Re: Former mayor's grave marked at last
Nelson Star, Fri. Dec. 2, 2011
When the tomb-stone for Mayor Fletcher was contemplated by Don Tonsaker - according to the Nelson Express, about one year ago - researchers Ron Welwood, local historian, and Pat Rogers, Community Heritage Commission (CHC) and Touchstones Archive, supposedly couldn't find much information on the mayor.
Crucial information they seemingly hadn't found - even though readily accessible - was information which actually defines Mayor Fletcher's legacy. Unless they had unearthed it, and the Express just failed to mention it. Or something.
Bear with me: Local discrimination against the Chinese population of Nelson in those early years was of punching-bag status - with John "Truth" Houston right in there as loudly outspoken racist and the Nelson Weekly Miner advocating to arrange to kill off, if any legal way can be divined to accomplish that act, every mother's son of the almond-eyed pigtail wearers living at present in any country inhabited by white men. He is a filthy, immoral piece of human machinery, not a man in the sense in which the word is used by civilized peoples.
This despite the fact that these filthy, immoral piece(s) of human machinery at the time - while forced to live in the Lower Hill ghetto - were feeding Nelson with cheap, fresh produce, grown under extremely harsh Anglo-determined conditions; had been playing a major role in building area-railroads; did all dirty work for Upper Hill ladies; kept most everybody's clothes clean and mended.
Instrumental in putting Nelson on the map!
Here goes: At that time Chinese farmers asked Mayor Fletcher to lease Cottonwood-Basin land to them - they wanted to establish market-gardens there. Mayor Fletcher could not do this because the land had been given to Nelson by the CPR as park-land. But he did give them permission to work the land as squatters! This was a truly remarkable gesture of generosity at the time - with Chinese habitually used and abused. Taken from - but never given to!
And then the licensing-fee fracas. Alderman Irving attempted to see a licensing-fee of $25 per year imposed on Chinese market-gardeners. This was a ploy devised by Anglo vegetable-farmers, trying to rid themselves of Chinese competition - even though the Chinese were the first to work Nelson's outskirts as market-gardeners. In fact: some of these Anglo farmers were growing crops on land which had been leased to and cleared and cultivated by Chinese. Meaning: the Chinese had paid money to landowners to be allowed to clear and cultivate their land! To then be told unceremoniously to leave - when the land appreciated in value because of it! Anyway, $25 was an impossible amount for the Chinese to come up with; Alderman Hamilton thought that $10 were sufficient. The issue had everybody jump up-and-down loudly for a while - until Mayor Fletcher put a decisive end to it, saying: the Chinese had been cultivating this land for the owners, and without them it would have remained wilderness! Council was deadlocked, and the issue was dropped!
In both cases Mayor Fletcher showed himself as a man of reason and objectivity - a leader - his own man, way ahead of his time.
Asking to have these two crucial facts published as a letter - I wrote to the Express, as soon as it published the article about the intended tomb-stone and supposed dearth of Fletcher-related facts.
The letter was never published.
I sent a copy of it to Don Tonsaker through Kim Charlesworth, then CHC member from Council.
This e-mail was never acknowledged.
And there is no mention here in the Star about these facts either: information more revealing of the man than anything else published about him in Nelson since his time in office.
Heritage selectively acknowledged - Nelson's heritage!
Claos Schunke
Nelson
End of letter to the Star.
I don't fault the writer of the article for not including this information; I want to bring to his (and anyone's) attention though that - no matter how convenient a conduit the Touchstone Archive may be - there are other excellent conduits with possibly more and/or different historical sources in the area: such as the Selkirk/Castlegar Reference Library.
Which, of course, has nothing to do with the Nelson Star not being interested - now, after it ran its story - in this additional Nelson-specific information of substance about Mayor Fletcher and his time - delivered to its door!
How convenient is that!
As of this date: my letter above to the Nelson Star - more than 3 issues ago - has not been published.
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