Butter Inman Farm

Site Description:

This is one of the earliest homesteads on the Fraser, being pre-empted by Joseph Deroche in 1862. It is still a rural farm located on the north-east boundary of Nicomen Island. The house is south of the Deroche bridge and surrounded by large fields, set back from the Lougheed Highway. It has driveway access off Hodgson Road. Mount Cheam across the river is visible to the southeast.

Site History:

Joseph Deroche, after whom the small community of Deroche is named, was a Caribou teamster who drove oxen on freight wagons up to the Caribou goldfields. He took up land on Nicomen Island about 1862, at the age of forty and began farming. In 1864, Joseph Deroche married a teenage Metis girl by the name of Marie Daneau. The paddlewheel steamboats ran up as far as Fort Yale, and “Deroche Landing” was a regular stopping place. When the CPR came through the station was named after Joseph Deroche.

Initially living in a log cabin he built for himself, Joseph eventually built a farmhouse on his property just south of where the Deroche Bridge now stands. Daughter Zoe remembers that the house had a big pantry, living room and two bedrooms. Old fashioned milk sheds were also built. When the farmhouse burned down Joseph built another one similar to the first in ca.1886, which survived and eventually became a local landmark.

In the mid-1920s, the partnership of Alfred Butter and John Inman purchased Joseph’s old homestead. The original Deroche house still stood 35 years later in March of 1957. By then it was completely redecorated and renovated inside.

The Butter-Inman farm was one of the most modern on Nicomen Island at the time. It was a dairy farm, but also maintained some number of beef cattle and sheep. The farm was known for experimenting with different crops and systems of cultivation.

William Edward and Marjorie Joan Thorn became the farm managers and superintended the farm until some point in the 1960s. During this time they lived in the old Deroche farmhouse. Butter and Inman found a new site for a farmhouse that was set back slightly from the road. The new house was admired in the local community for its modern design, has two fireplaces and a stuccoed exterior.

The farm flourished for over twenty years before both partners passed away, Alfred Butter in 1949 and John Inman in 1951. Rather than immediately putting the land up for sale, Mrs. Inman allowed the farm to continue operating under the guidance of William Thorn. It was eventually sold in the 1960s to the Leroo/Leroux family.

The well-known Butter and Inman farm, which flourished for over twenty years, suffered the loss of both partners, Alfred Butter in 1949 and John Inman in 1951, but the acreage was not immediately put up for sale. Mrs. Inman decided that the farm should continue to operate under the expert management of William Thorn, who had been in charge for many years. The farm was not sold until the 1960s when the Leroo/Leroux family purchased the property.

In the spring of 1966, Jim and Betty Verdonk, with their 14-month-old son David, moved to Deroche onto the old Inman farm, leasing the land from the Leroo/Leroux family. William Thorn and his son Edward continued to work alongside the Verdonk family. Some neighbors, including Art Postma, the Jacobie’s, and Dejong’s also leased some smaller parcels of farmland at the same time as the Verdonk’s.

In 1981, the owner of the farm was Ted Horsting. Jasbir Singh Banwait, the President and CEO of Eagle Mountain Farms Ltd., used to supply labor to the farm at this time and remembers that the farm grew leeks, black currents, raspberry, strawberry, sprouts, and cauliflower among other things.

The farm was sold around 1985 to Mr. Didar Singh Bains from California who was an absentee landlord. Around 1989-1990 the farm was leased to Malkit Sidhu, who was also known as Pancho. The farm was then purchased by Ajit Singh Bains in either 1995 or 1996, but it went into receivership in 2000.

In 2001 it was purchased by Fraser Valley Packers but then was sold again six years later by Eagle Mountain Farms Ltd. Farmworkers now live in the old Inman house.

People Associated with the Site:

Joseph Deroche was born in Quebec in 1824 and left home at seventeen to seek his fortune in the United States. He worked for a number of years in Milwaukee and New York before heading west to the California Gold Rush. He was later attracted to the Caribou Gold Rush and worked as a teamster before acquiring land on Nicomen Island and settling down.

He developed two large farms – one in Deroche and another north of the Nicomen Slough. By the time the railway came through, he owned hundreds of acres of land in the area and by the time of his death in March of 1922, the Deroche estate had grown from pioneer beginnings to 700 acres. Joseph passed away at 98 years old. He had six children with his wife Marie. She was a Metis teenager who went to St. Mary’s Residential School when Joseph married her.

Alfred Butter and John Inman were partners who purchased the farm in the late 1920s and operated it until their deaths, with Butter passing away in 1949 and Inman two years later. William and Marjorie Thorn superintended the farm until the 1960s. With their son Edward, they lived in the old Deroche farmhouse until it was sold.

The wife of John Inman, Mrs. Blanche Inman, remained a resident of Nicomen Island for several more years after her husband’s death but eventually sold the farm. The Leroo/Leroux family took over the farm after Mrs. Inman.

Jim and Betty Verdonk, and son David leased the farm from the Leroo/Leroux family. The Verdonk family and guests periodically heard voices and footsteps that they believed belonged to ghosts. Jim finally had enough and the next time they heard the voices and footsteps, he told the ghosts that this was their home now and it was time for them to move on. After that, the family never heard the ghosts again. There is speculation that the ghosts were those of Mrs. Inman and her son.

Jasbir Singh Banwait is the CEO of Eagle Mountain Farms and purchased the property in 2007. Previously, when the farm was under Ted Horsting’s ownership, Banwait’s company supplied the labor needed to farm the property.

Architectural Features:

The original Deroche farmhouse is no longer standing. The current farmhouse, built by Alfred Butter and John Inman, is two stories plus an attic. It has a white stucco exterior, two fireplaces, and six steps leading up to a covered front entrance/doorway. A later addition to the house is an open porch on the ground floor, over a two-car garage which extends from behind the house, and continues around the west side of the house.

Where to get further information:

The Mission Community Archives

Community Reference File 702 1/T
File 270.1
File 702.20/DER1

Sleigh, Daphne. Discovering Deroche. Abbotsford Printing, 1983, pg. 69-70, 83.

Sleigh, Daphne. Mission As it Was. Mission District Historical Society, 2017, pg. 141.

Banwait, Jasbir Singh. Phone conversation with Meggie Shields. March 2009. MDHS Heritage Places files.

Postma, Art. Phone conversation with Meggie Shields. May 2009. MDHS Heritage Places files.

Vollick, Mildred. Phone conversation with Meggie Shields. March 2009. MDHS Heritage Places files.

Verdonk, Betty. Handwritten notes. Butter-Inman Farm file. MDHS Heritage Places files.

Mission Museum

Yeow, Tams and Darren Penner. Mission Farms and Farmers. 2003, pg. 3-4.