This is the posse who took part in the hunt for Bill Miner, Shorty Dunn, and Louis Colquhoun following hold-up of CPR train near Ducks. Personnel – “Skunk” ([Indigenous]), Constable W.L. Fernie, Senior Constable R.T.W. Pearse, unidentified [Indigenous man], Ernie Carter, Constable Taylor of Nelson (owner of hounds), unidentified [Indigenous man], Joe Graves, Lewis Campbell, Philip Toma [Indigenous].

Image Credit: Submitted/Kamloops Museum and Archives

It’s not often than anyone has bothered to rob a train in Canada.

The first of those, near Mission, B.C. in 1904 and the last of those, near Kamloops in 1906, were led by “Gentleman Train Robber” Billy Miner, also known as Grey Fox.

“Miner made it a point never to rob the small folk, instead targeting large companies like the hugely unpopular Canadian Pacific Railway,” it says on the Billy Miner Alehouse website. That pub's in Maple Ridge.

“Despite the audacity of his train heists, he always comported himself in a genteel and polite manner while avoiding unnecessary violence. In fact, upon his arrest in Kamloops, the townsfolk protested that such a man of character could ever be an infamous criminal.”

According to a 2009 MacLean’s magazine article, those were the only two train robberies ever committed in Canada.

And only one was successful.

As with many historical figures, details of Miner’s life vary from source to source.

Writing in a 2018 blog, Library and Archives Canada senior archivist Caitlin Webster, put his birth date at Dec. 27, 1846.

Mike Puhallo, writing in Canadian Cowboy Country magazine in 2010 said Miner was born in Bowling Green Kentucky in 1842. The son of a schoolteacher and a mining engineer, he headed west as a teenager in search of adventure.

Webster’s blog says Miner started as a teenager stealing horses and robbing merchants in northern California before moving on to rob homes and stagecoaches in California and Colorado.

He was eventually captured and spent decades in San Quentin State Prison, near San Francisco. Puhallo wrote that he spent 29 out of 35 years in jail there.

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Webster wrote that he was released in 1901 and tried his hand as an oyster farmer before returning to crime.

“As stagecoaches had been replaced by ever-expanding railroads, Miner turned to train robbery,” she wrote. “He tried and failed twice to rob express trains in Oregon, and escaped across the border to settle in Princeton, B.C. There he established himself as a cattle trader and ranch hand, using the alias George Edwards. Known for his generosity, Miner was well liked in the small town.”

On Sept. 10, 1904 he returned to crime when he, Shorty Dunn and Jake Terry took over the CPR Train #1 leaving Mission Junction and committed Canada’s first train robbery.

“I was going at a pretty good clip about three miles out of Mission Junction,” train engineer Nat Scott is quoted in the Sept. 14, 1904 edition of the Victoria Daily Colonist.

“It was 9 o’clock Saturday night [Sept. 10, 1904]. I had got to the top of the ascent and was running down the decline when I felt a tap on the side. I turned around and in the indistinct light saw a man’s face covered with a coarse, black handkerchief. I was then commanded in a very quiet voice to stop the train.

“I replied: ‘Oh, get out.’ I thought it was someone joking me and I stepped over to pull off the handkerchief. I then saw that the man had a revolver pointing at me and I saw the shining barrels of two rifles covering myself and the fireman from above the cab.”

Miner obviously knew his geography and carefully directed Scott to release the passenger coaches then ordered him to stop the train again near Ruskin siding.

“Then they moved along to the mail car where the two clerks were told to hand over the registered mail,” Scott is quoted as saying. “This they did, when the ringleader said: ‘Now boys, get back in your cars and go to bed.’ The fireman and myself were then marched to where the engine stood.’”

They were then told to run the engine at speed further down the line, stopping at a creek short of the Whannock siding.

“Our guests got off the engine,” Scott said. “They were heavily laden. They said ‘Good night’ as they moved off. I replied, ‘Good night; I hope you have a pleasant journey,’ and the ringleader replied, ‘We hope so.’”

The robbers got away with $6,000 to $7,000 worth of gold dust, $914.37 in cash and an $80,000 bond, according to a Mission Museum posting.

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Almost two years later, on May 8, 1906, Miner, Dunn and Louis Colquhoun committed the second Canadian train robbery at Ducks (now Monte Creek, about 45 km east of Kamloops).

Their object was a $100,000 payload heading to San Francisco for earthquake relief. But they got the wrong train, coming away with a mere $15.50.

They uncoupled the mail cars, had the train drive further down the line then searched for the money, getting away with almost nothing and missing out on $40,000 in cash that was on the train.

Billy Miner

Image Credit: Submitted/Mission Museum

“The men were forced to flee on foot, and they were captured five days later,” the Webster report says. “Yet, with his popularity in the area and the anti-CPR sentiment at the time, crowds of supporters greeted Miner as the Royal North-West Mounted Police brought him in to Kamloops.”

Rewards totalling $11,500 brought police, Pinkerton detectives, trackers and others swarming into the area hunting for the three robbers who made it to Douglas Lake before being cornered. Miner and Colquhoun surrendered right away but Dunn fled, with guns blazing, before also being captured.

Miner and Dunn were sentenced to life in prison in New Westminster and Colquhoun got 25 years but died in jail of TB in 1911.

Dunn was paroled in 1918 and lived an apparently crime free life in the Kamloops area until his death in 1927.

Miner didn’t spend much time in the New Westminster Penitentiary.

“During his stay, Miner expressed no remorse, reportedly telling the visiting Reverend A.D.E. Owen, ‘I am what I am and I have done what I have done, but I can look God and man in the face unashamed,’” Webster wrote. “The same clergyman observed how Miner charmed fellow inmates and penitentiary staff and warned the acting warden, ‘Old Bill is a man who is well worth watching.’”

Just over a year later, on Aug. 8 1907, Miner proved the reverend right and escaped back to the U.S.

The escape and subsequent chapters of Miner’s life is best detailed in a report in the Bitter Grounds magazine/blog, which focuses on stories behind stamps. The article is based on federal archives documents.

“He slipped away from the prison with three others while on a work detail within the prison grounds,” it says. “Archives Canada holds a series of interesting letters between New Westminster Penitentiary personnel and Ottawa regarding the escape. The letters back and forth make it clear that a series of terrible decisions were made leading up to Miner’s relatively easy escape.”

Those mistakes included leaving a hole dug from the outside of the fence unfilled, a gate unlocked, a ladder attached to the stockade and a shortage of guards. There were also allegations of money being smuggled into Miner, bribes paid and mysterious visitors who were not screened.

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The article quotes a letter from the Office of Inspectors of Penitentiaries in Ottawa to the prison warden dated Oct. 11, 1907.

“Miner was allowed to grow his hair and mustache out, making him difficult to identify with the official record and photos,” the report said. “Basically, Miner was growing a disguise right under the noses of prison officials. In a previous visit by an Inspector, this was brought to the New Westminster prison officials’ attention, but they took no action.”

Miner wasn’t seen for another three years until he was spotted in Spokane, Wash. robbing trains.

He was arrested in Georgia after another failed train robbery in 1911 and sent to prison, from which he escaped twice.

Some sources are unclear about whether Miner died in jail in Georgia of California or as a free man, but Webster pegged the date of his death in jail as Sept. 12, 1913.

“Arrested in 1911 after committing Georgia’s first train robbery, the Gentleman Bandit died in Georgia State Penitentiary in 1913,” Puhallo wrote in Canadian Cowboy. “His tombstone reads: ‘Bill Miner — last of the old time outlaws.’”

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