Colonial Despatches

Donald MacAulay worked for the Puget Sound Agricultural Company and ran their Viewfield farm, located between Esquimalt and Victoria.1 He appears in this letter from Moresby to Grey.

Originally from Scotland, MacAulay arrived on the Pacific coast in 1834 and served under Captain McNeill before being stationed at Fort Simpson in 1837.2 He left Viewfield in 1860 to rejoin the HBC and served again at Fort Simpson.3 He returned to Victoria in 1868 to take charge of the Company's powder magazine at Esquimalt, but instead drowned accidentally in the harbour.4

MacAulay Point, formerly known as Sailor Point, was named after him by officers of the HBC in 1851 and adopted by Captain Richards when he resurveyed the harbour in 1859.5 The “MacAulay” in MacAulay Point was previously spelled “McAuley” in the British Colonist.6

• 1. John T. Walbran, British Columbia Coast Names (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1971), 309-10.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Ibid.
• 4. Ibid.
• 5. Ibid.
• 6. The Accident to the 'Carolena', British Colonist, October 8, 1861.