Series of articles for the Vancouver Morning Star [Vancouver Museum has manuscripts and clippings, one dated 27 December 1938 entitled “Startling Theory on Continents”]
1 Buckley’s article in British Columbia Magazine (March 1913) is itself journalistic and skimpy, but it led to his being chosen for the more substantial biography in volume 4 of Howay and Scholefield’s British Columbia from Earliest Times to the Present (1914). The fact that these Who’s Who entries had the approval of the ladies and gentlemen who were their subjects does not seem to ensure reliability in this case, where Hill-Tout’s place of birth is given erroneously as Plymouth.
2 I am indebted for this information to James E. Hill-Tout, who secured a copy of the birth certificate during a visit to England. During his life-time, Hill-Tout was apparently content to have it believed that he was born at Tout-Buckland in Devonshire “of a family” as Noel Robinson wrote in the Province (23 June 1934) “dating back to the Conquest.” No doubt Devon was his ancestral county.
3 This and subsequent quotations (except where indicated) are from the typescript in the Special Collections Library of the University of British Columbia.
4 See “Some Psychical Phenomena Bearing Upon the Question of Spirit Control” (below), and discussion in the Introduction to the present volume.
5 This statement that he attended lectures should be taken literally, since Hill-Tout has nowhere made the claim that he was a matriculated student at Oxford University.
6 The marriage was in 1882. Mrs. Hill-Tout had been educated in a girls’ private school in Cardiff.
7 In the announcement for “Toronto Collegiate Day and Boarding School for Boys, 46 and 48 Yorkville Ave., Toronto,” Hill-Tout as Principal states: “This school is established after the model of the English Preparatory Schools, and aims at laying the basis of a sound liberal education and preparing its pupils for the further and higher Collegiate Courses” (card in Vancouver Museum papers).
8 The Vancouver Museum papers include Hill-Tout’s notes for lectures on Shakespeare to be given at Whetham College. A printed pamphlet, in the Special Collections Library of the University of British Columbia, lists the courses for Winter Term 1892, including a lecture on “The Human Voice” by Hill-Tout on 8 February 1892.
9 Quoted from “The Art, Historical and Scientific Association of Vancouver, B.C.,” anonymous article in Museum Notes Vol. I No. 2 (June 1926) p. 4.
10 University of British Columbia typescript. Hill-Tout’s leaning towards theological controversy at this time is evidenced by a manuscript notebook among the Vancouver Museum papers, in which he has drafted a review of some recent lectures by Huxley, and two letters to editors, one to Open Court, and the other to Secular Thought dated 15 May 1894. I have been unable to confirm whether or not these letters were actually printed.
11 See the publication of this paper in the present volume, and discussion in the Introduction. A letter from Mr. Myers of the International Congress of Experimental Psychology (in the Special Collections Library of the University of British Columbia) dated 24 October 1892 includes the comment: “I should indeed very greatly care to have the case of prescience of which you speak, with the fullest corroboration which you can obtain.” The correspondence there with Mrs. Alice Bodington of Hatzic should also be consulted on this topic.
12 See the discussion of the “Great Fraser Midden” in volume III of the present edition; also the correspondence with Franz Boas below.
13 See James E. Hill-Tout’s account in The Abbotsford Hill-Touts (1976). Special Collections Library of the University of British Columbia holds Hill-Tout’s homestead entry for a quarter of section 7 township 16 East of Coast Meridian, dated 11 July 1895. For the typescript’s account of Hill-Tout’s logging enterprises, see the Introduction to volume I of the present edition.
14 A letter in the Special Collections Library of the University of British Columbia from John L. Myers of the British Association Section H (Anthropology) dated 25 August 1897 states: “I have not been able to trace it. It was duly announced, however, and taken as read.” See Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 67th Meeting (1897) p. 791; also Ethnological Survey of Canada, First Report of the Committee, p. 440.
15 This was presumably the paper for which Hill-Tout received a $25 prize from the Folklore Society of Montreal in February 1897 (letter in Special Collections Library of the University of British Columbia). It was read at the meeting of the London Folklore Society on 21 June 1898.
16 Hill-Tout’s relationship to the Jesup Expedition is discussed in the Introduction to volume I of the present edition; see also letters to Franz Boas below.
17 Included in the list of papers delivered or “read” at the Belfast meeting of 1898 was “On Some Rock-Drawings from British Columbia” by C. Hill-Tout -Report (1898) p. 1016.
18 Second Report of the Committee on an Ethnological Survey of Canada, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 68th Meeting (1898) pp. 698–699.
19 Report of the Ethnological Survey of Canada, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 69th Meeting (1899) p. 498.
20 Report of the Ethnological Survey of Canada, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 70th Meeting (1900) p. 470.
21 Report of the Ethnological Survey of Canada, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 71st Meeting (1901) pp. 409–411.
22 Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 72nd Meeting (1902) pp. 353–354. On B.C. government support, see correspondence with Charles F. Newcombe (4 March 1901) below.
23 Vancouver Museum papers include a scroll from “the Vagabonds,” bidding him farewell as he leaves for the East to “serve under arms,” 27 September 1916. He was thus aged fiftv-eight at the time.
24 This information comes from a note written by Lionel Haweis (see item No. 34) on the occasion of presenting Hill-Tout papers to the Special Collections Library of the University of British Columbia.
25 The Vancouver Sun printed a news item in its edition of 7 March 1941 (p. 24) with the headline: “Romance That Began at Picnic in Park.”
Letter to Franz Boas1
Buckland College
Vancouver, B.C.
Oct 3rd 1895
Dear Sir,
Some months ago I forwarded to Dr. G. M. Dawson of Ottawa an ancient and peculiar skull taken from one of the series of tumuli explored by myself at a place called Hatzic on the Fraser about 50 miles up from its mouth. He said he thought you might be at Ottawa during the summer and would perhaps be good enough to examine it for me that your notes might be appended to a paper he was good enough to read for me at the recent meeting of the Royal Society at Ottawa and which was thought of sufficient interest to anthropology to publish in the Society’s Proceedings.2 As I have not heard anything on the point from Dr. Dawson, may I venture to ask you if you have been to Ottawa since the meeting of the Royal Society in May or have seen or heard of this particular skull from anybody there? I think it will interest you if for no other reason than that it does not conform to the Cowitchin [Halkomelem] type, in whose area the mounds are situated, but
