‘Crime of the Century’ – The Case of the Stolen Church
Such it was called in a full-page story in the Vancouver Province in 1933.
A slight exaggeration to say the least, but a great story all the same!
Revelstoke’s loss was Windermere’s gain—even though it had to be done illegally. —ColumbiaValley.com
In last week’s Chronicles about the ghost town of Donald, guest columnist Tom W. Parkin made passing reference to a once-famous case of theft. Not of money or jewels, but of an entire bulding!
This week, from the archives of the Vancouver Province, Charles Hayden tells us the real story behind how Rufe Kimpton and fellow conspirators absconded with St. Peter’s Church, lock, stock and lectern.
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“I would be willing to live in a shack, if we could only have our church. I hate to leave it more than anything else in Donald."
“You will have it, if I have to steal it.
“So I stole it."
The secret is out after 33 years. Rufe Kimpton executed the theft of a perfectly good church.
Now one cannot steal the first Anglican Church in the Rocky mountains, a church erected by the first Anglican missionary in the Kootenays, “Father Pat" (Rev. Henry Irwin), without provoking a storm, especially when specific instructions had been given by the supreme authority of the diocese of New Westminster, under whose jurisdiction the church rested, that it should be transferred to Revelstoke, which had replaced Donald as CPR divisional point, and which prospered in proportion to Donald's adversity
But these contingencies did not bother Rufe Kimpton.
To him his wife's slightest wish was law—that has been so for 45 years. he admits readily—and the innocent wish which Mrs. Kimpton had expressed simply meant that St. Peter's, church of Donald, shortly would become St. Peter's, church of Windermere, without consent of clergy.
Without advertising his intentions, Rufe enlisted a group of trusted and capable men. The church was taken apart quickly but carefully and was packed for transportation and went to Windermere via Golden. Train men, who had to be in the conspiracy, if such an ignoble word may be applied to the theft of a church, did their bit. So did Captain Armstrong and his steamboat crew.
Therefore it came about, in the year of Donald's desertion, 1900, the component parts of the sacred edifice were assembled on a beautiful site overlooking Lake Windermere.
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Steeped in the history of the Rockies and the Kootenays is the pleasant little church of St. Peter at Windermere. Human kindness, human generosity and human brains are embedded in this shrine—for such it has become. Literally it was, and is, Father Pat's church—church and lasting memorial at the same time. For it was this young, zealous, athletic, warm-hearted missionary of the Church of England, fervent in well-doing as part of his Irish temperament, who caused it to be built at Donald, when that was the largest of live towns and the lode-star of 1000s of railway workers, miners and all those in the forefront of development in the Rockies in the '80s and '90s.
In its heyday, Donald B.C. was a going concern; but major changes in the CPR’s operation doomed it to becoming a ghost town. —Courtesty Tom W. Parkin
Father Pat had been assigned by the higher authorities to go out from England as missionary along the line of CPR construction, 47 years ago. Donald was a rousing centre in 1886. Its regular population was about 3,000 and the floating population, as in all prosperous frontier towns, was large.
But there was no church in the in the place. Father Pat could not permit such a vacuum to continue.
How he obtained the money no one knew. There did not seem to be much money available in railway construction towns of the middle '80s for churches. There was plenty for gambling and carousing seven days in the week, but no one showed any obtrusive desire to see a church steeple or hear a church bell until Father Pat appeared on the scene.
Rev. Henry Irwin—”Father Pat” to all who knew him. His legend lives on to this day in the resurrected St. Peter’s Church, Windermere.— https://www.kootenayanglican.ca
Suddenly, it seemed as if the whole community sensed that something essential was lacking.
Railway construction men, running crews, miners, merchants, hotel-men, gamblers, all elements found themselves contributing. Father Pat did not care where the money came from—tt was to be devoted to a good cause.
He would go into a gambling Hall and Donald and, after rambling around for a little while, checking up things, as it were, he would say, “Well, boys, who's got all the money?” He would know pretty well by this time, too. The winners would laugh or grin almost invariably and then they would donate, sometimes lavishly.
Father Pat would thank them offhandedly, just the way they like to be thanked, for they abhorred effusiveness on such occasions, and then say, “Boys, I am holding a service tonight. Please come. Shall not keep you long,” and away he would go. Never a word about their gambling or drinking. And the gamblers and roisterers would go to the services.
Note how Pat got the lumber for his church taken to the site. This lumber was cut practically in its entirety to specifications, prepared as a contribution, along with the plans of the church, by Mr. Wylie, the architect.
To get back to the carload of lumber. There it was on the siding but a long distance from the site which Father Pat had selected. Rufe Kimpton tells the story: “Father Pat told me at the station that Mr. Wylie had prepared the plans for the church, that the lumber had arrived and that he wanted it unloaded so he could start building. He went over to Grimes, the day yardmaster, another friend of his, and told him his plight."
“What have you got?” “Lumber.” “Where is it? Where do you want it?”
“Hey!” shouted Grimes to a switching crew, “Take that carload of lumber down the main line and unload it at the tank." This was taking a chance on the main line train, but the crew did not hesitate. Grimes meant business, and that car was on its way almost at once.
‘How many loafers can you line up to hustle that lumber?”
Although this was very early in the morning—we were all early risers in those days at Donald—there was a bunch of men around.
“Come on," I said. “Let's get this lumber unloaded and hauled and I'll give you breakfast." They did not need this bribe to help Father Pat but I had to say something. Anyway, with everybody hurrying, particularly the railway crew, we had that lumber unloaded at the tank in three-quarters of an hour, and then we all started in and put up that church. It was easy, with Mr. Wylie's plans to follow.
“That was the way everyone treated Father Pat," Rufe observed. “They all wanted to give him ‘main line’ service."
For 13 years the church of St. Peter served Donald and a vast territory in addition. Then, in 1900, came the desertion of Donald. Revelstoke, the new divisional point, wanted the church; Field wanted it.
Mrs. Kimpton wanted it more than any either town and, naturally, with Rufe engineering the matter, Mrs. Kimpton got it.
Feeling ran high between the two known contestants. The third contestant was not formally nominated, then or at any other time. Rufe, however, had his confidantes—he had to have some—and he wished to be as circumspect as possible and still carry through his design.
On the train one day, he met Mr. Penzar and Mr. Griffith, two wardens of St. Peter. He told them he wished to move the church to Windermere. Now, they were Donald residents, affected like everyone else in the town by its abandonment, they loved their church and they knew that quite a number of its members and adherents were moving to Windermere, as was Rufe. They gave their sanction and this helped Rufe’s mental attitude, although the chances are that he would have gone through with the removal in any event.
However, he felt he should play as safely as circumstances would permit, not being quite certain as to the penalty for stealing a church.
So he went to the coast to interview Archdeacon Pentreat, formerly of Manitoba, but then of the diocese of New Westminster. (Bishop Dart was visiting in England.) They discussed the various aspects of the matter and agreed that Revelstoke would be big enough to build its own church.
Revelstoke could build its own church, Rufe and the Archdeacon agreed. —Wikipedia
Field could not be depended on to support a church and so far as Windermere was concerned at that time, the collections would not pay a preacher's hotel bill.
Rufe was told that if he would guarantee to put up the church at Windermere, the archdeacon would give him permission. “But, remember,” said the Archdeaon, "I have no right to authorize you to remove the church. However I will stand back of you.”
Rufe did not capitalize on this permission. He was not capitalizing on any publicity.
There was the question of what to do about Rev. Mr. Turner, rector of St. Peter's. It was decided that he should be wired to take charge at Yale. So the telegram was sent to Rev. Mr. Turner. Rufe was warned not to remove anything from the vestry, returned the Cardinal’s handshake with yards he can gave him and, perhaps, who knows, return also the ecclesiastical wink, and the two conspirators parted.
By the time Rufe reached reached Donald, Rev. Mr. Turner had departed for Yale. Rufe went into secret session with his brother-in-law J.C. Pitts, who was also moving to Windermere. A gang of men was secured and the church was taken down, the pieces being named or numbered so that reassembling with Mr. Wiley's plans to hand would not be difficult.
“Revelstoke and Field had not an inkling of what was going on and they were raising old Old Nod,” as Rufe recalled.
But Tom Kilpatrick, CPR superintendent at Donald in its last days as the CPR divisional point, was sympathetic as well as amused, and he arranged a speedy transfer to Golden, and there Capt. Armstrong, always keen on the switch, had the dismantled church aboard his steamboat in short order, and the first thing there was everything at Windermere.”
This was not quite the whole story of events at Golden. When Rufe checked over things at Windermere, he found that the 600-pond bell of St. Peter’s was missing. Enquiries revealed that this bell, a gift to the church by the Pelly family, connections of Bishop Sillitoe, had been quietly absorbed by the Anglican Church members at Golden. Rufe went to Golden and protested with that dynamic vigour which characterized him in those days, but he got scant satisfaction, for he was told bluntly that the Golden worshippers had as much right to the bell as he had to the church[!]
Here was an argument that could not be assailed, so the bell remained in Golden.
In after years, when the romance of the “stolen church” was appreciated more thoroughly, the good people of Golden offered to send the bell to Windermere, but, meanwhile, a bell had been secured, so the kind offer was declined.
“Anyway, that bell was too heavy for our church,” Rufe commented. “It was the old-fashioned straight-bar type without counter-balance, and when it was run as it should be, it rocked the whole church. We used the knocker. I don’t know but the Golden people were sorry they took that bell when they discovered its effect on their church building.”
Well, Rufe had his pieces of church piled up on the site chosen at Windermere. The next task was re-assembling and re-erecting. Fortunately, there was a clever carpenter at Windermere, Sam Cobb. He was interested beyond wages. Rufle told him that he had the plans, but all Cobb wanted were photographs of the church, exterior and interior, as it stood at Donald. These were provided and he set-up the church quickly and competently, just as it stands today.
“Then came the bills and we started begging,” said Rufe. “But all we had to do was sell them Father Pat.”
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So wrote Charles Hayden in 1933. He got the story straight from the lips of Rufe Kimpton, said to be a prosperous merchant in Donald and “zealous churchman” who masterminded the “theft” of St. Peter’s, Donald, and its resurrection overlooking Lake Windermere. It continues in service to this day, all of 125 years later.
There’s so much more to the story of “Father Pat” Irwin, one of B.C.’s most remarkable missionaries whose devotion to godly duty ultimately cost him his life. Perhaps another day.
