Colonial Despatches

Sapperton is a community located within New Westminster, on the north side of the Fraser River. This despatch reveals that a group of Royal Engineers led by Colonel Moody were sent to assist Douglas in maintaining law and order in the gold fields. The engineers, who were known as “sappers”, set up their camp a mile above the proposed capital of British Columbia, which Moody named Sapperton.1

• 1. John T. Walbran, British Columbia Coast Names (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1971), 440.