|
|
| Thomas Elwyn |
Do you think government jobs are boring? Well, follow Thomas Elwyn and you'll change your mind! Over the next few years he was chief of police in Yale, assistant Gold Commissioner and magistrate in Lillooet, and commander of several gold escorts from the Cariboo mines. (Escorts for gold being brought to the banks were needed to stop robberies, but the miners didn't end up using the government escorts very much, because the government couldn't guarantee safe delivery.) In 1862 he was made second Gold Commissioner for the Cariboo. The first commissioner, Philip Henry Nind, left following a nervous breakdown caused by working 20-hour days trying to keep up with the paperwork generated by all the miners making and selling claims.
Elwyn decided that two commissioners were needed, and the area was divided into two districts. Elwyn kept charge of the busier area, around Richfield. After several months, however, he resigned due to conflict of interest - he owned a share in a valuable claim on Williams Creek! The miners petitioned to keep Elwyn on anyway, because he had earned their trust by dealing very fairly with them, but to no avail. Here's an excerpt from their petition:
"No magistrate could take greater pains or bestow more consideration on a case coming before him, to do justly, without favour or affection between man and man. That Mr. Elwyn was highly popular on the Creek cannot be denied and as stated in the address his resignation will be regretted."For the next few years Elwyn was a miner, but took time out from that help out with some more government expeditions - to Bute Inlet to arrest murderers, to Quesnel to extend a telegraph line, to the Stikine River to help a mining party explore.
In the 1870s Elwyn led a cattle drive from Barkerville for the Canadian
Pacific Railway and served on the Hudson's Bay Company steamer, the Otter.
From 1877 until his death from tuberculosis in 1888, Elwyn served as deputy
provincial secretary in Victoria.
