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QUICK REFERENCE ENTRY:
Originally from North Carolina, British Columbia's first noteworthy bookstore owner, Thomas Napier Hibben, started the venerable B.C. tradition of publishers who are credited as authors. Hibben first learned printing and bookselling in San Francisco. According to the memoirs of Edgar Fawcett, Hibben's business in Victoria was opened, as early as 1855, as Hibben & Carswell, in the Fardon Building, next to the Bank of British North America, the pioneer bank in the city. The first Masonic lodge of the Freemasons of Victoria was established above Hibben & Carswell's, on Yates Street, in 1860. Hibben's English-born partner, James Carswell, left for Toronto where Robert Carswell (probably a relation) established the Carswell Company in 1864, still operational as Canada's pioneer law publishing house. (Hibben was not the province's first publisher. Waddington's The Fraser Mines Vindicated was printed in 1858 by Paul de Garro.)
Hibben has been credited as the author of Dictionary of Indian Tongues, Containing Most of the Words and Terms Used in the Tshimpsean, Hydah, & Chinook, With Their Meaning or Equivalent in the English Language (1862) and A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon (1871). A copy of Hibben's rare Dictionary of Indian Tongues now sells for more than $3,000. Hibben's oft-reprinted A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon was cribbed from a work published by George Gibbs in 1863. In addition, Hibben printed an uncredited 408-page volume called Guide to the Province of British Columbia for 1877-8 (1877) containing advertisements and a Chinook dictionary.
The Chinook trading language (an amalgam of aboriginal, English and French terms) was used in trials in B.C., such as the prosecution of Chilcotin chiefs following the so-called Chilcotin War in 1864, as well as the prosecution of Tshuanahusset, who was charged with the 1868 murder of black Salt Spring Island pioneer William Robinson. It was officially used as late as 1913-1916 for the McKenna-McBride Commission. By 1962, the Summer Institute of Linguistics estimated that approximately 100 Chinook speakers remained in North America. By 1990, the language was considered nearly extinct.
Decades after Hibben's book, the Oblate missionary Jean-Marie Raphael Le Jeune, namesake for the lakeside resort community of Lac Le Jeune, became one of the foremost progenitors of Chinook jargon. Stationed at Kamloops and Williams Lake, he published Chinook Rudiments (1924) and a remarkable mimeographed Chinook newsletter, the Kamloops Wawa, which described itself as "the queerest newspaper in the world."
First published on May 2, 1891, the Wawa was "Indian news" printed in both the English alphabet and a bizarre form of shorthand developed in 1867 by two French clerics, the Duploye brothers. As a result of the Wawa's wide circulation, many Native and non-Natives in the B.C. Interior became literate as Duployan readers. Le Jeune didn't realize Duployan shorthand could be transferable to his followers until a cripple named Charley-Alexis Mayoos, from the Lower Nicola, noticed some of Le Jeune's Duployan notes and immediately grasped its fundamentals. He, in turn, began spreading the "phonography" to members of the Coldwater Indian band. Le Jeune published his last issue of the Kamloops Wawa in September of 1904.
FULL ENTRY:
Originally from North Carolina, British Columbia's first noteworthy bookstore owner, Thomas Napier Hibben, started the venerable B.C. tradition of publishers who have doubled as authors, having first learned printing and bookselling in San Francisco. According to the memoirs of Edgar Fawcett, Hibben's business in Victoria was opened, as early as 1855, as Hibben & Carswell, in the Fardon Building, next to the Bank of British North America, the pioneer bank in the city. The first Masonic lodge of The Freemasons of Victoria was established above Hibben & Carswell's, on Yates Street, in 1860. His English-born partner, James Carswell, left for Toronto where Robert Carswell (probably a relation) established the Carswell Company in 1864, still operational as Canada's pioneer law publishing house.
Hibben's other early partner was a man named Kammerer.
In 1862, Hibben released Dictionary of Indian Tongues, Containing Most of the Words and Terms Used in the Tshimpsean, Hydah, & Chinook, With Their Meaning or Equivalent in the English Language. It's a rare book that now sells for more than $3,000. [The first independently published book credited to an individual author was Alfred Waddington's The Fraser Mines Vindicated, printed by Paul de Garro, an exiled French count who died when a boiler exploded during his trip to the goldfields. See Waddington entry.]
Around 1871, Hibben had printed A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, cribbed from the work of George Gibbs, that was often reprinted. In addition, Hibben printed an uncredited 408-page volume called Guide to the Province of British Columbia for 1877-8 (T.N. Hibben, 1877) containing advertisements and a Chinook dictionary. Under the Hibben and Carswell imprint, Hibben had published one of the first Chinook pamphlets in 1862. Hibben had several partners over the years. The company endured as Diggon-Hibben, publishers of Early Days Among the Gulf Islands of British Columbia by Margaret Shaw Walter and Dorothy Abraham's Romantic Vancouver Island, both in the 1940s.
[Other authors *as of 2010* who produced Chinook guides include Gabriel Franchere (1810), John Dunn (1844), Blanchet (1852), Alexander Caulfield Anderson (1858), William Carew Hazlitt (1858), Theodore Winthrop (1862), Francis Norbert Blanchet (1852), George Gibbs (1863), Duncan George Forbes Macdonald (1863), William F. Sturgis (1864), Granville Stuart (1865), Christopher Knipe (1868), James Constantine Pilling (1868), Modeste Demers (1871), Louis Napoleon St. Onge (1871), M. Stannard (1873), John Kaye Gill (1878), Myron Eells (1878), John Booth Good (1880), Paul Durieu (1886), Jean-Marie Raphael Le Jeune (1886), Thomas Wickham Prosch (1888), Charles Montgomery Tate (1889), Horatio Hale (1890), James Constantine Pilling (1893), Franz Boas (1894), Alexander Alfred Boddy (1896), Alexander Ross (1904), Joel Palmer (1906), Frederick J. Long (1909), George C. Shaw (1909), Walter Shelley "Chinook" Phillips, a.k.a. El Commancho (1913) and lastly, A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, by Beatrice J. Spalding [published by the author], 1947.
For other authors pertaining to the Chinook language, see abcbookworld entries for Glavin, Terry; Howay, F.W.; Jacobs, Melville; Lang, Georg; Lillard, Charles; Thomas, Edward Harper; Verne, Ray; Walker, Alexander; Zimmerman, Heinrich.]
BOOKS:
Dictionary of Indian Tongues, Containing Most of the Words and Terms Used in the Tshimpsean, Hydah, & Chinook, With Their Meaning or Equivalent in the English Language (Victoria: Hibben, 1862).
A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon (Victoria: T.N. Hibben Co., 1871; 1889).
[BCBW 2010] "Chinook"
Originally from North Carolina, British Columbia's first noteworthy bookstore owner, Thomas Napier Hibben, started the venerable B.C. tradition of publishers who are credited as authors. Hibben first learned printing and bookselling in San Francisco. According to the memoirs of Edgar Fawcett, Hibben's business in Victoria was opened, as early as 1855, as Hibben & Carswell, in the Fardon Building, next to the Bank of British North America, the pioneer bank in the city. The first Masonic lodge of the Freemasons of Victoria was established above Hibben & Carswell's, on Yates Street, in 1860. Hibben's English-born partner, James Carswell, left for Toronto where Robert Carswell (probably a relation) established the Carswell Company in 1864, still operational as Canada's pioneer law publishing house. (Hibben was not the province's first publisher. Waddington's The Fraser Mines Vindicated was printed in 1858 by Paul de Garro.)
Hibben has been credited as the author of Dictionary of Indian Tongues, Containing Most of the Words and Terms Used in the Tshimpsean, Hydah, & Chinook, With Their Meaning or Equivalent in the English Language (1862) and A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon (1871). A copy of Hibben's rare Dictionary of Indian Tongues now sells for more than $3,000. Hibben's oft-reprinted A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon was cribbed from a work published by George Gibbs in 1863. In addition, Hibben printed an uncredited 408-page volume called Guide to the Province of British Columbia for 1877-8 (1877) containing advertisements and a Chinook dictionary.
The Chinook trading language (an amalgam of aboriginal, English and French terms) was used in trials in B.C., such as the prosecution of Chilcotin chiefs following the so-called Chilcotin War in 1864, as well as the prosecution of Tshuanahusset, who was charged with the 1868 murder of black Salt Spring Island pioneer William Robinson. It was officially used as late as 1913-1916 for the McKenna-McBride Commission. By 1962, the Summer Institute of Linguistics estimated that approximately 100 Chinook speakers remained in North America. By 1990, the language was considered nearly extinct.
Decades after Hibben's book, the Oblate missionary Jean-Marie Raphael Le Jeune, namesake for the lakeside resort community of Lac Le Jeune, became one of the foremost progenitors of Chinook jargon. Stationed at Kamloops and Williams Lake, he published Chinook Rudiments (1924) and a remarkable mimeographed Chinook newsletter, the Kamloops Wawa, which described itself as "the queerest newspaper in the world."
First published on May 2, 1891, the Wawa was "Indian news" printed in both the English alphabet and a bizarre form of shorthand developed in 1867 by two French clerics, the Duploye brothers. As a result of the Wawa's wide circulation, many Native and non-Natives in the B.C. Interior became literate as Duployan readers. Le Jeune didn't realize Duployan shorthand could be transferable to his followers until a cripple named Charley-Alexis Mayoos, from the Lower Nicola, noticed some of Le Jeune's Duployan notes and immediately grasped its fundamentals. He, in turn, began spreading the "phonography" to members of the Coldwater Indian band. Le Jeune published his last issue of the Kamloops Wawa in September of 1904.
FULL ENTRY:
Originally from North Carolina, British Columbia's first noteworthy bookstore owner, Thomas Napier Hibben, started the venerable B.C. tradition of publishers who have doubled as authors, having first learned printing and bookselling in San Francisco. According to the memoirs of Edgar Fawcett, Hibben's business in Victoria was opened, as early as 1855, as Hibben & Carswell, in the Fardon Building, next to the Bank of British North America, the pioneer bank in the city. The first Masonic lodge of The Freemasons of Victoria was established above Hibben & Carswell's, on Yates Street, in 1860. His English-born partner, James Carswell, left for Toronto where Robert Carswell (probably a relation) established the Carswell Company in 1864, still operational as Canada's pioneer law publishing house.
Hibben's other early partner was a man named Kammerer.
In 1862, Hibben released Dictionary of Indian Tongues, Containing Most of the Words and Terms Used in the Tshimpsean, Hydah, & Chinook, With Their Meaning or Equivalent in the English Language. It's a rare book that now sells for more than $3,000. [The first independently published book credited to an individual author was Alfred Waddington's The Fraser Mines Vindicated, printed by Paul de Garro, an exiled French count who died when a boiler exploded during his trip to the goldfields. See Waddington entry.]
Around 1871, Hibben had printed A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, cribbed from the work of George Gibbs, that was often reprinted. In addition, Hibben printed an uncredited 408-page volume called Guide to the Province of British Columbia for 1877-8 (T.N. Hibben, 1877) containing advertisements and a Chinook dictionary. Under the Hibben and Carswell imprint, Hibben had published one of the first Chinook pamphlets in 1862. Hibben had several partners over the years. The company endured as Diggon-Hibben, publishers of Early Days Among the Gulf Islands of British Columbia by Margaret Shaw Walter and Dorothy Abraham's Romantic Vancouver Island, both in the 1940s.
[Other authors *as of 2010* who produced Chinook guides include Gabriel Franchere (1810), John Dunn (1844), Blanchet (1852), Alexander Caulfield Anderson (1858), William Carew Hazlitt (1858), Theodore Winthrop (1862), Francis Norbert Blanchet (1852), George Gibbs (1863), Duncan George Forbes Macdonald (1863), William F. Sturgis (1864), Granville Stuart (1865), Christopher Knipe (1868), James Constantine Pilling (1868), Modeste Demers (1871), Louis Napoleon St. Onge (1871), M. Stannard (1873), John Kaye Gill (1878), Myron Eells (1878), John Booth Good (1880), Paul Durieu (1886), Jean-Marie Raphael Le Jeune (1886), Thomas Wickham Prosch (1888), Charles Montgomery Tate (1889), Horatio Hale (1890), James Constantine Pilling (1893), Franz Boas (1894), Alexander Alfred Boddy (1896), Alexander Ross (1904), Joel Palmer (1906), Frederick J. Long (1909), George C. Shaw (1909), Walter Shelley "Chinook" Phillips, a.k.a. El Commancho (1913) and lastly, A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, by Beatrice J. Spalding [published by the author], 1947.
For other authors pertaining to the Chinook language, see abcbookworld entries for Glavin, Terry; Howay, F.W.; Jacobs, Melville; Lang, Georg; Lillard, Charles; Thomas, Edward Harper; Verne, Ray; Walker, Alexander; Zimmerman, Heinrich.]
BOOKS:
Dictionary of Indian Tongues, Containing Most of the Words and Terms Used in the Tshimpsean, Hydah, & Chinook, With Their Meaning or Equivalent in the English Language (Victoria: Hibben, 1862).
A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon (Victoria: T.N. Hibben Co., 1871; 1889).
[BCBW 2010] "Chinook"
Articles: 3 Articles for this author
A Reminiscence of Hibben & Co.
Excerpt
FROM EDGAR FAWCETT'S REMINISCENSE OF OLD VICTORIA (TORONTO: WILLIAM BRIGGS, 1912.
"On the corner is the Fardon building, which in 1855 was occupied by Hibben & Carswell, the beginning of the firm of T. N. Hibben & Co. Mr. Hibben, Mr. Carswell and Mr. Kammerer, the principals, have all gone to their rest, but the firm still lives and flourishes. An incident connected with the junior partner might here be recalled. One summer day Mr. Carswell, if I remember right, was one of a picnic party, who got lost in the woods near Muir's farm 30 miles from town, and the balance of the party returning to town without him, a search party was organized and a reward offered by Mr. Hibben for his partner's return. They left next morning, and after a long and strict search, as the party was returning to town to report their want of success, whom should they see ahead of them but the lost James Carswell, trudging along on the highroad to town. He was told that they were a search party sent out to look for him, and that they were glad they found him. "Found me!" said Mr. Carswell; "why, I am on my way home!" and they then proceeded to town together. When the party reached home Mr. Carswell was told that Mr. Hibben had sent the searchers, and had offered a reward for his finding. This Mr. Carswell objected to pay, protesting that they had not found him, but that he had found himself, and was on his way home when they met him. It caused a great deal of merriment, and was a standing joke for some time. An incident like this would be the talk of the town in those good old days, and many visits would be paid to Campbell's corner, kept by John Molowanski, a Russian, to hear if any news had been received of the lost Mr. Carswell.
"The first time I remember going to Hibben & Carswell's was in 1860, when I went to exchange a prize book I had won at school, and which was imperfectly bound, having several pages out of place. It was then I first saw Mr. Kammerer, and he informed me afterwards that he had just then been promoted from porter to assist in the office, and from this dated his rise in the firm to a partnership. Upstairs in this building was the Masonic hall and Pardon's photographic studio. Across the street are Moore & Co., druggists, an old established business of 1859 or '60, the present proprietor's father being the founder of the business. The Bank of British North America next door is, so far as I can remember, the pioneer bank in Victoria." -- Edgar Fawcett
ADDITIONAL CHINOOK REFERENCE WORKS
bibliographical (partial)
SOME PERIODICALS:
In 1872, George S. Phillips published a derogatory article "The Chinook Jargon and the Oregon Indians" in The Ladies' Repository: a monthly periodical, devoted to literature, arts, and religion. October, 4: 299-301.
In 1888, anthropologist Franz Boas published "Chinook Songs" in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, 1:3.
John Muir included a list of Chinook jargon at the end of Travels In Alaska covering the period 1879-1890.
In 1892, E. Meliss published a condescending article entitled "Siwash" in the Overland monthly and Out West magazine. November.
In 1894, Myron Eells published "The Chinook Jargon" in the American Anthropologist 7: 300-311.
In 1942, B.C. historian F.W. Howay published "The Origin of the Chinook Jargon" in the British Columbia Historical Quarterly, 6:4.
Robie L. Reid published "The Chinook Jargon and British Columbia" in B.C. Historical Quarterly, 6:1.
BOOKS: (Chronologically)
Kerr, Robert. "Vocabulary of the Language of Nootka, or King George's Sound. April, 1778." A general history and collection of voyages and travels, arranged in systematic order: forming a complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery and commerce, by sea and land, from the earliest ages to the present time. Edinburgh: London: W. Blackwood; T. Cadell, 1824. Robert Kerr lived 1755-1813. The words he lists here have the note "April, 1778".
Dunn, John. "A few specimens of the language of the Millbank and Chinook Tribes." History of the Oregon Territory and British North America fur trade: with an account of the habits and customs of the principal native tribes on the northern continent. London: Edwards and Hughes, 1844.
[1849] Ross, Alexander. "Chinook Vocabulary." Ross's Adventures of the first settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813. Cleveland, Ohio, A. H. Clark, 1904. 321-329. A London edition of same. Alexander Ross lived 1783-1856. In the appendix, two seperate wordlists are provided: one deemed to be Chinook, and the other deemed to be a more general "lingo". The notes read: "Reprint, including facsimile of t.-p. of original London edition of 1849."
A Comprehensive, Explanatory, Correct Pronouncing Dictionary, and Jargon Vocabulary, to which is Added Numerous Conversations Enabling any Person to Speak Chinook Jargon. (Portland: S.J. M'Cormick, 1852). At least seven editions were released with various titles up to 1879. A copy of the fifth edition in the British Columbia Archives is entitled Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon: to which is added numerous conversations, thereby enabling any person to speak Chinook correctly (Portland, Oregon: S. J. McCormick, 1879). Later editions were compiled by John Kaye Gill (1851-1929). An 18th edition was published in 1960.
Vocabulary of the Chinook jargon: the complete language used by the Indians of Oregon, Washington Territory and British Possessions. San Francisco: Hutchings & Rosenfield, 1860.
Dictionary of Indian tongues: containing most of the words and terms used in the Tshimpsean, Hydah, & Chinook : with their meaning or equivalent in the English language. Victoria, B.C.: Hibben & Carswell, 1862.
Stuart, Granville. "A dictionary of the Chinnook jargon: in use among the tribes of Oregon, Washington Territory, British Columbia, and the north Pacific coast, with critical and explanatory notes." Montana As It Is. New York: C. S. Westscott and Co., 1865. 99-130. Granville Stuart lived 1834-1918.
Winthrop, Theodore. "A partial vocabulary of the Chinook Jargon." The Canoe and the Saddle: adventures among the northwestern rivers and forests, and Isthmiana. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1866, c1862. 299-302. Winthrop lived 1828-1861.
Demers, Modeste. Chinook dictionary, catechism, prayers and hymns. Ed. Francis Norbert Blanchet & Louis Napoléon St. Onge. Montreal, 1871.
Schele De Vere, Maximilian. Americanisms; The English of the New world.. New York: Charles Scribner & Co., 1872.
Eells, Myron. Hymns in the Chinook jargon language. Portland, Or.: Geo. H. Himes, 1878. Reverend Myron Eells lived 1843-1907, and was a Missionary of the American Missionary Association at the time this was published.
Bauquier, Joseph. "Le Jargon Chinook." Revue des Langues Romanes 2. La Société l'étude des Langues Romanes. Montpeller, 1879; Nendeln/Lichtenstein: Kraus/Thomson, 1970. 172-175.
Good, John Booth. A vocabulary and outlines of grammar of the Nitlakapamuk or Thompson tongue (the Indian language spoken between Yale, Lillooet, Cache Creek and Nicola Lake) together with a phonetic Chinook dictionary, adapted for use in the province of British Columbia. Victoria, B.C., 1880.
Le Jeune, Jean-Marie Raphaël. Practical Chinook vocabulary: comprising all & the only usual words of that wonderful language arranged in a most advantageous order for the speedily learning of the same, after the plan of Right Rev. Bishop Durieu O M.I., the most experienced missionary & Chinook speaker in British Columbia. Kamloops, B.C.: St. Louis' Mission, 1886.
Tate, Charles Montgomery. Chinook as spoken by the Indians of Washington Territory, British Columbia and Alaska: for the use of traders, tourists and others who have business intercourse with the Indians: Chinook-English, English-Chinook. Victoria, B.C.: M.W. Waitt Canadiana dates this publication tentitavely 1889. Charles M. Tate was also known as Reverend Charles M. Tate.
Le Jeune, Jean-Marie Raphaël and Paul Durieu. Chinook vocabulary, Chinook-English: from the original of Rt. Rev. Bishop Durieu, O.M.I., with the Chinook words in phonography. Kamloops, B.C., 1892.
Le Jeune, Jean-Marie Raphaël. Chinook hymns. Kamloops, B.C., 1892. Kamloops, B.C., 1893.
Pilling, James Constantine. Bibliography of the Chinookan languages (including the Chinook jargon). Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of Ethnology. Washington: G.P.O., 1893.
Hale, Horatio. An international idiom: a manual of the Oregon trade language, or "Chinook jargon." London: Whittaker & Co., 1890. Horatio Hale lived 1817-1896.
Pocket dictionary of the Chinook jargon: the Indian trading language of Alaska, the Northwest Territory and the northern Pacific coast. San Francisco: Downing & Clark, 1898.
Le Jeune, Jean-Marie Raphaël. Chinook and shorthand rudiments: with which the Chinook jargon and the Wawa shorthand can be mastered without a teacher in a few hours. Kamloops, B.C., 1898.
Palmer, Joel. "Words used in the Chinook Jargon." Palmer's Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains, 1845-1846. Cleveland, Ohio: A.H. Clark, 1906.
Shaw, George C. The Chinook Jargon and how to use it: A complete and exhaustive lexicon of the oldest trade language of the American Continent. Seattle: Rainier Printing Company, Inc., 1909. As his chief authorities, Shaw cites Myron Eells, George Gibbs, Horatio Hale, Charles M. Buchanan, Dr. Franz Boas, Alexander Francis Chamberlain, Rev. Paul Gard, W. S. Phillips, Mr. and Mrs. H. S. Alfred, and "Indians (numerous), Puget Sd., Neah Bay and West Coast".
Jacobs, Melville. Texts in Chinook Jargon. Seattle: University of Washington, 1936.
Ray, Verne Frederick. Lower Chinook Ethnographic Notes. Seattle: University of Washington, 1938. The introduction of this book argues for the existence of a pre-contact Jargon.
UNDATED:
Richardson, Albert Deane. "Chapter XLI. The Chinook Jargon." Beyond the Mississippi: from the great river to the great ocean. Life and adventure on the prairies, mountains, and Pacific coast. Hartford, Conn., American publishing company; Newark, N.J., Bliss & company. 502-503.
For more significant Chinook references in this data base, search for "Chinook".
Hibben & Carswell
Newspaper article (1860)
THE BRITISH COLONIST
Wednesday morning, August 22, 1860
MASONIC LODGE.- We take great pleasure in announcing that a Masonic Lodge, under the name of "Victoria Lodge No. 1085," was organized in Victoria on Monday evening last. This is the first lodge of the Order ever established here, or in fact, in any part of the British possessions on the Pacific. The Charter was obtained from the Grand Lodge of England. The petition for the charter was forwarded to England in December, 1858, but owing to some informality, and to the charter being sent out via Cape Horn, nearly eighteen months expired before it arrived. Since its arrival the installation of officers has been delayed to Monday evening last, in order to suitably fit up the Lodge Room over Messrs. Hibben and Carswell's store, Yates street. We must say that the manner in which that has been done reflects great credit on the Order; in fact, there are few Masonic Halls on the Pacific coast better furnished, or more in keeping with the ancient landmarks of the fraternity. The Officers were installed by Past Master Robert Burnaby, assisted by Past Master Henry Aguilar, of H.M.S. Grappler. The names of the office bearers are J.J. Southgate, W.M..; George Pearkes, S.W.; Wm. Jeffray, J.W.; J.N. Thain, T.; A. De Cosmos, S.; Wm H. Thain, S.D.; K. Gambitz, J.D.; L. Franklin, I.G.; J.R. McDonald, O.G.
