Robert Paterson Rithet

A Powell River Contextual Biography

Robert Paterson Rithet was born on April 22, 1844, in Cleuchhead near Applegarth, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Raised on a working farm and educated at Annan College, he apprenticed with a Liverpool merchant house before leaving for North America at the age of eighteen. He arrived in Victoria in 1862, during the final surge of the Cariboo gold rush, and quickly found work not in the mines but in civic service.

For a short period, he served as a law officer, one of the many young men hired to maintain order in rapidly expanding colonial towns around the Province before shifting into the commercial world that would define his career.

By the early 1870s, Mr. Rithet had established his own mercantile firm, R.P. Rithet & Co., and soon partnered with Andrew Welch to form Welch, Rithet & Co., one of the most influential commercial houses on the Pacific coast. Through this partnership, Mr. Rithet became deeply involved in the operations of the Moodyville Sawmill on Burrard Inlet.

Moodyville, founded in 1865, was British Columbia’s first major industrial sawmill and operated until 1901. Welch, Rithet & Co. served first as agents for the mill, handling its finances, shipping, and distribution, and later, through a series of business consolidations and acquisitions, Mr. Rithet became one of the controlling figures behind the Moodyville Sawmill Company. His firm managed the sale of Moodyville lumber throughout the Strait of Georgia, supplying logging camps, mining operations, and emerging settlements along the coast.

Moodyville’s reach extended far beyond Burrard Inlet. The company held several timber licences along the mainland coast opposite Texada Island, including a large timber licence in 1874 and then in 1878, including District Lot 450, a large tract of timbered land that became part of Moodyville’s coastal holdings in the late 1880s. Additional parcels such as District Lots 671 and 1619 were also held under Moodyville’s name between roughly 1888 and 1913.

These lots were logged for their timber but never settled or improved, reflecting the company’s focus on resource extraction rather than community development. The lumber cut from these lands moved through the same shipping channels Mr. Rithet’s firm controlled, linking Moodyville’s industrial output with the Powell River and Texada Island region long before Powell River’s own pulp and paper industry emerged.

A primary source published in 1875 lists, “Proprietors: Hon. Hugh Nelson, Ex‑M.P., Moody’s Mill; Sewell P. Moody, Esq., Burrard Inlet, B.C.; Robert P. Rithet, Esq., J.P., Victoria, B.C.,” who was mentioned but not involved with the Texada Island scandal. Mr Rithet had never been to Texada Island or to the area of Lund to St Vincent Bay.

Mr. Rithet’s influence on coastal transportation was reinforced by the sternwheeler R.P. Rithet, a major vessel named in his honour. Built in 1882, the ship operated widely throughout the Strait of Georgia, carrying freight, passengers, and goods, including Moodyville lumber into the very waters where the company held its timber licences. In the later years, it was the Senator III who ploughed the waters of Texada and the Powell River corridor; the vessel was retired and eventually abandoned at Bowen Island, leaving a physical reminder of Mr. Rithet’s presence in the region.

By the time of his death on March 19, 1919, Robert Paterson Rithet had become one of the most prominent figures in early British Columbia commerce. His career bridged law enforcement, mercantile trade, industrial finance, and coastal transportation, and his business networks helped connect Burrard Inlet’s first great sawmill with the developing communities of Powell River, Texada Island, and the wider Strait of Georgia. His legacy endures in the economic foundations he helped establish across the coast and in the historical footprint of Moodyville’s operations in the region.