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Robert Cunningham (1837–1905) was a British-Canadian lay missionary turned entrepreneur who founded the town of
Port Essington, British Columbia Port Essington was a cannery town on the south bank of the Skeena River estuary in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, between Prince Rupert and Terrace, and at the confluence of the Skeena and Ecstall Rivers. It was founded in 1871 by Robert ...
. He was born January 1, 1837, in
Dungannon Dungannon () is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the second-largest town in the county (after Omagh) and had a population of 14,340 at the 2011 Census. The Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council had its headquarters in the ...
,
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
(one source, Large, says "Tullyvally, Ireland"), to a Protestant (
Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
) family. In 1862, at the age of twenty-five, he sailed to Canada with the Anglican
Church Missionary Society The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with the Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission ...
to work as a lay assistant to the Anglican lay missionary William Duncan at the
Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terr ...
community of Metlakatla, B.C.


Missionary Work

Shortly after his arrival at Metlakatla Robert Cunningham was assigned to assist the missionary R. Arthur Doolan, himself newly arrived from England, in founding a new mission among the Nisga'a. Together with a Tsimshian interpreter named Robert Dundas they opened a mission among the villages on the lower Nass River in July 1864. When it soon came to light that Cunningham had fathered a child with a young Tsimshian student of Duncan's named Elizabeth Ryan Doolan married the couple and Cunningham's formal relationship with the Church Missionary Society was terminated.


Trader

Cunningham began working at the
Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...
's Fort Simpson, a trading fort later known as Port Simpson and
Lax Kw'alaams Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the W ...
. He worked alongside Charles F. Morison, who eventually married Elizabeth's niece Odille Quintal (later Morison), the Tsimshian linguist. Cunningham eventually rose to the position of chief trader. In 1870 he left the HBC and Port Simpson. Versions differ as to the circumstances of this: discontent over his salary or a trumped-up charge of rum-running imposed by Duncan (who was also the local justice of the peace), or both. Cunningham then began an entrepreneurial relationship with one Thomas Hankin (later father to the Tlingit interpreter and teacher
Constance Cox Constance Cox (25 October 1912 – 8 July 1998) was a British script writer and playwright, born in Sutton, Surrey. Life and career Cox was born Constance Shaw in Sutton, Surrey, in 1912. She married Norman Cox, a fighter pilot, who was kill ...
. In 1871, with the onset of the
Omineca Gold Rush The Omineca Gold Rush was a gold rush in British Columbia, Canada in the Omineca region of the Northern Interior of the province. Gold was first discovered there in 1861, but the rush didn't begin until late in 1869 with the discovery at Vital Cree ...
, Cunningham and Hankin became traders at Hazelton, in
Gitxsan Gitxsan (also spelled Gitksan) are an Indigenous people in Canada whose home territory comprises most of the area known as the Skeena Country in English (: means "people of" and : means "the River of Mist"). Gitksan territory encompasses approxim ...
territory, and eventually founded a depot at Woodcock's Landing downriver at the
Skeena River The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada (after the Fraser River). Since ancient times, the Skeena has been an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan—whose n ...
estuary, at what later became the site of Inverness cannery. In search of a better location, the two staked a claim for a plot of land at a site Tsimshians called ''Spaksuut'' (fall camping-place), on the territory of the Gitzaxłaał Tsimshians at the confluence of the Skeena and Ecstall rivers. In 1872 a store was built there, and the site gradually acquired a more or less permanent presence of
Kitselas {{about, the people, the location, Kitselas, British Columbia, their band government, Kitselas First Nation Kitselas, Kitsalas or Gits'ilaasü are one of the 14 tribes of the Tsimshian nation of British Columbia, in northwestern Canada. The origi ...
and
Kitsumkalum Kitsumkalum is an original tribe/ galts'ap (community) of the Tsimshian Nation. Kitsumkalum is one of the 14 tribes of the Tsimshian nation in British Columbia, Canada. Kitsumkalum and is also the name of one of their Indian Reserve just west of th ...
Tsimshians from upriver. By the 1890s Port Essington, as Spaksuut came to be known, was a small town, and soon it became the largest settlement in the region and its economic hub. Cunningham bought out Hankin and established salmon packing as the community's main industry. The Cunningham Cannery produced "Diamond A" brand canned salmon. Though other canneries operated in the town, Port Essington was largely considered to be "Cunningham's town." Several members of Cunningham's family in Ireland eventually moved to Port Essington, as did Charles and Odille Morison. In 1888, Cunningham's wife Elizabeth was drowned with several others when their canoe capsized off Port Lambert near Port Essington. Of their five children, only two, George and John, survived early childhood, and John was killed at age seventeen when a trading schooner was wrecked near the
Queen Charlotte Islands Haida Gwaii (; hai, X̱aaydag̱a Gwaay.yaay / , literally "Islands of the Haida people") is an archipelago located between off the northern Pacific coast of Canada. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Heca ...
. In 1893 Cunningham married again, to Flora Bicknell, formerly of
Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...
, in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. They had two children, Hazel and Harold. A third, Edith, was born shortly after Robert's death, in April 1905, in
Victoria, B.C. Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. The ...
, at the age of sixty-nine. He is buried in Metlakatla.


See also

*
Monte Cristo (sternwheeler) ''Monte Cristo'' was a sternwheel steamboat which was operated in Puget Sound and the coastal rivers of the state of Washington and the province of British Columbia. Career The sources are in some conflict as to the early career of this vessel. ...
*
Steamboats of the Skeena River The Skeena River is British Columbia’s fastest flowing waterway, often rising as much as in a day and fluctuating as much as sixty feet between high and low water. For the steamboat captains, that wide range made it one of the toughest navigable ...


Sources

* Bowman, Phylis (1982) ''Klondike of the Skeena!'' Chilliwack, B.C.: Sunrise Printing. * Harris, E. A. (1990) ''Spokeshute: Skeena River Memory.'' Victoria, B.C.: Orca Book Publishers. * Large, R. Geddes (1957; reprinted, 1981) ''The Skeena: River of Destiny.'' Sidney, B.C.: Gray's Publishing.


External links


Biography of Odille Morison
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cunningham, Robert British Anglican missionaries Anglican missionaries in Canada Canadian Anglicans People from Dungannon Tsimshian Gitxsan 1905 deaths 1837 births