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CALL NUMBER: T0675:0001 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1964 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. Angela McDairmid was born in Princeton before it was known as Princeton; she discusses her earliest memories; where the house was; several anecdotes about her mother and her youth; her father; floods; her family history; her father's arrival in Victoria in 1858; the gold rush on the Fraser River; the pack trains; the area around Princeton as she remembers it; more stories. Susan Louise Moir was her mother, and she discusses her life; her parents' early married life; the first settlers in Princeton; gold mining in Granite Creek; John Chance and other prospectors; how Princeton got its name. TRACK 2: Mrs. McDairmid continues by describing the first mines in the area; the Hope Trail; some characters; Chinese workers who worked for her father; stories; some characters whom she remembers.

CALL NUMBER: T0675:0002 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1964 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. McDairmid continues with stories about the land around Princeton, some bodies that were found, building a bridge, a shooting among Indians, the Allison town site, Judge Haynes, Indian boat races at the river, potlatches, a shooting, the killing of a Nicola Indian, Merritt as a coal mining town, Dr. Tuttle's hanging, superstition among the Indians. Finally, she discusses her father giving the copyright to his stories to her sister. [TRACK 2: blank.]

The item is an audio recording of an interview with Harold Allision. Harold Allison is a third generation cattle rancher in the Princeton-Similkameen Valley area. His grandfather John Fall Allison was the first white settler in the valley. The first Allison ran a cattle ranch and trading post in the area. The bounds of the ranch, types of cattle run, and early markets are discussed, as is the state of the present day (1977) ranch, and its bounds, stock and market.

The series consists of a microfilm copy of the papers of John Fall Allison and Susan Louisa Allison, pioneer ranchers in the Similkameen and Okanagan regions. Includes letters from John to his parents, 1857-1869, and manuscripts of stories; "When the river rose", "Scenes from our life in British Columbia on the Okanagan Lake", "What I know of Ogopogo" and "Memoirs of a pioneer of the 60s" and other untitled work. "Memoirs..." appears to a manuscript for a series of articles that were written by Susan L. Allison and published in the Sunday Province in 1931. The other manuscripts are undated and unsigned.