HOUGHTON, HISTORIAN
Profiling an Okanagan pioneer matriarch
While still a young girl, Maria Houghton was given an important family role. Her great aunt Thérèse N’Kwala Laurence selected Maria as her family’s historian. A sober child with a good memory, Maria was tutored by her aunt to preserve and recount the stories of her Indigenous ancestors.
Maria Houghton (some records list her given name as Marie) was born in the Coldstream Valley on Dec. 5,
1870, eldest of two children born to Charles Frederick Houghton and Sophie
N’Kwala. Maria was baptized at the Mission of the Immaculate Conception (Father Pandosy Mission) on June 1, 1871.
Maria’s father, Charles Frederick Houghton, was born at Glasshead Castle, Kilkenny, Ireland in 1838, the son of a barrister. He served in the British Army – including briefly in the Crimean War – and rose to the rank of captain.
In June 1863, Charles Houghton left the army and made his way to Vancouver Island, arriving in September that year. He and his friends Charles and Forbes Vernon, made their way to the Okanagan, eventually acquiring a large tract of land in the Coldstream Valley.
In 1872, Houghton accepted the seat as the first Member of Parliament for the riding of Yale-Kootenay. During his two years in Ottawa, Houghton’s young children, Maria and Edward, were left in the care of their maternal grandmother, as their mother had recently died.
On March 27, 1879 at Nanaimo, Houghton remarried, his second wife being Joan Marion Dunsmuir, the third daughter of the Vancouver Island coal baron.
Houghton returned to military life, eventually rising to the rank of colonel. In 1886, Col. Houghton was sent to Montréal, where he assumed charge of a military post.
Col. Houghton retired to B.C. in 1897 and died at Victoria on August 13, 1898 at the age of 60 years.
Maria’s mother, Sophia N’Kwala, was a granddaughter of the great Chief N’Kwala (also known as Nicola). Sophia married Charles Frederick Houghton in 1868 or 1869, her grandfather – Chief N’Kwala – performing the rites of marriage. Maria was proud of her Indigenous roots, including her direct link with N’Kwala.
Thérèse N’Kwala Laurence – daughter of Chief N’Kwala – told Maria much about their Indigenous ancestors, extending back many generations, with stories and traditions orally transmitted to young Maria. Sophia N’Kwala Houghton died when Maria was still young.
It is fortunate that Maria recorded, in written form, many of the stories about her people. Some of this Indigenous history is included in
“Indian Lore,” on pages 105-113 of the “30th Report” of the Okanagan Historical Society (1960). Houghton, who later married and became Maria Brent, included references to her mother:
“Sophia N’Kwala, daughter of young N’Kwala (son of the Great Chief of that name) was my mother and wife of Charles Frederick Houghton, my father. Sophia’s two younger brothers and sister died of tuberculosis about this time (circa 1871). My mother, Sophia N’Kwala died of a broken heart soon afterwards. Young N’Kwala’s full sister (Thérèse N’Kwala Laurence] took Marie Houghton Brent to raise. She put her with her own daughter (Eleanor Laurence) to go to school. It was she that taught Marie Houghton the traditions and ancestry of her tribe.”
Maria Houghton’s only sibling, Edward, was born in the North Okanagan in 1871. He and Maria received their education at the Okanagan School, near present-day Orchard Park mall.
On June 1, 1896, Edward Houghton married Annie Rhraouchin. Edward and Annie Houghton lived in the South Okanagan, later moving to Washington state where Edward died on Oct. 13, 1961 at the age of 89 years.
The 1891 Canada Census (Okanagan, Yale County, British Columbia) lists Maria Houghton, age 19 years, living in the Central Okanagan, in a household which included Terese [Thérèse] Laurence (50 years old, widow) and three of Terese’s children: Mary Nicholson (29 years old; married), Joseph Laurence (31 years old; single), and Leonora (Eleanor, 22 years old; single). Mary’s husband, Donald Nicholson (age 38 years), was listed as the head of that household.
The following year, Maria joined her recently-widowed father – his second wife, Joan Marion Dunsmuir Houghton, died at Victoria on Feb. 13, 1892 – in Montreal. This was a drastic change for 20-year-old Maria, assuming the role of her father’s escort, attending grand balls and military inspections in Ottawa, Québec City and Trois Rivières.
In 1908, Maria Houghton married William Brent. Brent was born in the Central Okanagan on Sept. 25, 1875, son of Frederick and Mary Ann Brent. The Thursday, March 26, 1908 edition of “The Kelowna Courier and Okanagan Orchardist” reported: “Mr. William Brent was married at Armstrong, on Tuesday, March 17 to Miss Maria Houghton. Both have been residents of Mission (Central Okanagan) Valley since the days of their childhood, and the friendship now ripened into matrimony is of long duration. The happy couple made a short honeymoon trip to Penticton, and returned here on Tuesday. They will take up their residence on Mr. Brent’s 20-acre block near the (Martin and Caroline) Renshaw property (at Rutland). The Courier begs to extend congratulations.”
Maria, William Brent and some of his siblings attended Okanagan School. Maria and William’s sister, Caroline Brent (1871-1960) became life-long friends. Caroline Brent Renshaw’s life will be the subject of a future column.
Maria and William Brent spent much of their married life farming in the Central Okanagan and also near Vernon. They had no children.
William Brent died at Vancouver on Oct. 17, 1939. Maria left B.C. and settled in Washington state, where her brother had previously located.
In June 1958, Maria Houghton Brent was interviewed by Elsie G. Turnbull; excerpts from this interview are on pages 21-22 of the “British Columbia Historical News” (Volume 18, No. 2, 1984). In her 88th year, Maria reported: “I was born when British Columbia history was being made … The cream of the earth moved west and found kindred spirits here. My mother’s people had been the real rulers of the country for generations and her forefathers went back to Pelk-a-mu-lox, who was recognized in the Book of Ethnology published by the Smithsonian Institution as chief of all the Indians from Spokane north to the head of Okanagan Lake (near Vernon). He was a friend of the white man, bringing the first ones he met to Colville and begging them to stay with him always – ‘You and I, your children, my children and their children, as long as the water runs and yonder hill is no more. You shall not want, your children shall not want. We have furs to keep us warm in the cold!’
Maria Houghton Brent died on Jan. 26, 1968 at age 97. She and her brother Edward are buried at Republic, Wash.
Thérèse N’Kwala Laurence chose well. We owe her and Marie Houghton Brent a debt of gratitude.