McGowan's War

McGowan's War was a bloodless war that took place in Yale, British Columbia in the fall of 1858. The conflict posed a threat to the newly-minted British authority on the British Columbia mainland, which had only just been declared a colony the previous summer, at the onset of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. It was called Ned McGowan's War after one of the conflict's main protagonists.

McGowan was one of a group of associated miners at Hill's Bar, the richest and first gold-bearing bar of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush at which a ramshackle "town" had sprung up 5 miles below Yale. Hill's Bar was under the control of McGowan's party of former San Franciscans, who had flourished from the claim they had named "The Boatmen of San Francisco". All had been firemen in San Francisco, and had been associated with the Law and Order Party. Yale, on the other hand, had fallen into the sway of members of the notorious San Francisco Vigilance Committee which had ruled San Francisco through summary execution of suspected criminals^[1], and were also the arch-enemies of the Law and Order Party - and of Ned McGowan especially.

This comedy of errors took on great importance to colonial authorities as soon as it was known that Ned McGowan was a part of it, as his reputation in the San Francisco papers had preceded him to British Columbia - so much so that when he first arrived in Victoria he was summoned by Governor Douglas and instructed to conduct himself accordingly in the Queen's domains. It seems that Mr. McGowan, a US miner, had fled California in somewhat of a hurry . After a respectable career as Philadelphia lawyer and erstwhile state politician in Pennsylvania, which ended in a scandal from which he was later absolved, he moved to California and became a judge of the Barbary Court, an Associate of the Court of Sessions, and other juridical positions, but California being the way it was in those days his associates there were gamblers, thugs and worse. McGowan and his friends became involved with the Law and Order Party and ran afoul of the powerful and even more dangerous Vigilance Committee.

McGowan Stirs Up the Lower Fraser

A violent personal quarrel with a member of the Vigilance Committee in San Francisco precipitated a meeting in the fire hall which was the Law and Order group's headquarters, at which they chose to make their sudden departure to the newly-found Fraser River gold fields in what was then called New Caledonia. They were among the first San Franciscan parties to reach the river, and their claim at Hill's Bar proved to be one of the richest. But also in the great mass movement of men to the Fraser from California were many members of the Vigilance Committee, including the individual McGowan had had the violent personal conflict with in San Francisco (a Danish doctor and dentist, Dr. Fifer). For their part, the Vigilance Committee did what they could to subvert civil authority in Yale and had come to own the corrupt local officials who ran the place, just as the Law and Order Party had brought under their sway the town's magistrate Perrier, Governor Douglas' appointee to the bench in Hill's Bar.

Yuletide Fracas

The incident that provoked the war took place when one of the men from Hill’s Bar assaulted Isaac "Ikey" Dixon, Yale's American black barber, at the Christmas Dance, 1858. Some of the American miners took exception to the fact that the Christmas Dance was open to persons of all races.^[2]; Dixon was a voluble wag and wit, and in time would become a familiar newspaper columnist in the British Columbia newspapers.^[3]. Dixon, from Yale, laid a complaint before Peter Brunton Whannell, the Yale Justice of the Peace, and was promptly placed in "protective custody" at Yale, p. 137. In the meantime, the matter was also being investigated by George Perrier, Justice of the Peace for Hill's Bar. Perrier, with the assistance of Ned McGowan, a friend of the two suspects,^[4] was of the opinion that in the interests of a fair hearing he needed to hear evidence from the victim Dixon, before proceeding to deal with the persons who had committed the assault. Perrier accordingly sent his constable, Henry Hickson, with an order to pick up Dixon and bring him back to Hill's Bar.^[5]

Duelling Magistrates

Meanwhile Whannell, induced by the men of the Vigilance Committee, issued a warrant for the arrest of the Hill's Bar man and ordered that it be served in Hill’s Bar. Perrier, the magistrate of Hill’s Bar took exception to this and issued a warrant for the arrest of Isaac Dixon in Yale. The constable Hickson who served the warrant on the barber interrupted Whannell’s court and was promptly thrown in the Yale jail for contempt of court when he refused to acknowledge Whannell as his superior^[6]. The jail at Yale was already full as a result of Whannell's 'law and order' agenda, a condition which prompted British Columbia's first judge, Matthew Begbie to comment: "the gaol at Yale, which, being circumscribed in its limits, must when thus containing prosecutor, witnesses, and constable--everybody but the accused persons--have been rather inconveniently crowded."^[7]

The angry Hill’s Bar miners, headed by McGowan, set out with a warrant issued by the Hill's Bar magistrate Perrier to arrest the Yale magistrate Whannell for contempt of court for constable Hickson's imprisonment. McGowan, given the status of special constable by Perrier, threw open the jail and set all the prisoners free^[8] and brought magistrate Whannell back to Hill's Bar by boat. On the flotilla sent up from Hill's Bar flew the American flag, causing Whannell to remark that it seemed as if McGowan was going to make a national affair of the matter.^[9] The unpopular Whannell was convicted of contempt of court by Perrier, and released after the $50 fine was paid.^[10]

Reaction in Victoria: Moody's Royal Engineers to the Rescue

Whannell penned a hasty note to governor James Douglas, playing on Douglas' fears of the intentions of the Americans: "The town and district are in a state bordering on anarchy. My own and the lives of the citizens are in imminent peril...An effective blow must at once be struck on the operations of these outlaws, else I tremble for the welfare of the colony."^[11] Due to McGowan’s unsavoury reputation, the importance of the incident, which had the two communities up in arms, caused alarm in the colonial capital of Victoria. The story as relayed to Victoria by Vigilance Committee messengers was that Ned McGowan had launched an attempt to overthrow the British authority in the new colony and declare the gold fields to be part of the United States.

Governor Douglas mobilized what few troops he had, sending a party of Royal Engineers to Yale under the recently arrived Colonel Richard Moody, (an able administrator handpicked by the Colonial Office in London to transform British Columbia into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west")^[12] while another group of Marines remained stationed at Fort Langley in case of any action by the nearby troops of the US Border Commission, then stationed in nearby Whatcom County. Accompanying the Royal Engineers to Yale was Justice Matthew Baillie Begbie. After an arduous slog up the river by canoe, and across wet, half-frozen snow the twenty miles from Fort Hope to Yale, where Begbie convened court to hear the tangled web of cases and charges that had sprung up, thanks to the misconduct of both justices Perrier and Whannell, and thereby ending the war without a shot being fired.

McGowan was fined for assault and the magistrates were dismissed from their posts. The bloodless war became well-known as Ned McGowan's War.

References

1. ^ Donald J. Hauka, McGowan's War, Vancouver: 2003, New Star Books, p. 56
2. ^ Hauka, p. 138
3. ^ Hauka, p. 219
4. ^ Hauka, p. 138
5. ^ Hauka, p. 138
6. ^ Hauka, p. 139
7. ^ cited in Hauka, p. 139
8. ^ Hauka, p. 143
9. ^ Hauka, p. 143
10. ^ Hauka, p. 144
11. ^ Whannell to Douglas, December 31, 1858, quoted in Hauka p. 145
12. ^ Hauka, p. 146

See also

• Fraser Canyon War
• Fraser Canyon Gold Rush

References

• McGowan's War, Donald J. Hauka, New Star Books, Vancouver (2000) ISBN
• British Columbia Chronicle,: Gold & colonists, Helen and G.P.V. Akrigg, Discovery Press, Vancouver (1977) ISBN
• Claiming the Land, Dan Marshall, UBC Ph.D Thesis, 2002 (unpubl.)

External links

• Passage of Biography of Judge Begbie concerning the events of McGowan's War
• Biography of McGowan from BC Bookworld
• An Early History of the Fraser River Mines, F.W. Howay, pub. Charles F. Banfield (Victoria), 1926