Friday 29 October 2021

The Unfortunate Robert Evan Sproule – Returns to his Family Tree

The tale of Robert Evan Sproule is indeed a sad one. It has been much talked about and written about over the years, and therefore I will only give a brief summary here. My interest, as always, is in the family history of Robert Evan Sproule and there is an important job now to be done.

He came from Maine, as we know from that first article that I had seen. I was familiar with the Sproule families in Maine, as I have traced them when I was chasing a family for the Sproule DNA Project. I have a tree on Ancestry of Maine Sproules and I thought it would be easy, therefore, to find the family of Robert Evan Sproule. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t on any tree that I could find.

And yet, when I contacted the right person who sent me extensive files of amazing research, I got a bit of a shock. His family was known all along. Everyone knew who he was, or they should have. There were plenty of clues were there in the newspaper coverage.

 Robert Evan Sproule ought to have been on his family tree. Robert Evan Sproule ought to have been on nearly all of the Maine Sproule family trees.  He is a descendant of the very first Sproule in Maine. He is from one of the chief families. And yet he is not there. We have to get him back where he belongs.


Kootenay Lake, British Colombia

Poor Robert really was an unfortunate man. Hehad found a promising area on the Kootenay Lake, in British Colombia in 1881, and in 1882 he staked a claim, planning to mine there.  He filled in all the right paperwork, so it was an official claim. He was mining for minerals and he called his mine the Blue Bell mine.

At the end of that year Robert Sproule ran into financial problems, it was costing a lot to get the mine going. And there was also competition. An affluent consortium was financing three other miners. One of these miners was Thomas Hamill, the victim in the murder case. Hamill had the area on the other side of the lake from Robert Sproule. Robert left the mine at the end of 1882 taking an official leave-of-absence, and Thomas Hamill stepped in and illegally ‘jumped the claim’.

There followed court cases, with our poor Robert Evan Sproule trying to get his claim back. Thomas Hamill was well financed, and even though the first verdict went to Sproule, Hamill was able to appeal to the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

In 1884 Robert Sproule finally got his mine back, but he was far from out of the woods. He had gained partners to invest in the mine and they also helped with the court costs. One of these partners defaulted on his payments, and the Court seized his share in the Blue Bell mine. They auctioned it off to the highest bidder who turned out to be the infamous claim-jumper Thomas Hamill.

Map showing Blue Bell Mine
and Kootenay Lake

During 1885 Robert Evan Sproule found new partners and worked the mine.

On 1 June 1885, Thomas Hamill came to the Blue Bell mine. Whatever happened, we don’t really know, but Robert Sproule allegedly shot Hamill in the abdomen.

Thomas Hammill, the Victim

Robert Sproule was arrested and charged with the murder. The court case and subsequent appeals gave rise to much fuss in both Canada and the US. There even seem to have been protests in the streets. The case against Robert had hinged on his hatred of Hamill, and on two eye witness testimonies. Apparently, these two witnesses withdrew their statements at the appeal stage, and claimed they were paid to give their testimony.

But, as we know, Robert Evan Sproule was hanged on 29 October 1886.

Now, which of the Sproule families of Maine is our Robert Evan Sproule from?


Notes

  • Special thanks to Greg Nesteroff and his excellent blog THE KÜTNE READER Adventures in Kootenaiana. Thank you so much for all your superb work on this story.

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