B.C.’s most famous gold strike
To mark Canada’s 150th birthday, we are counting down to Canada Day with profiles of 150 noteworthy British Columbians.
William “Billie” Barker was briefly one of richest and most famous men in B.C., yet was eventually buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave. Today, Barkerville, the gold rush town about 80 kilometres west of Quesnel that still bears his name, is one of the province’s most famous and popular tourist attractions.
He was born in 1817, two years after the Battle of Waterloo, in a village about 20 kilometres from the ancient university town of Cambridge. His parents were Samuel Barker, who worked on canal boats, and Jane Brighton. Barker followed his father’s trade. He married Jane Lavender in 1839, but became an occupational victim of technological change — railways brought mass unemployment for the “watermen.” Barker left his wife and a young daughter to try his luck in California’s gold fields. He had none. His wife died in the poorhouse in 1850. When word leaked out of riches on the Fraser River in 1858, he was one of the early stampeders in the gold rush that reconfigured B.C.
Barker was working Canada Bar near Lillooet in the fall of 1859. Two years later, he was following rumours of gold in the Cariboo and went to Williams Creek. Barker sold his stake and staked a new claim. A few days later, pay dirt was found on the claim he had just sold. Fellow miners poked fun because he had moved to a site at which more knowledgeable prospectors scoffed. But the former waterman was looking at the bedrock and figuring where ancient streambeds lay. He sank a shaft to bedrock and took out $600,000 in gold dust and nuggets. Calculations of current value vary widely — today, it would likely range from $17 million to $2.5 billion, depending upon measure. It was a stupendous strike.
Yet he spent or gave it away and died on July 11, 1894, forgotten, in a Victoria home for old men. One thing not forgotten though, was the ditty he sang while doing a little jig whenever he went into a saloon in those wild days: “I’m English Bill, Never worked and never will. Get away girls, Or I’ll tousle your curls.” Cameron Town and Richfield, camps founded by those who laughed at Barker, are gone. But a century after he discerned a vanished river, the historic camp of Barkerville that sprang up around his discovery was restored and became one of the province’s most interesting historic parks.