackenzie’s Hole.”

When he turned 21, Howse left home with California as his final destination. He worked at a publishing company for a year until he heard about a little settlement at Douglas Lake in the Nicola Valley, British Columbia.

In 1877 Howse made his way to Nicola and took up a piece of land there. He immediately began helping build a wagon road from Kamloops to Nicola Lake. His parents had raised him to be a hard working lad so he put in some very long hours with the road crew.

With the money Howse made on that job, he bought 320 acres of land between Douglas Lake and Quilchena and stocked it with cattle.

His next job was helping drive a herd of cattle over the Hope trail to Vancouver in 1880. That same year Howse went back to Ontario to marry Agnes Armstrong. He then travelled on to Ottawa to apply for the position of Indian agent for the Similkameen and Okanagan Valleys.

His family was good friends with then-Premier John A. MacDonald, who agreed to forward his application to the proper authorities. Shortly afterwards, Howse was given the position, which he held until 1884.

Upon their return, Howse and his wife took up residence in an old flour mill owned by Nicola Valley Pioneer John Clapperton, which had been converted into a guest house. They stayed there until their own log home was built on their property.

In 1882 he partnered with George Petit and opened a general store in Nicola. He went on to open four more stores — one in Granite, Princeton, Hedley and finally Merritt.

Howse was a forward-thinking man. In 1887, he could see the growing demand for local lumber, so he went to Toronto, bought a portable steam sawmill and brought it home with him. It was the first of its kind in the Nicola Valley.

In 1890 he built the first roller flour mill in the Valley, and opened it under the name Nicola Roller Flour Mills.

Meanwhile the demand for lumber from his sawmill was growing. Some of it was used to put an addition on the local school house and some he used to build the Driard Hotel.

A.E. Howse, bottom right, at a social gathering. (Photo courtesy of the Nicola Valley Museum and Archives).

A.E. Howse, bottom right, at a social gathering. (Photo courtesy of the Nicola Valley Museum and Archives).

Howse could also see the importance in the Interior of getting railway transportation to the coast. He drew up a charter for the Nicola Kamloops Similkameen Coal and Railway Company and convinced William Hamilton Merritt to come to the Nicola Valley and rally for the building of what was eventually called the Kettle Valley Railway.

In 1894, Howse, John Clapperton and Edwin Dalley (the first white settler in the valley) combined their land, which consisted of the first survey of the Townsite of Nicola.

In the 1890s, Howse had the leading general store in Nicola. He always made a point of having the best and most up to date stock.

The local saying was, “If you got it from Howse, you got the best.” He worked as the Postmaster and ran the Dominion Steam Saw and Planing Mills.

Over the next 25 years Howse gradually sold off his businesses and began to work at preserving history.

He served as an active leader in Princeton’s local heritage communities.

Before old age crept up on him, he loved to travel and on several occasions he joined educational trips arranged by the Vancouver Board of Trade (he was a member).

During a trip to England, Howse almost created a riot when he corrected a “soap box orator” on some facts concerning Canada. Howse became the centre of a heated debate in an ever-growing crowd.

He hated to waste things. In his spare time he would unravel knots in bits of string or twine and sort the sizes until he had balls of twine as big as footballs.  

He was an avid reader all of his life and exceptionally well informed on national and international affairs.

After two weeks in Princeton Hospital, Albert Elgin Howse passed away in 1938 at 83 years of age.

He was survived by his wife Agnes and their children Frederick, Charlie, Ruby and several grandchildren.

For more information on the history of Merritt and the Nicola Valley, call or come and visit the Nicola Valley Museum and Archives, 1675 Tutill Court, (250)-378-4145. You can also visit our website at www.nicolavalleymuseum.org., or follow us on Facebook. Come visit us for Art Walk, we are #12, featuring the artwork of Shirley Reynolds.