Silvey, Joseph "Portuguese Joe"

SILVEY, Joseph "Portuguese Joe," a.k.a. Joe Silvia, storekeeper, fisher (b 1836, Piepika Island, Portugal; d 17 Jan 1902, Reid Island). Born Joseph Silvia Simmons, he arrived in BC in 1852 aboard a WHALING ship. He ran the first grocery store in GASTOWN in the 1860s and married a FIRST NATIONS woman from MUSQUEAM, the first marriage between an aboriginal and a non-aboriginal in VANCOUVER. Their daughter Elizabeth was the first child born to a non-aboriginal in Vancouver. After his first wife...

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