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Haphazard History: Live Yank remembered

In my last column I wrote about William “The Live Yank” Luce, a miner and prospector who operated a stopping house near Snowshoe Creek.
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The original headboard on William Luce's grave travelled for years before finding home.

In my last column I wrote about William “The Live Yank” Luce, a miner and prospector who operated a stopping house near Snowshoe Creek, between Keithly Creek and Barkerville.

Yank’s Peak in the Cariboo Mountains is named after this native of Maine, USA.

He spent 20 years in the area, looking for the elusive mother lode that he and others were convinced was there.

Along the way, he reluctantly ran the Live Yank’s Hotel,  a -            meagre stopping house for travellers going to and coming from the Cariboo goldfields.

On May 28, 1881, William Luce died in his cabin.

Some say he got caught in a blizzard and froze to death, but the most likely story is that he died of heart failure.

His family and friends wanted him to be remembered, so a large headboard was ordered for his grave from Johnny Knott, a carpenter in Barkerville.

It was a substantial marker, measuring five feet in length, 14 inches in width, and about three inches thick.

The words “Sacred to the memory of William Luce. Native of Maine USA. Died May 28, 1881, aged 60 years.” were printed on it.

When the headboard was completed, mail carrier Fred Littler was contracted to deliver it to the grave site at Little Snowshoe Creek.

Fred picked up the headboard, lashed the cumbersome thing onto his pack horse, and headed out.

He was supposed to haul it about 20 miles over the Snowshoe Plateau, but he wasn’t feeling very well that day. He had just returned to work after a few days (and nights) of partying in Stanley.

Along the way, he found he had to adjust the pack carrying the headboard several times, and as a result, progress was very slow.

Finally Fred just lost his temper, pulled the headboard off, and threw it into the bush somewhere near Whiskey Flat, close to Antler Creek.

He stayed the night at Antler, and went back the next day to find it but could not locate where he had discarded it, so he returned to Barkerville and said nothing more about it.

A few weeks later, the board was found, and over the next few years it was used as a table by successive groups of prospectors who camped out at Whiskey Flat. Unbelievably the headboard was never destroyed.

In 1939, some 57 years after it was made, it was found by Sam Allison, a prospector who came across it while re-cutting the Yank’s Peak trail from Barkerville through to Keithly Creek.

Though still readable, the inscription carved in 1881 had faded, but with the help of Mrs. Peterson, a cook at the Cariboo Hudson mine, the headboard was cleaned, the lettering was repainted, and restored to its original clarity.

The refurbished headboard was then loaded on to one of Fred Wells’ cat freight outfits and transported to the slopes of Luce Creek.

There it was wired up to a tree, overlooking the site of the Live Yank’s original cabin. Ironically, this was not Luce’s final resting place.

He was buried a few miles to the south in the small cemetery at Little Snowshoe Creek, so the headboard had not yet completed its journey.

It remained at Luce Creek, all but forgotten, until one day in August of 1963, when Doris Lee stumbled across it while pasturing her herd of sheep in the area.

Doris recovered the board and gave the letters another coat of paint. She writes that the wood around the letters had gradually sloughed away over the years, leaving the raised letters clearly visible.

The paint had protected the words written on the board, while the rest of the wood had eroded about an eighth of an inch.

Once word got out about the headboard, it was retrieved and taken to the museum in Williams Lake for safe keeping. A duplicate was made, and erected at the Little Snowshoe Creek Cemetery, about 80 years after the original had been shipped.

When the little Likely Museum was opened at the Cedar Creek provincial park site, the original headboard was put on display there, and it can still be seen there today. So ended the strange journey of the Live Yank’s grave marker.

If you get a chance to drive out to Likely in the summer, be sure to check out the museum at Cedar Creek.

There are some great displays and the gold rush history really comes alive there.

Much of the information in this article comes from the writings of Branwen Patenaude and Doris Lee.