Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men

Stories from the Margins of History

Victoria

18th May 2026

The Fate of the Emily Harris

The Vancouver Island-built steamer Emily Harris made a brief appearance in a previous post. In 1864, the craft had carried three labourers who had been engaged in the construction of a road through the Cariboo goldfields in the Colony of British Columbia, from Nanaimo to Victoria, after they had survived an attack on their camp… Continue reading

history

Cariboo, Disaster, Nanaimo, Newspapers, Skeena, The Emily Harris, Vancouver Island, Victoria
8th Jun 2025

‘A Form of Society So Crude’: Death in The Cariboo

In this post, we are looking at five murders committed in the Cariboo region from 1862 to 1864. Starting with the killing of Averena Rice Aka: ’The Scotch Lassie’ After 1861, musicians, magicians, actors and touring minstrel troupes from San Francisco began to spend time in the Cariboo goldfields entertaining the ‘settlers so wild,… Continue reading

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19th Century, Averena Rice, Barkerville, Boone Helm, British Columbia, Canada, Cariboo, Charles Beaucheir, Crime and Punishment, David Sokolosky, Gold Rush, Gold Rush History, Herman Lewin, history, Justice, Murder, Newspapers, Public Execution, Quesnel, Robbery, The Scotch Lassie, Tom Clegg, True Crime, Victoria, William Armitage, Williams Creek
29th May 2025

An Ingrain Swindler

As reported in The Victoria Daily Chronicle, Thursday, 24 September 1863. ‘An Ingrain Swindler– The Police are after a man who lately served a term of imprisonment at New Westminster for swindling Billy Ballou, the ex-Expressman, out of $35, about one year and a-half ago by representing that a certain bag contained gold dust when… Continue reading

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19th Century, B.C, British Columbia, Canada, Conman, Crime, Gold, Swindle, Swindler, Victoria
23rd Nov 2024

Death on Alfred Waddington’s Road: The 1864 Tsilhqot’in War

The steamer Emily Harris arrived in Victoria Harbour from Nanaimo on the morning of Thursday, May 12, 1864. Among the passengers on board the vessel were three men—Edwin Mosely, Peter Petersen and Philip Buckley, the only survivors from a party of seventeen men employed in building a road from Bute Inlet to Fort Alexandria and… Continue reading

history, True Crime

Alfred Waddington, Barkerville, BC History, Begbie, British Columbia, Bute Inlet, Canadian History, Canasda, Cariboo, Chartres Brew, Chilcotin, Colony, Conflict, Donald McLean, Execution, Exonerated, First Nations, Fort Alexandria, Fur Trade, Genocide, Gold Rush, Greed, Hanging, HBC, history, Homathko, Indigenous, James Douglas, Klattasine, Nanaimo, Newspapers.com, Qusenel, Settlers, Seymour, Smallpox, Steamer, Telloot, Trade, Tsilhqot’in, Vancouver Island, Variola, Victoria, War

Victoria

The Fate of the Emily Harris

‘A Form of Society So Crude’: Death in The Cariboo

An Ingrain Swindler

Death on Alfred Waddington’s Road: The 1864 Tsilhqot’in War