Colonial Despatches

Giuseppe Vignolo (spelt also Vignola in the despatches) was a Jewish Merchant of Italian origins, emigrating from San Fransisco, California, to Victoria in 1858.1 It is likely that he arrived in Victoria with the intent to acquire land ahead of the gold rush boom which [Vignolo and others] had precipitated.2

It is likely that Vignolo was the owner of G. Vignolo & Co., a grocery store located on Wharf Street.3 In 1862, Vignolo and other merchants in Victoria sent a letter to Wells, Fargo, & Co., expressing their need for a secure assay office, which they believed the firm could provide in the wake of extensive embezzlement and fraud, reported by the Daily British Colonist, April 7, 1862.4

In 1864, an Italian Minister inquired into Vignolo's whereabouts, but neither G. Vignolo nor a Vignola was not located in Victoria.5 One scholar suggests the possibility that Vignolo may have travelled with Victoria speculators along the Bentinck Arm Corridor to Bella Coola.6 His fate is unknown.

• 1. Tom Swanky, 12. Follow the Land, in The True Story of Canada's 'War' of Extermination on the Pacific, (Lulu Press, inc., 2013), n.p.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. The Daily British Colonist October 24, 1862, 4. & The First Victoria Directory comprising a General Directory of Citizens, published March 1860, lists the citizen "Vignolo, Geo" as an owner of a grocery store.
• 4. Duncan George Forbes Macdonald et al., British Columbia and Vancouver Island: comprising a Description of These Dependencies…. Also an Account of the manners and Customs of the Native Indians, (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1862), 362; & The Daily British Colonist.
• 5. Kennedy to Newcastle, 25 April 1864, CO 305/22, 149.
• 6. Tom Swanky, 76. Smallpox's arrival at Victoria: by chance or by plan? in The True Story of Canada's 'War' of Extermination on the Pacific, (Lulu Press, inc., 2013), n.p.