Imagine, if you can, what Tamshui Harbor looked like 140 years ago. Back then, the port had not yet silted up, and large vessels could still move through and moor in the harbor. Workers laden with cargo scutter back and forth between the berthed boats and river bank while, nearby, merchants come and go by a cluster of foreign trading companies. The Douglas Lapraik & Co trading company, established in 1871, is very much of that era.
Jump forward some 140 years to the present, and you will see Tamsui’s Jhongjheng Road, divided into three sections by the Tamsui Metro Station and the statue of Canadian missionary George Mackay. It was along the first and third of these sections that the foreign merchants used to gather, and where many of their companies were located. The middle section was a street market for Han Chinese. Douglas Lapraik & Co is located in the third section.
Since Douglas Lapraik & Co was a latecomer onto the scene, and needed to differentiate itself from the other foreign traders in terms of its products and market, it focused mainly on goods and passenger transport. For several decades, the company held a monopoly over Taiwan’s shipping lanes. If you wanted to travel from Taiwan overseas, you had to board one of their boats to Hong Kong, where passengers would alight or transit. The company was witness to both the opening up of Tamsui port and the ensuing rapid development of the area, but it also left its mark on many of Taiwan’s important historical events: one of Douglas Lapraik & Co’s flagship “Sea Dragon” class ships conveyed Mackay to Taiwan.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Liberty Times
照片：自由時報記李雅雯
(Liberty Times, translated by Edward Jones)
想像一下，一百四十多年前的淡水港埠會是什麼模樣？當時碼頭尚未淤積，停泊著大型的船隻，工人們在船隻與岸邊，來回搬運著貨物商品，周遭洋行林立、商賈往來頻繁，「得忌利士洋行」就是在這樣的時空背景下於一八七一年創立的。
回到一百四十多年後的今天，以捷運淡水站和中正路上的馬偕像為分界點，將中正路分為前、中、後三段，前段和後段為當時洋人聚集之處，設有多間洋行，中段則是街市，而「得忌利士洋行」就位於中正路後段。
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Liberty Times
照片：自由時報記者李雅雯
由於當時「得忌利士洋行」進駐較晚，勢必得開發出有別於一般洋行的商品貿易市場，航運成了其主要業務，載貨品也載船客，曾經獨占台灣航路數十年，若想從台灣赴國外皆需搭乘該洋行的船班至香港後再轉船班，其不僅見證淡水開港後的蓬勃發展，也在台灣重要歷史事件中留下痕跡，包括馬偕博士來台所搭乘的就是「得忌利士洋行」旗下的「海龍號」輪船。
(自由時報記者高嘉聆)
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