Exhibited:

Milton and Cheadle’s Great Adventure, Jonny’s Antiques, Shakespeare (with label, #16)

Note:

The Cameron “Claim,” William’s Creek, Cariboo. (Dessert Plate 16)
“The extraordinary yield of the Cariboo mines may be inferred from the fact that in 1861 the whole of the colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island were almost entirely supported by the gold obtained from Antler Creek alone; and from that time to the present year (1865), or for four years in succession. William’s Creek has also alone sustained more than 16,000 people, some of whom have left the country with large fortunes. And yet William’s Creek is a mere narrow ravine, worked for little more than two miles of its length, and that in the roughest manner.”
Milton & Cheadle, page 369

John ‘Cariboo’ Cameron, after some success in both the California & Fraser River gold fields, returned home to Cornwall, Ontario, to marry his childhood sweetheart, Sophia. In 1862 he returned to the Cariboo with his pregnant wife and consolidated several claims on William’s Creek. On December 22nd 1862, just two months after Sophia’s death from typhoid, Cameron & Co. struck it rich. In fact, it was one of the biggest strikes in the area. A community named Cameronton mushroomed around the site of the claim. Like most miners, Cameron left soon after making his fortune, taking $300,000.00 and his wife’s preserved body home to Ontario. Having gone through his fortune, Cameron, with a new wife, returned to the Cariboo in 1886 to try his luck again. He died in the west in 1888, and an observer at the funeral commented that there was a good turnout but it would have been much bigger had he still been rich.