Billy Miner, who had friends in many B.C. towns, including those in the Nicola Valley, was known as a “first class bandit.” He was born in Kentucky and raised in Texas. He started his escapades robbing stagecoaches when he was just a teenager.
It was Miner who first used the phrase, “hands up,” and his first stick-up netted him $75,000. When stage coaches became obsolete, Bill turned his attention to trains. But he didn’t always get away scot-free. During his lifetime he spent a total of 29 years and seven months behind bars, was released twice and escaped five times. He was called the “master criminal of the American West.”
In 1903 he went north to British Columbia, travelling under the alias George Edwards. He bought and sold cattle, prospected a little and visited his brother Jack Budd, who lived near Princeton. He travelled a lot so no one noticed when he “disappeared” occasionally.
On September 10, 1904, in Silverdale, B.C., Billy Miner, with partners Shorty Dunn, a prospector, and Louis Colquhoun, a young unemployed Ontario school teacher, halted a Canadian Pacific Railway train and pulled off the first train robbery in Canada’s history. Months of careful planning netted the gang an estimated $7,000 in gold dust, more than $900 in cash and $50,000 in railway bonds.
“Look out boys, it’s all off!” – Shorty Dunn, shortly before being captured by RCMP officers.
They slipped across the Fraser River, gathered their horses and rode upstream to Chilliwack. While police were on the hunt, “George Edwards” was having breakfast and discussing the news with a pair of C.P.R. detectives. He was right under their nose and they didn’t suspect a thing!
He was a Robin Hood of sorts, making it a rule to never hold up people, only companies. As the story goes, Miner loved children and respected women. Apparently, he educated 18 children from the proceeds of his profession and rarely refused to help anyone in need.
His gentle ways and protectiveness towards women and children were later recalled by many who knew him when he lived in Aspen Grove. It is said that he would tell the children to “never be a bigot and never interfere with a man’s religion.”
As one story goes, his kindness was extended to one of his neighbours in the Nicola Valley when he gave many presents to a widow and her children. During his time there the woman regularly received an envelope filled with money and sent anonymously. The money stopped coming when Bill Miner was captured.
On October 6, 1905 Billy Miner struck again, robbing the Overland Limited near Seattle. He was managing to keep one step ahead of the police, until that fateful day on May 8, 1906. Eighteen miles east of Kamloops, Bill and his gang robbed the C.P.R. for the second time. But robbers were unaware that there were two mail cars on the train. They cut off the first one and had the engine haul it ahead to a point where their horses were supposed to be waiting. But instead of stealing $35,000, they ended up with only $100 in total.
When the robbers discovered that the gold shipment was in the second mail car, it was too late to go back for it. To make matters worse, two of their horses had broken loose, so the escaping criminals had only one horse between the three of them. Still, they made good on their escape and headed for the Nicola Valley.
The C.P.R. was out for vengeance. A reward of $12,000 was posted for the capture of the train robbers. Everyone joined in on the hunt. The trio was captured near Douglas Lake at Quilchena by a detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Out on patrol, they found the men encamped nearby in the bush having lunch.
Apparently Shorty Dunn panicked and yelled “Look out boys, it’s all off!” He tried to run away and shot his gun a few times. One of the constables stopped him with a bullet to the leg. A guide was dispatched to Quilchena with a message advising officials of the capture and a request for surgical aid as one of the gang was nursing a wounded knee.
The next morning, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police left Quilchena at dawn with their prisoners, including their notorious leader Bill Miner, who was still insisting he was George Edwards. He also insisted that he and his “friends” had been prospecting in the area and denied any knowledge of the hold-up. But some items were found on the men that linked them to the rifled mail car and both Shorty and Miner fit the descriptions given by the train’s mail clerks.
A tattoo on Miner’s left thumb led the officers to realize that they had captured the notorious American train robber who had a $20,000 reward on his head. As the constables escorted the prisoners to a jail in Kamloops they were accosted by hundreds of supporters from the Nicola Valley who were protesting the arrest of “George Edwards.” They refused to believe that this popular man could be the most wanted outlaw in the West.
Despite this, Miner and his accomplices were convicted and sent to the B.C. Penitentiary in New Westminster.
A few months later, Billy Miner escaped once again. He fled to the United States and resumed his criminal career. Arrested in 1911, after committing Georgia’s first train robbery, Bill Miner died in the Georgia State Penitentiary in 1913. His tombstone reads: “Bill Miner – last of the old time outlaws. ”
For more information on the history of Merritt and the Nicola Valley, call or come and visit the Nicola Valley Museum and Archives, 1675 Tutill Court, (250)-378-4145. You can also visit our website at www.nicolavalleymuseum.org.
