Compton Island

Compton Island is an island in the Queen Charlotte Strait-Johnstone Strait region of the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada, located in Blackfish Sound to the east of Port McNeill[1] All of Compton Island and three small islands offshore comprise Compton Island Indian Reserve No. 6, a.k.a. Compton 6.[2]

Name origin

Compton Island was named about 1866 by Captain Pender for Pym Nevin Compton of Hampshire. From a Quaker family, she came to Victoria in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, working as a clerk. He was serving as a trading clerk on the Labouchere when he was taken captive by natives in Alaska in August 1862.[3] He was stationed at Port Simpson (Lax Kw'alaams today) and at Fort Rupert where he was in charge. He returned to England in 1866 on the Hudson's Bay's Prince of Wales, but a few years later was in California, returning to Victoria afterwards, where he dies in 1879.[4] Compton Point at the entrance to Wells Passage was also named for him.[5]

See also

References
  1. BC Names/GeoBC entry "Compton Island"
  2. BC Names/GeoBC entry "Compton Island 6 (Indian reserve)"
  3. Victoria Colonist, August 23, 1862
  4. British Columbia Coast Names, 1592-1906: their origin and history, John T. Walbran, Ottawa, 1909 (republished for the Vancouver Public Library by J.J. Douglas Ltd, Vancouver, 1971), quoted in the BC Names entry.
  5. BC Names/GeoBC entry "Compton Point"


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