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Descendents of William Grieve (5 Feb 1799 - ca 1875)
and Eleanor Turnbull (18 Sep 1794 - 18 Oct 1860)


Third Immigrant Generation
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29. George Thomas "Berkeley" Grieve . Son of George Grieve & Jane Nesbitt. Born 11 Jan 1866 in Harvey. Died 29 Aug 1946 in St. Joseph's Hospital, Comox, B.C. Buried in Courtenay Civic Cemetery, Section A. Occupation Farmer.

    BC Archives has death date 13 Aug 1946.  

    Berkeley came to Comox Valley with his parents at the age of nine years.   A short time was spent at the family's first farm (what is known as the Harry Piercy Homestead) where he attended the only school north of Nanaimo.   The school was situated on Mission Hill and Samuel Fulton Crawford was his teacher.

    As a youngster, Berkeley assisted in the construction of the Valley's first treadmill threshing machine.   Constructed in pieces in the living room of the family home, patterns for casting were carved out of wood and sent to Nanaimo Foundry to be cast in iron and returned.   Later, a horse drawn steam engine was imported and drawn around the valley by one of Berkeley's fine teams, for threshing and grinding.   In the winter, it was used to power a sawmill that was constructed in the timberland of the farm.   About 1896, a steam tractor was imported from the United States with a threshing machine and a blower.    For years at harvest time, the Grieve boys' outfit (engine, tank, team and thresher) was the outstanding diversion of all the boys in the Valley as it traversed the highroads and by-roads from Black Creek to Cape Lazo on its annual mission of threshing and silo filling.

    In order to operate this engine at harvest time and for the sawmill in the winter, Berkeley wrote his steam papers and obtained a second class certificate and was therefore one of the oldest second-class engineers in Western Canada.

    Berkeley was known affectionately as 'Uncle B' in his later years.   A few weeks before his death he declared:   "I have pitched hay in this valley every year for the last 70 years.

    (Much of the above information was obtained from a write-up prepared in 1946 at the time of Berkeley's 80th birthday--author unknown.)

   Berkeley and his wife Mary had two children.

    From newspaper obituary (1946):

    Comox Pioneer Dies

    Courtenay, Sept 9 -- Geo Thomas Berkley Grieve, l80, a pioneer of the Comox district died last week.   A few weeks ago he declared:   "I have pitched hay in this valley every year for the last 70 years."   He came from New Brunswick as a boy of nine.

    He married Mary Anne Robertson, 7 Feb 1917 in Sandwick, BC. Born 16 May 1875 in Charlottetown (North River), PEI. Died 26 Oct 1951 in Qualicum, BC. Buried in Courtenay Civic Cemetery. Occupation School Teacher.

    Mary was born in Prince Edward Island, the daughter of John Robertson and Ann Murchison.   She went to Sandwick, BC to teach school, and was issued teaching certificate No. 512 in 1904.   Mary arrived in British Columbia via San Francisco where an uncle and his family resided.   Apparently an aunt had taught at Sandwick before her.

    Mary died at the home of her daughter, Ruth LeGrand in Qualicum, BC.   She had lived the later part of her life in a small house on the Grieve farm in Countenay while George and Florence Grieve and their family lived in the old family home.

    They had the following children:

  130   i.   Ruth Grieve

  131   ii.   George Berkeley Grieve