The Reverend William Wye Smith lived in Owen Sound during its earliest years. His unpublished autobiography, discovered at the Archives of Ontario, had now been published. And in it is a different version of the story of the Eugenia gold rush of the 1850s, one the Explorer had never seen. Let’s listen as Reverend Smith tells the tale.
Smith wrote, “Mr. McLean Purdy, the courteous postmaster of Eugenia, in the County of Grey, on the upper waters of the Beaver River, showed me, in 1865, some specimens of what he called ‘Fool’s Gold,’ found below the beautiful Falls of the River at that place. And ‘thereby hangs a tale.’”
“In 1852, when the country was new and wild and everybody was talking of ‘California gold,’ someone thought he had discovered gold in the rocks below the falls. The secret at first was only known to two or three, or at most half a dozen, and they wrought like beavers to make their ‘pile’ before the whole country came flocking to the ‘diggings.” “Well!,’ said an old man, wiping the sweat from his brow. If it’s gold, I’ve got enough! And if it ain’t gold, I’ve got enough.”
“One adventurous wagon-maker from Yonge Street, happening to be in the region, made a rush with the rest and soon departed homewards – laden as he was – with a back-breaking load in a bag.”
“He got home,” Smith concludes, “and before he slept, kindled his forge-fire to test it by melting down a little of the ‘precious stuff.’ The catastrophe was entirely unanticipated. The sulphurous fumes and horrible stench of the vile stuff choked him, and well-nigh drove him off the premises. He had carried home a back-load of worthless iron pyrites.”
Originally aired March 30th 2016
Comments