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Pollard's Cornish Ranch and Roadhouse |
Murphy married Ellen White of New York , and with the commencement of Barnard's Stagecoach service to Soda Creek in 1864, 141 Mile House became a regular passenger stop. By 1870, with business increasing, the original log cabin was replaced by a large, two-storey log house containing fourteen rooms. Following a survey of the property at 141 milepost, a Crown grant was issued to Denis Murphy in November 1870. These lands became lots 8 and 9, G.4., Lillooet.
Murphy died in 1896, but the tradition of roadhouse keeping at 141 Mile Ranch was continued by Murphy's son John and his wife Margaret. By 1912 the 141 Mile Ranch was an "enterprise" with buildings which included "the house of two storeys and fourteen rooms, stables for 40 horse, cattle sheds, a granary, a diary, an ice house, two bunkhouses for single men, and three small dwelling houses for married men."
Also mentioned were the 2500 acres of land and advanced methods of irrigation employed by John Murphy. There were beginnings of a short-lived Enterprise Cattle Company at the time of John Murphy's untimely death in 1918 (p81, B.Patenaude:1996).
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Looking to secure a homestead, Denis Murphy and his companions, three partners, pre-empted 640 acres of adjoining land on 10 April 1862, situated on the third creek below Williams Lake. "Murphy's House" was associated with the well documented murder of Thomas Clegg, a trusted employee of E.T.Dodge and Company of Lillooet. Clegg was buried beside the road at this site, close to where he fell. The site of Clegg's grave can still be seen today, beside the original wagon road, halfway up the first hill south of 141 Mile Ranch. On two occasions, when the route of Highway 97 was being changed, the British Columbia Department of Highways carefully avoided the demolition of the historic site (p79, B.Patenaude:1996).
