Most British Columbians are familiar with the story of Bill Miner and Canada’s ‘Great Train Robbery’. Yet how many know that the story has a Lakes District connection?
In May 1906, Miner and two accomplices – Bill ‘Shorty’ Dunn and Lewis Colquhoun – held up a Canadian Pacific Railway train at Ducks (now Monte Creek) Station east of Kamloops. Though Miner was an accomplished train robber who’d already served several prison sentences in the US for similar offenses, the Monte Creek heist wasn’t one of his better efforts. The trio made off with a mere $15 in cash and a bottle of liver pills.
The robbers were eventually captured near Douglas Lake by members of the North-West Mounted Police. Colquhoun and Miner (the latter nicknamed ‘the gentleman bandit’ for his courteousness during hold-ups) surrendered almost immediately, but Dunn (described by media of the day as a “savage looking man”) reportedly attempted to fire on the arresting officers and was shot in the leg for his efforts.
Miner, Dunn, and Colquhoun were taken to Kamloops for trial. Miner, already nearly 60, was sentenced to 25 years for his crimes, but Dunn’s resistance during arrest earned him a life sentence. Ironically, the three men were subsequently transported by train to the BC Penitentiary in New Westminster.
Miner wasn’t there long; on Aug. 8, 1907, he escaped. Dunn, however, remained in prison until approximately 1918, when – thanks to the help of several long-time friends – he was paroled.
For years, it has been rumored that Dunn, a US citizen, made his way north after his release, eventually taking up residence in the Lakes District. Now, after nearly a century, documents compiled by Southside resident Mike Robertson shed new light on the outlaw’s final years.
As it turns out, Dunn’s real name was John William Grell. According to the Kamloops Sentinel, after his release from the BC Pen, the ex-con moved to Princeton, where for a time he managed a store owned by A.J. White. White told the Sentinel in 1927 that ‘Shorty’ was well-liked by Princeton residents; prior to leaving the area in 1921, the former train robber threw a party for the town’s children, an event the Sentinel claimed was fondly remembered by all.
For reasons unknown, ‘Shorty’ then made his way to Ootsa Lake. Some sources suggest he was engaged in managing a store there for C.H. Hansen, while others (such as the Prince George Citizen) indicate he was “one of the best known trappers of that district.” Regardless of his occupation, it appears that ‘Shorty’ had turned his life around by the time he arrived here. His behavior while a resident of Ootsa Lake was considered so exemplary that a policeman even supported his application for Canadian citizenship.
While historical records don’t provide a lot of detail about the reformed criminal’s life on the Southside, one fact is certain: He met his end there.
John William ‘Shorty’ Grell disappeared on or about June 28, 1927 while accompanying a prospector on a canoe trip on the Tahtsa River. The prospector, identified by the Prince George Citizen as “J. Dawson, formerly of the Standard Silver Lead Co.”, apparently managed to swim to safety after their vessel capsized, but no trace was found of his companion.
A year later, Chief Louie of Cheslatta Lake was making his way up the same waterway in the company of Tommy Jack when he found a “white man face down in the water, head up river” in a “right hand channel just below ‘hole-in-wall’.” In his statement to Cst. J.A. Johnson of the BC Provincial Police in Burns Lake, Chief Louie added that “we put willow sticks over him so he would not go away” and reported the matter to authorities.
Edward Van Tine of Ootsa Lake subsequently identified Shorty’s body. Coroner Stephen H. Hoskins of Smithers determined that ‘Shorty’ died of accidental drowning, and informed BC’s deputy attorney-general by letter that “it did not appear to be necessary to hold a formal inquest” into the matter.
Hoskins also sought permission to pay Chief Louie “the customary sum of $5” for reporting Grell’s body, adding that he felt “it would be good policy to give the Indians a small reward for immediately reporting such discoveries as this.”
The final chapter in Shorty’s story was written in his letters probate, which indicate that he left behind an estate valued at $82.90 and a Waltham watch. He was buried, according to the document, in the spring of 1928 in the vicinity of Tahtsa River Forks “on the bank of the Ootsa River.”
And what of his former partners in crime, Miner and Colquhoun?
Colquhoun, it is said, died in prison of tuberculosis. Miner, on the other hand, returned to the US after escaping from the BC Pen, and there (following a brief period of inactivity) continued his life of crime.
Miner eventually worked his way east, and in February 1911, he and two accomplices held up a Southern Railway train at White Sulfur Springs, Georgia. Miner, then 64, was again caught and sentenced to 20 years of hard labour at the Newton Country Convict Camp in Covington. In July of the same year, after pleading poor health, he was transferred to the Georgia State Prison Farm in Milledgeville.
Three months later, the ‘gentleman bandit’ escaped, only to be recaptured and returned to Milledgeville prison.
Miner always bragged that no jail could hold him, but in 1913, the wily bandit’s luck finally ran out. He died of an illness contracted during yet another prison break, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Memory Hill Cemetery in Milledgeville.