Volume 12    Number 3    24 February 1982

Legendary Train Robber Gave a Fine Sermon

by Timothy R. Humphreys
 

Bill Miner.

George Edwards was a kindly man, like many of the pioneers who came to the back country of British Columbia at the turn of the century. He had a few head of cattle, did a little prospecting and had a remarkable gift for making friends, especially with children.
 
He even doubled as a preacher and, at least on one occasion, gave a fine sunday sermon to his neighbors on the McLeod range.
 
But there was another side to George Edwards; he was also Bill Miner, a notorious outlaw who, along with Thomas "Shorty" Dunn and Lewis "Scottie" Colquhoun, committed Canada's first train robbery.
 

Shorty Dunn.

He was 60 at the time.
 
There are numerous published accounts of Miner's criminal exploits on both sides of the 49th parallel, many of them conflicting. One thing is certrain, however, the adventures of the slightly-built Kentuckian with icy blue eyes became a part of early-Canadian legend.
 
The Robbery
 
The stage for the adventure that was to earn Miner a place in Canadian history was set 10 September 1904.
 
It was a rainy night and there was a promise of an early fall in the air. The Canadian Pacific Railway Transcontinental Express was highballing it out of Ruskin, just west of Mission, with a cargo of gold dust bound for Vancouver.
 

Scottie Colquhoun.

Locomotive Engineer N.J. Scott was at the throttle of Engine 440 with fireman Harry Freeman at his side. Trainman Bill Abbott routinely tended to his chores and express messenger Herb Mitchell, in the car where the precious cargo was kept, filled out his report.
 
"Hands Up", ordered a soft voice. Turning, Mr. Scott faced two revolvers and a rifle. Three men, their heads covered with dark hoods with slits for eyes, had joined the crew.
 
"I want you to stop at the Silverdale crossing. Do what you are told and not a hair on your head will be harmed", warned one of bandits with a slow, southern accent.
 
The trainman, elsewhere in the consist, knew something was amiss when the train began to slow. "As I poked my head out of the car, I came face to face with a masked fellow holding a gun that looked as big as a sewer pipe", Mr. Abbott later recalled.
 
"He told me to get inside unless I wanted my head blown off, so I climbed back inside... quick".
 
The trio wasted little time. They uncoupled the train behind the express car, had Mr. Scott pull ahead, then cut the locomotive leaving the baggage, mail, and express cars isolated. An idle CPR Transcontinental Express was now spread out over nearly five kilometers of track, the fate of its passengers and crew uncertrain.
 
The passenger section was in utter confusion. Conductor John Ward, realizing that the train was being robbed, rushed through the sleeping cars shouting.
 
Women screamed and many passengers scrambled to tuck their valuables in spittoons and any other hiding spots they could find.
 
After the Gold
 

Locomotive number 440 was built in October 1889 by the CPR New Shops at Montreal as a 4-6-0 Ten-Wheeler class SN with 19 x 24 inch cylinders and 69 inch driving wheels for $9,888. During several rebuildings it was renumbered in 1907 to 806 and again in 1912 to 2001 being scrapped in 1933. The photo shows a Series III Ten-Wheeler, number 2002.

In the express car, an armed Mr. Mitchell peered out the upper half of the side door to see lanterns coming down the roadbed. He could make out the figures of six men, trainman Abbott leading. The express messenger felt no cause for alarm.
 
The $914.37 in cash and $6,000. in gold from the Cariboo Gold Mines at Ashcroft, BC, were locked in the safe and accounted for. A much larger shipment, which was to have been made at the same time, didn't make the train.
 
"Hold up your hands or I'll blow your head off", commanded one of the robbers from the roadbed. Mr. Mitchell raised his arms above his head and left the car as ordered. He was disarmed and lined up with the rest of the train crew. Then, with a rifle at his ribs, Mr. Mitchell was led back into the express car to unlock the safe.
 
With the cash and gold stuffed in a handbag, the bandits ordered the locomotive engineer to drive his engine to Whonnock and "stop just in front of the old church". There the robbers jumped off and ran down the embankment to a hidden boat, making good their escape.
 
Miner returned to Chilliwack as George Edwards and even played cards with detectives at the local hotel.
 
A CPR train crew was not to run into Bill Miner, Shorty Dunn, and Scottie Colquhoun again until 8 May 1906, when the "Imperial Limited" was held up at Ducks, near Kamloops, BC.
 
Miner already had a $20,000. price on his head because of his exploits south of the border and was suspected, along with his two cohorts, of robbing a Great Northern train of $30,000. at Ballard, Washington, the year before. Chilliwack residents thought George Edwards was off prospecting.
 
The train robbery at Ducks netted the trio a mere $15.50 cash. Miner was apparently not aware that No. 97 was running in two sections, or if he was, he picked the wrong one. In a second express car was a currency shipment of $35,000.
 
Luck Running Out
 

The Mountie posse. Standing are Cpl. Stewart and Sgt. T.M. Shoebothom ( right ) while in front ( from left ) are Cpl. J.T. Browning, Sgt. J.J. Wilson, and Cpl. C.R. Peters.

Bill Miner's luck was beginning to wane.
 
The railway succeeded in getting permission for the Royal North West Mounted Police to go into British Columbia after the Miner Gang.
 
A posse, under command of R.N.W.M. Police Commissioner A. Bowen Perry, arrived in Kamloops the Saturday after the Ducks robbery. The posse consisted of Sergeants T.M. Shoebothom, P.G. Thomas, and J.J. Wilson; Corporals J.C. Stewart and C.R. Peters; and Constables J.H. Tabuteau and J.T. Browning. Sgt. Wilson led the special force.
 
The only area unsearched by the BC Provincial Police and their Indian scouts lay between the CPR tracks and the US border. Plans were made to search the Douglas Lake area and, equipped with horses supplied by their provincial counterparts, the mounties headed out.
 
The lawmen had stopped for lunch on Sunday at Chapron Lake, not far from Douglas Lake, when provincial police officer Fernie rode up to say he had seen three men a few kilometers away whom he suspected were the Miner Gang.
 
The officers soon spotted the smoke of the trio's campfire.
 
In a 1953 account published in the New Westminster Columbian, constable Browning recalls what happened:
 
"Wilson spoke to them. They said they were prospectors and had a ranch at Quilchena. Wilson stated we were looking for three men who had held up a train. The tall one, their spokesman ( Bill Miner ) replied they had not seen anybody".
 
"Wilson said:  Well boys, you answer the description of the men we are looking for. Throw 'em up!"
 
"At this, one of them, Shorty Dunn, said:  Look out boys, it's all off! opened fire and bolted. I ran around the clump of willows after Dunn. Just as I fired at him, he swung and fired at me".
 
"I thought I had missed him so I fired again. At this moment he plunged headlong into a small creek. Stewart came up then and Dunn put up his hands while sitting in the water, a .45 in one hand and a Luger in the other".
 
"Just at this moment I heard a whoop and a splash to my left. I ducked behind a clump of bushes and covered a figure through them with my gun, thinking another one was loose".
 
"I was just about to fire when I noticed an arm and hand holding a revolver which fortunately I recognized as one of our service Colts. It was Shoebothom, who had stumbled into the creek, letting out a whoop as he fell".
 
Confession
 
Miner confessed to the arresting officers that he had robbed the train at Ducks thinking it carried $100,000. in donations destined for earthquake victims in San Francisco. The cash shipment had actually moved the previous day.
 
He and his two companions were sent to trial and convicted of robbery. Miner and Dunn were sentenced to life imprisonment and Colquhoun got 25 years.
 
Scottie Colquhoun died of tuberculosis in New Westminster Penitentiary and his body was shipped to his home in Collingwood, Ontario, for burial. Shorty Dunn served out his life sentence and later drowned in a lake near Kamloops. As for Miner, he escaped after serving a year.
 
According to Canadian Pacific investigation files, Miner was eventually arrested at White Sulphur, Georgia, following a $60,000. hold-up of a Southern Railway train 18 February 1911. He was sentenced to 25 years but escaped again from the Milledgeville State Prison in Georgia less than a year later. He was recaptured and died in prison in 1913 at the age of 73.
 
( Compiled from reports published in the Scarlet and Gold Magazine, Vancouver Province, Vancouver Sun, New Westminster Columbian, The British Columbian, the Spanner, and a report by the Canadian Pacific investigation department in Montreal. )