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“That bear’s mother was shot on the south bank of the Fraser River, across from Westminster in March 1877,” a pioneer named John Murray told Major Matthews.

“George Black got one of the young ones, and George Bennett, butcher at New Westminster, got the other. I looked after that bear for a long time, a very long time, until about, say, the 20th December 1879, when we put him on the Beaver and shipped him to Goodacre and Dooley, butchers, in Victoria.”

Black may have decided to part with his bear because the bear liked to dine on the pigs Black had running around behind his shop.

“The bear would slack up on his chain, and back up, and the pigs would come near, and he would make a bound and catch a pig,” said Murray. “We never got one away from him, not one, and, queer thing, he would always start to eat a pig from the left side.”

For some reason, Hastings Townsite was left outside Vancouver’s original boundary in 1886. But when the city asked the province for some land for a park on the east side of the city, it was handed the 160-acre Hastings Park, which was actually in Hastings Townsite.

Vancouver boomed at the turn of the century (from 24,342 in 1902 to 110,063 in 1910), and the 2,300 property owners in Hastings Townsite decided annexation would be the way to go.

A Vancouver World story on Nov. 4, 1910 said that women could vote in the referendum if they owned property, which was a breakthrough, given that women weren’t allowed to vote in provincial elections until 1917. The same story said that “Orientals, Hindoos and Africans alike” could vote in the referendum.

When the results were announced, the World reported that “an impromptu torchlight procession was formed and marched up and down Clinton Street.” Still, real estate ads referred to the area as Hastings Townsite into the 1920s.

jmackie@postmedia.com