How Advent Road Got its Name
In 1905/06 the 7th Day Adventists set up a school and small colony in Pitt Meadows. The Manson Academy, a residential training school with between 30 and 40 students, was part of their colony and was completed in 1908. Advent Road itself was built in 1912 with funding from the Provincial government of the day. A small white church was also built on the site at about the same time. Today we know that church as the Community Church. The 7th Day Adventists lands covered more than 318 acres of land both sides of what is now Advent Road and included what is now Hoffmann Park. The land was donated by William Manson, after whom the industrial academy was named. The Academy building was large – 42 x 50 feet and three stories high above the basement – it was many decades before we got another three story building in Pitt Meadows. The Academy had an assembly hall, class rooms and 14 double bedrooms for the female students and another separate dorm building for the male students. This separate building contained the workshops and still more classrooms. The Academy existed to: “furnish the youth with an education which shall fit them for the practical duties of life under influences favorable to the promotion of reverence and love for the Word of God.” Consider, the population of the whole Pitt Meadows area at the time was about 250 and 50 or more of the population was at this Academy. There is nothing left, save for a wall clock we believe to have been at the site, to mark the significance of this colony. But remember, the next time you are thinking the trees in Hoffmann Park are “old growth”, know that the trees grew up only after the colony that was once there packed up and left town.
Details:
Latitude: 49.2261432394447
Longitude: -122.69087877263
Direct Link: https://www.pittmeadowsmuseum.com/locations/how-advent-road-got-its-name
