John Deighton (November 1830 – May 23, 1875), generally known as "Gassy Jack", was a Canadian bar owner who was born in Hull, England. The Gastown neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia is named after him.
Growing up in Hull, a major seaport, Deighton and his brothers Tom and Richard learned to sail. Tom and Richard apprenticed on British ships, but Jack did not receive that opportunity. However, this meant he could switch to sailing on U.S. ships. When the California Gold Rush hit, ships were in demand to transport cargo and people from New York to San Francisco. In 1850, this voyage around Cape Horn took 140–160 days. Then Deighton worked a gold claim in California, ran a bar called the Globe Saloon in New Westminster, British Columbia.
In 1867, Deighton opened a bar on the south side of Burrard Inlet at the behest of his old friend, Captain Edward Stamp, the owner of the Hastings Mill. He later named it the Globe Saloon in memory of his previous bar in New Westminster. The bar was built by idle sawmill workers in exchange for all the whiskey they could drink in one sitting (the nearest drinking hole was 25 miles away). His patrons were mainly sailors and workers from the nearby sawmill.
Deighton was known as Gassy Jack because of his talkative nature and his penchant for storytelling. The name stuck and the area around his bar is now known as Gastown.
John "Gassy Jack" Deighton