page_title: The Three Greenhorns
section_title: The Brickmaker's Claim
hierarchical_section_title: The Three Greenhorns / The Brickmaker's Claim
caption_attribution_description: English: Map showing purchase of land
context_page_description: The Three Greenhorns were three Englishmen, Samuel Brighouse, William Hailstone and John Morton, who were the first white settlers in the area known today as Vancouver's West End. They earned the nickname “Three Greenhorn Englishmen" because they bought land for what was believed to be an inflated price.
context_section_description: One day, Morton was passing by a shop window in the settlement when he saw a lump of coal for sale in the window. In a later newspaper report it was recorded that "his interest was specially excited". Coal was a rare commodity in those parts, the only available fuel being wood. But most of all, the sight had triggered his interest as a potter: he knew that a certain kind of clay used in pot-making was usually found near coal deposits. He entered the shop and on asking the shopkeeper where the coal had come from was pointed in the direction of a native who was disappearing down the road. Morton hurried after the Indian, caught up with him and made arrangements to visit the coal seam. Taking a guide, he first visited False Creek and then Coal Harbour. He found little of value in the soil: most of the coal seam and clay deposit had been washed away.
  But the situation of the land at Burrard Inlet, overlooking a natural deep water harbour, so impressed Morton and his friends that they set about making enquiries about purchasing it. They discovered that it had neither been staked nor surveyed, and so they acquired 180 acres each, the maximum stake permissible under the law of the time, bought for $550.75. The lot contained what later became the West End district of Vancouver. By Christmas 1862, they had cleared a small part of the land and created a log cabin, much to the derision of the local inhabitants who christened them "The Three Greenhorns". It was even suggested that the colonial government had deliberately placed a shiny piece of coal in the shop window with the intention of enticing someone like Morton to buy the land. Although their investment in this remote piece of forest was considered a futile one, there was another person who was interested in the land. Robert Burnaby made a claim that he had obtained the original preemption for the property, but his claim was dismissed by the court. Judge Chartres Brew condemned the documents Burnaby produced as forgeries, saying that they were "obviously written by a liar or a knave."
  The cabin was situated on a bluff above the sea. The greenhorns turned their hand to raising cattle and becoming brick makers. Only one of them remained in the cabin a month at a time, while the others went to work in New Westminster. But the brickmaking business failed - in a country where wood was in plentiful supply, bricks were not in great demand at that time, the clay was of poor quality and New Westminster was too far away to transport large quantities of bricks to. There was the solitude, too, which on one occasion made John Morton feel very exposed. He was woken at night by noises outside the cabin. Getting dressed, he went to take a look and saw a gathering of Indians chanting and the body of a woman hanging from a tree. Next day he reported the matter to the police in New Westminster and an investigation revealed that the dead woman had killed a baby and been hanged for murder.
caption: Document showing land on Burrard Inlet purchased by the Three Greenhorns in 1862
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