Bill Miner, AKA George Edwards
Photo source: Walkman Talk, Google Wikipedia, secondary sources.
Bill Miner the local bandit from the turn of the 20th century was a local legend here in the Nicola Valley. Known as Miner and old George Edwards, the gentlemen train robber he lead a double life for years between Merritt BC, Princeton and Coalmont. He also is reported to have worked the Douglas lake Cattle company for the owner JP Greaves.
Taking 7000 dollars in money and gold dust as well as about 250 thousand in US bonds and Australian securities in his famous Mission train robbery( first in Canada) he was on the lam here as a gentlemen and traveling abroad to Europe.
The local Coldwater hotel (1908) has a story of the securities being hid behind a mirror and in the dome of the three story building. There are no accounting of the securities ever being recovered but a strong interest in the CPR authorities to do that.
The timeline of Minors activities brought him to the 1907 Duck lake train robbery which netted Bill Minor, Shorty Dunn and Louis Colquhoun,( died of TB in the BC Penn was a teacher from Ontario) about 20 dollars and the registered mail that secured their conviction in a two week trail in Kamloops. The three had been arrested after one of them had lost his nerve when being talked to by searching posse members.
Minor and Dunn got life in the BC Penn the other 25 years. However Minor weighing in at less then 140 lbs acted in the way of a rabbit and slid out of prison under a fence within 13 months of the sentence. He died in Georgia in 1913 after at least one train robbery there. Noted as the picture of innocence it was reported that the locals there chipped in for a burial.
Nina Wooliams in her 1979 book Cattle Ranch says that while working as George Edwards, Minor was responsible for and accident where a Chinese laborer fell out of a wagon and died of head injuries. The mans brother a cook at the ranch was wanting to kill minor causing Greaves to let him go. This gave him the time and inclination to plan the Duck lake robbery. It is also noted that he was after the relief money going to the San Franciso earthquake victims in 1907. He got the wrong train.
This year is the 100th year since his death in Georgia and it marks an age that passed the authorities excepting of Robin Hood types like Miner. Even the 1907 attribution of credit in Miner with the catch words Hands Up by a the head of the Pinkerton agency would probably not be done today.People operating on the wrong side of the government and community face public relations and vilification that is hard to beat. Even political figures like Saddam and others must not have been all bad.
In the words of a favored son ,when talking of an arch villain Adolf Hitler the statement of innocence ” I heard he was good to his dog” gave a sense that borrowing trouble not your own is a pricey emotional and spiritual due.
Hating someone makes them bigger then they are and engaging them somehow lessens you. Though necessary sometimes, we hope that you are spared these episodes in you and yours lives. We wish that you escape like a rabbit under the fence the cost and confinement of ill will.
Ode to the Grey Fox may he continue to rest in peace. Watch out for PR on the other side.
Shorty Dunn drowned at 70 years of age involved in prospecting in northern Canada, its said that he lost his life in bravery saving another. Colquhoun is buried in the New West Minister Penitentiary grave yard with about 100 other unclaimed bodies. The NWP is torn down however the graveyard remains with unmarked graves and some concrete marker bearing prisoner numbers.
Although the stories are sanitized through the lens of history and belief, he is noted as having a career by the RCMP in their web site page”The Story of Bill Miner” it included over thirty years of prison time and is softer then the term ” Career Criminal”. The police also say that his capture gave then credibility. Two jurisdictions did the arrest here in Merritt. The CPR also lost a lot of chinese labourers building the rail road to nitro explosions ( transported in wagons)
In 1914 a year after Bill Miners death in Georgia the Government of British Columbia purchased two Chilean Navel submarines, this was covert against the law and against an American embargo. The constitutional authority for defence was the Canadian Federal Government who quickly acquired them from the province of British Columbia. The price that BC paid a reported 1.1 million dollars was bigger then the Federal governments navel budget. the clouds of war in Europe had been gathering foe some time and challenges to structure had occurred since the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. The time and setting fit the range of Miner in BC. Since the arrest in Merritt was done by a BC Policeman and a NWMP federal cop we can image politics and positioning even with the reports of Pinkerton cops coming up and the vilifying reports that Miner had been after the San Fransisco relief money going south.
He was a crook and a thief ( a long record) but some civility was clear and gave a mood that fit the time and sense of right and wrong here in BC.
His play was acted out some time after the Mcleans who were real murders and uncontrolled. They were hung at the BC Pen after holding off a large posse at the Douglas large ranch. The posse formed after they had killed a civil cop at the stump lake ranch north of Merritt. Still the conspiring context of these criminal acts were addressed by a need for credibility and country that did not fully get settled untill after the great conflict of the first world war and events like Vimy ridge and other.
Why is this relevant today, because the same passions are excited by insecurity now and in particular with young people they are the easiest group to blame for budget problems and malaise and political strife. Case in point the 15-year-old that was shot by police in Greece, that perception and movement against banks and globalization ran a gambit several years ago.
These guys were bad guys but where did it start, someone missed a opportunity to lead and it went to blame…..?
Its save to say that being civil has its rewards; sometimes.
Review: Nina Woolliams Cattle Ranch, 1979: For a frontier sense in Canada ***** excellent
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