Page "Comox Valley" Paragraph 3
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At that time, Governor James Douglas was encouraging settlers arriving in the Colony of Vancouver Island to establish themselves in the Cowichan Valley and the Comox Valley rather than the gold fields of the mainland as these were the two areas that had agricultural potential on the island.
The first settlers were Nanaimo coal miners and Hudson's Bay Company employees, John and William Biggs, Thomas Dignan, Edwin Gough, Adam Grant Horne, Thomas Jones, Alexander McFarlane, George Mitchell, Thomas Williams and Charles York all of whom had arrived on Vancouver Island before the 1858 gold rush.
There were three groups of indigenous people, the Comox, the Pentlach ( who were then nearly extinct ), and the Lekwiltok, in the valley when the European settlers arrived.
In 1862, Surveyor General Pemberton secured funding from the colonial government in Victoria to construct the first road into the Comox area from Nanaimo.
When it became clear that a wide wagon road would be too expensive, a bridle path with some bridges was built instead.
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