One of the most interesting characters in the history of the South Cariboo was Lord Martin Cecil, the 7th Marquis of Exeter, whose family virtually owned the town of 100 Mile House and its surrounding 15,000 acres from 1912 to the late 1960s. Back in the day, these lands were known as the Bridge Creek Ranch, and Martin Cecil’s father, William, first saw them on a trip to Canada in 1910.
He was impressed with the sprawling, open expanse, and also offered for purchase with the land was the Bridge Creek House (the 100 Mile stopping house and four connected buildings, including a saloon, a store and a telegraph office). At the time, wealthy Britishers were buying up tracts of land in the B.C. Interior as investments. The plan was to settle these lands with British immigrants on a lease to purchase basis. It took William Cecil nearly two years of negotiating to reach a deal, and, in 1912 the entire property was purchased for $75,000.
William was the fifth Marquis of Exeter, a title dating back more than 400 years to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Her trusted advisor and Lord Treasurer, also named Martin Cecil, was the first Marquis of Exeter and Baron of Burghley from 1558 to 1587. His baronial estate in Lincolnshire, England, consisted of a grand mansion of more than 300 rooms and more than 20,000 acres of land. Over the years, the Cecil family has produced two prime ministers along with several powerful politicians, while maintaining very close connections to the British royalty and aristocracy.
For some 20 years, from 1910 until 1930, the Bridge Creek Ranch was managed by Charles G. Cowan of Kamloops, a retired British army officer turned real estate developer. In 1930, the Marquis brought the younger of his two sons, Martin, out to Canada to take over the development of management of the Bridge Creek land holdings. The older son, David, being the first born, and therefore the heir to the baronial title, would remain in England to become the sixth Marquis of Exeter and become involved in British politics. It is interesting to note that David Cecil, in his younger days, became an Olympic medal winning hurdler. In the movie “Chariots of Fire,” the character of Lord Andrew Lindsay was based loosely on David’s early life.
But back to Martin Cecil. He had just completed a career in the Royal Navy when he arrived in 100 Mile House. He was only 21, but he was intelligent, willing to work hard and to listen to people who knew the ranching business, and astute in his business dealings. His new life must have been a huge contrast to the privileged life he had known in England.
His living quarters were in the rundown log built stopping house, where his drafty bedroom was heated by a small wood burning stove. It would burn out each night, leaving the room cold and the windows frosted up in the morning. Times were lean, but he always paid his ranch hands before taking money for himself. He soon began adopting the costume and ways of the Cariboo-casual shirts, jeans and a cowboy hat – while he worked alongside the hands and learned the ranching business.
Martin Cecil was certainly a hands-on person. Not only was he a rancher, he also took on the duties of storekeeper, postmaster, gas and oil agent /distributer, school trustee and general handyman. He was also a dreamer, although one with sufficient ingenuity and enthusiasm to see a project through to its successful end. He set about to construct a new two-story lodge to replace the decrepit, vermin-infested old stopping house. He read books on construction by coal oil lantern late into the nights, and during the day, he would put into practice what he had read. Using lumber milled locally, he gradually managed to bring his vision into reality.
He even designed a plumbing system and a 32-volt electric system, which when installed, made his new 100 Mile Lodge “one of the most modern stopping houses in the world.” The Lodge opened in 1932, and can still be seen today, tucked in behind the Red Coach Inn.
In 1934, Martin Cecil was the School Trustee for 100 Mile House when my father arrived there as a first-year teacher. Cecil welcomed him, and showed him to his quarters, an upstairs bedroom in the new lodge. Dad’s salary was a generous $78.00 per month, of which $25 was deducted for room rental, and a further $5.00 taken off for laundry services.
Unfortunately, the new schoolhouse that had been promised him had not yet been constructed, so my father had to set up his teaching area in a small building in the complex that served as a school room during the day and a bar room at night. It was not until September of 1935 that the one room schoolhouse was completed in the meadow where the big old Bridge Creek Ranch barn is now located.
Dad often reminisced about Lord Martin Cecil, who took quite a shine to him. Cecil had recently married Edith Csanady, a noblewoman from Hungary whom he had met while in the navy. My father apparently impressed him when he was introduced to Edith, and correctly addressed her by her proper title, Marchioness Edith. Until January of 1935, when dad was assigned to the school at Springhouse, he and Martin Cecil played chess and bridge fairly regularly and had some great discussions. I got the impression that my father really admired and respected the man for his quick wit, his sense of humour, and his down to earth practicality. They corresponded regularly for several years after dad moved away from the community.
In 1935, the Cecils had a son, Michael. Martin continued to build the business and try out new ideas. He attempted to introduce polo to the area but is wasn’t well accepted by the locals. The same thing happened with golf. He tried to promote cross country skiing in the winter, but that sport also wasn’t received very well. He promoted the Lodge as a destination resort, working hard to market that business, with limited success. His aristocratic connections led to the visits of some notable people, including President Herbert Hoover of the U.S.A.
In spring of 1937, the original Bridge Creek House, along with the entire row of irregular buildings with their crooked doorways, rickety stairways, and myriad of rooms and passageways, burned to the ground. It was probably for the best. The whole complex was unsafe and infested with lice, bedbugs, spiders, mice, rats and other creatures. Even Martin Cecil was said to have commented on “the terrible loss of life, none of which was human.”
During the years of the Great Depression, the ranching business was very difficult. Cecil couldn’t sell his cattle and sheep, so he made deals by trading sheep for hay and other needed commodities, finally getting out of the sheep business altogether. In 1934, the Cariboo Stockmen’s Association was formed, and he was elected vice-president. By 1943, this group had morphed into the ranchers’ cooperative known as the Cariboo Cattleman’s Association. Martin Cecil was its first president, a position he held until 1954, when his wife Edith passed away. It is a mark of the respect with which he was held by his ranching colleagues that he was elected to this position, and later to the presidency of both the provincial and national cattleman’s organizations.
In the early 1940s, Martin discovered the writings of Lloyd Arthur Meeker, an American religious philosopher, who founded a society called the Emissaries of the Divine Light. Cecil identified strongly with the teachings of this group, and after a number of visits to the society’s headquarters in Loveland, Colorado, in 1948, he decided to start up a spiritual community of Emissaries in 100 Mile House with himself as leader. When Meeker and his wife were killed in a plane crash in 1954, Martin and his second wife, Lillian, took in the couple’s three children to raise them as their own along with a new daughter, Marina. Martin also assumed the leadership of the Emissaries movement. Although naturally shy, he became an excellent speaker and travelled all around the world as well as becoming the author of several books.
Gradually, the Emissary community of the Bridge Lake Ranch property grew, and housing for its members was provided in the area behind the Lodge. During the 1950s and 1960s, 100 Mile House, with lumbering as its primary industry, became one of the fastest growing communities in B.C. The land which would become the main town site was initially divided into lease lots but in 1965, when the village was incorporated, these properties were offered for sale.
The 100 Mile House Lodge had also aged, and became increasingly inadequate, so, under Cecil’s direction, a new development was planned – the Red Coach Inn motel complex – situated where the original stopping house had stood. It opened in 1966, and the Lodge became a combination community kitchen and business centre. The old log blacksmith and carpentry shop beside it was converted into a chapel.
In 1981, when his brother David died without any male heirs, Martin became the 7th Marquis of Exeter, and now had the title of Lord Martin Cecil, although people had been calling him that for years. The following year, he travelled back to London to take his seat in the House of Lords. For the next half dozen years, he balanced his time in 100 Mile House with trips around the globe as leader of the Emissaries, and trips to England for his parliamentary duties.
Lord Martin Cecil passed away at the age of 77 on January 12, 1988 at the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops. His ashes were interred in a private cemetery behind the lodge that he built. His son, Michael, took over the leadership of the Emissaries and also became the 8th Marquis of Exeter. Lord Martin came to the Cariboo as a complete neophyte in the ways of business, ranching, construction, religion and politics. He worked hard to learn and to grow, and he left a great legacy in the area. His nickname “the founding father of 100 Mile House” was well and truly earned.
For this column I relied on the writings of Irene Stangoe, information gleaned from the internet, and personal anecdotes.
