Aldous, George Washington

George Aldous was born on April 27, 1865 in Erin City, Ontario. He married Mary Jane Morton, also born in Erin City. Together they had one child. He died on October 29, 1956 in the Lonsdale Private Hospital in North Vancouver, BC. He is buried in the Princeton Cemetery in the Loyal Orange section. 

George Aldous was a man of many pursuits and a fair amount of bad luck.

Early years

He homesteaded in Saskatchewan, applying for a land grant February 1883 and receiving it in 1887. While in Saskatchewan, he served with government forces to quell the North-West Resistance of 1885 (Similkameen Star, March 28, 1946, page 1). 

He then came Vancouver and worked as a cook in 1889. He moved with Mary Jane to New Westminster at some time before 1891 and worked as a logger. Perhaps an oversight but their son Howard is not recorded as living with them. 

George Aldous joined his older brother Nelson William Aldous in the grocery business (City Grocery and Bakery) in Nelson in 1892. (His brother Herbert was also living in Nelson.) The company didn’t survive long. George moved to Nakusp in 1893 and his brother Nelson left to go east in 1894. 

In 1894, he planned to build a laundry and bath house at the Silver King on Toad Mountain (near Nakusp). He was sued for 117.12 for washing by Yeong Ah Jee and the judgement was for 126.84 (August 1894). Also at the Silver King, he ran afoul of the liquor licensing laws and was fined 230.00 or 3 months in jail (1896).

Coming to the Similkameen 

He came to the Similkameen (Copper Mountain) and Nicola on a prospecting trip with J.H. Jackson (the partners had previously been prospecting (1897) near Nelson) in the summer of 1898. The Similkameen Star (May 1, 1947) wrote that he was on the first crew at Robert “Sunset” Brown’s Sunset mine around 1895 but it may have been a few years later. Certainly, he was in the area by April 1900, he and Jim Slater were working on the No. 1 mineral claim two miles up from the Twenty Mile Creek at that time.

He entered the livery business in Princeton with Jack Budd and the first time the Greenwood Weekly Times ran an advertisement for the Princeton Livery Stable – with Geo. Aldous and J.C. Budd, Proprietors –  was in February 19, 1900. The advertisement ran until May 12, 1900.

Hotel Tulameen

Aldous changed careers again and, in May 1900, the Similkameen Star reported that the Aldous-Bevans hotel construction is in full swing and Colonel Joe Adams had six men at work. This hotel would become the Hotel Tulameen, at the corner of Bridge and Harold, and Princeton’s third hotel. The hotel opened in July 1900 with George Aldous as the proprietor and Mrs. W. Haegerman as the manager.

It was around this time he moved his family to Princeton. It must have been sometime between June 1900 (his son Howard was in school in Nelson and November 1900 when the couple hosted a dance (presumably at the new hotel) in Princeton. 

The newly arrived couple clearly moved in the best circles: “A whist party was given by the STAR staff on Wednesday evening, at which Mr. and Mrs. E. Waterman, Mr. and Mrs. Bell, Dr. and Mrs. Whillans, Mr. and Mrs. Aldous, Miss Black, and several others were present”  (Similkameen Star, September 1901). The hotel had a large dining room and had three floors. He applied for hotel licence (March 1901); added a pool table (May 1901) and in January 1904 he added a cold storage building at the rear of the hotel. 

Fire destroys the Hotel Tulameen 

The hotel was destroyed by fire In March 1904. He took a $7,000 loss; however, he recouped some of the loss through the sale of the land (1905 – $1,500 and 1908 – $2,500).

Mrs. Aldous was critically ill in November 1901 and spent the next years in and out of hospital, both in Princeton and in Vancouver. She was a patient at the coast from 1904 to 1906. In December 1905, she was again critically ill and George Aldous travelled to Vancouver to visit her. While he was gone, John Swansborough attempted suicide at the Aldous house (on the Aldous ranch) (1905).

After the hotel fire, he did a little of this and a little of that. He did some horse trading (July 1904), planted 24 acres of potatoes (July 1904) and then returned to prospecting and mining until he began working on his new business, the Princeton Dairy.

Princeton Dairy

He went into the dairy business around 1914 and slowly built it up into a modern dairy. 

In early July 1917, he was in a serious accident with his horse and milk wagon and wasn’t able to return to work until late November 1917. He was still struggling with his injuries in January 1919 and he had surgery at Vancouver General Hospital in  February 1919. 

In May 1918 he purchasing a milking machine that could milk two cows at the rate of 20 cows an hour. One of these cows, Mechthilde Ottile KeKol, produced 11,886 pounds of milk in 334 days. 

In 1921, he went into partnership with R.R. Steele and the new firm was known as the “Aldous-Steele Trust Co.” The sons of R.R. Steele, Ralph and Dick, were employed by the dairy. Steele was the formerly the business manager for the Coalmont Collieries. The new company made further improvements to the dairy (October 1921).

Fire at the Princeton Dairy

On April 15, 1923, fire struck once again and he lost his barn and feed silo, 25 cows, 5 calves, a bull and 3 horses to fire. The barn and silo only had 1,500 insurance but the rest of the loss was covered by London & Lancashire Insurance. A year after this fire, he leased his ranch to Lambert Fielding (brother of Mrs. H. Suggitt) and Clarence Suggitt (April 1924).

Fire struck a third time on December 1, 1926, when “situated about two miles west of Princeton” the house and dairy building and bottling shed (that he had used when he ran the Princeton Dairy) were destroyed. He was only partially covered by insurance.

Community

He returned to prospecting and mining and, throughout his life, he was an active community volunteer.

Aldous was a member of the Dominion Day planning committee for years, an inaugural director of the Princeton Racing and Athletic Association, and the president and then director of the Princeton Local of the United Farm Workers of British Columbia.  He was an elected director of the elected director of the newly-formed Princeton branch of the Provincial Mining Association. He was also a lifelong member of the Knights of Pythias and the Loyal Orange Lodge.

George Aldous was still mining and prospecting in 1943, at the age of 80.

The Similkameen Star reported in 1947 that George Aldous was the driver of the Welby stage in the rodeo parade in 1947, and that he also was the driver on the last stage trip from Penticton to Princeton.

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