Letter to B.C. Surveyor General
Salts Spring Island,
November 1869,
Dear Mr. Trutch,
I beg leave to inform you that I have ben oblige to move my famerly from my claim as the Indiens is daingeris I cannot get any man to live on the place since Cirtice [Curtis] was killed for this caiss I [would like to pre-empt] a peace of land on the n.e. side of ganges harger [harbour] and joind on the south east end of david overtons' claim thir is forty or fifty acres of this land near to other settlers which I would be very thankfully if you will record this to me and take one hundred acres from my other claim and record to me one hundred onely until I can get a man on it.
[signed Louis Stark]
November 10, 1869
Mr Stark cannot record the land he wishes to acquire at Ganges Harbour [...] without forfeiting the claim he pre-empted in 1861. If he can show that he has been in continuous occupation of the first claim up to the present time, and made permanent improvements thereon, he might be allowed to purchace it.
[British Columbia Surveyor General]