Win. Moresby, One of B.C.5 Outstanding Officers

Colourful and Exciting Events Mark Life of Pioneer Police Officer—Seeks Gold

in Cariboo at Age of Sixteen—Becomes One of British Columbia’s Famous

Man-Hunters and Sees Twenty-five Murderers Pay Extreme Penalty in 25 Years —Retires After Twenty-seven Years of Service—Short-lived Retirement.

EVERY MAN ean profit by a backward glance at the life and times of his predeces- sors. And in British Columbia the men of the B.C. Police can take pride in the record of one of the greatest “old timers” who ever served the Crown—William (“Billy”) Moresby. Perhaps one day his complete life story will be written and it should make absorbing reading. In this brief space we can only touch upon highlights of his adven- turesome life.

William Moresby was born in London, England in 1849, and as a child made the long trip to Hong Kong, China, with his parents. When he was eight years old he was sent back to England to be educated. In the meantime, attention had been focussed on the new crown colony of Vancouver Island, and while William was still at school in England, his father journeyed to Victoria, capital of the new colony, and opened a law ofice. The family were re-united when Mrs. Moresby and the children sailed from England to Victoria on the barque Truth in 1861. The passage was long and rough, lasting six months and twenty days! Young William thought he had a taste for law, so at the age of fourteen he was articled to a barrister named Dennis. For nearly two years he stuck at his books—but civil con- tracts, conveyancing and so forth could not hold the boy’s attention—there were red- shirted, bearded and booted miners crowd- ing the straggling thoroughfares of Victoria. Victoria was the outfitting point for the Fraser River and Cariboo mines, and the tales of fortune and hardship made their impression on the boy. In 1865 at the age of sixteen, the law books were tossed aside, and with his rifle and pan, and pack on his back, Billy Moresby headed for the Cariboo. It was a new world, a new community; the community of stout hearted, rugged individ- ualists, quick to help one another, and just as quick to expose and punish the evil-doer. For three years Moresby endured all the pioneer hardships, and the lessons he learned were never forgotten.

When he was at Yale, he recorded in his diary, “I saw the sappers and miners hard at work cutting a road around the bluff above the canyon. Flour was $50.00 a sack, and the miners paid the same price for a pair of gum boots. Tea or coffee frequently re- tailed at $5.00 a pound. The miners paid

WINTER EDITION

the price cheerfully in either gold dust or nuggets.”

At nineteen young Moresby had learned the truth of the old saying “all is not gold that glitters”. While the hardships of trail

and river had strengthened and toughened his fibre—they had put no money in his pocket. In 1868 he joined the police service at New Westminster—or rather the police

Wm. Moresby, Chief Constable B. C. Police, New Westminster, B. C.

and goal service, for the two were combined in the old wooden gaol building in the royal city.

It was the era when Chief Justice Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie was the terror of evil-doers, and the few policemen scattered between the Kootenay’s and the coast were establishing their reputation for fearless law enforcement. The police had only been es- tablished ten years, but they had been ten momentous years. Probably Moresby had come in contact with some of the pioneer police officers, and was struck with the magnitude of their task. And a “big job” always appealed to Billy Moresby.

J. WELLSFORD MILLS

*

Gaol guards and police did combined duty at New Westminster—the Chief Con- stable also acting as Warden of the gaol. The very day Moresby reported for duty there was an execution—a Chinaman paid with his life for the murder of a fellow countryman. The next execution was an Indian named Squamish Charlie who mur- dered an old prospector named Mountaineer Terry—for a suit of clothes. The crime took place near Moodyville. Another Indian named Peter was due to hang the same day for the murder of an old man named Murphy on Murphy Island in the Fraser River. At the last minute Peter’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Three years later he was pardoned.

From a modern viewpoint there were an unusual number of killings—balanced to some extent by an unusual number of hang- ings. Mr. Morseby’s diary records a hang- ing a year, for every one of his twenty-five years of service.

His first important case involved an Indian named Whannock who killed another native and threw his body over a bluff. Moresby solved the crime and Whannock was con- victed and hanged.

From then on there was hardly a major crime on the lower mainland of British Col- umbia which was not unravelled by Mores- by’s perseverance. His good work brought its own reward, for in 1877 he became War- den of the gaol and Chief Constable.

Of all the prisoners held in the old West- minster Gaol, recorded Moresby, the worst were the McLean brothers and Hare. These were four youthful half-breeds from the Kamloops country who murdered Provincial Constable John Usher, and a shepherd in the Douglas Lake country. The blood- thirsty career of these outlaws (featured in a previous issue of THE SHOULDER STRAP) was eventually brought to an end and they spent their last days in the Westminster gaol.

Then there was Whiteshirt, an Indian who killed a Chinaman; he went singing to the gallows. Another interesting case hand- led by Chief Constable Moresby was that of Ah Snie; in this case Moresby’s detective ability was clearly shown, for he was a man of keen perception.

Ah Snie and another Chinaman left Cook’s Ferry (now known as Spences

Page Fifty-nine