Macdonald’s Bank Robbery (Conclusion)
When former Macdonald's Bank courier R.I. Smith left the colony he was accompanied part of the way by Victoria journalist D.W. Higgins whom we've met elsewhere in the Chronicles. Years later, in a series of historical articles and reminiscences in the Colonist, Higgins told of Smith's dramatic death. Circumstances appear to have ruled out Smith as a suspect in Victoria's famous bank robbery.
More than a century and a half later the robbery of Macdonald’s Bank in Victoria remains unsolved. Even at the time suspicion was strong that it was an inside job.
I’ve already dealt with the subsequent careers, at least so far as can be determined at this late date, of three of the principals. By all indications banker A.D. Macdonald was financially ruined and had to work for a living for the rest of his life; clerk/bookkeeper Josiah Barnett whose subsequent release after his arrest on the vaguest of suspicion said it all; and Manager John Waddell who, within three years of the robbery popped up in Ontario as the owner of several sawmills and a yacht.
A yacht which, by all accounts, he’d proceeded to scuttle for the insurance money. To achieve that dubious end he had to lock two crewmen in the cabin as the schooner sank. All of which would seem to make him the prime candidate as the culprit.
This leaves bank courier R. T. Smith. He, too, was present when the $30,000 in gold, silver and banknotes was placed in the safe just hours before the theft. What became of him?
Big, bluff and quick-tempered Robert Smith was right out of the Old West, one of those characters who were bigger than life. He was quick to take offence, yes, but honest, reliable and a staunch friend. How volatile was he? Take the time he put a Royal City newspaper editor in the hospital with the blunt end of his cane. Now, that’s volatile.
The editor had, in Smith’s mind, held him up to public ridicule because he, as the member of the legislative assembly for Cariboo had, in good conscience, voted to make Victoria rather than New Westminster the colonial capital.
Smith wasn’t afraid of the threats made against his life or of the insults uttered by Mainlanders who thought he’d betrayed them, but the editor’s maligning him in print, that was a different matter.
The court, unsympathetic, found for the plaintiff and fined Smith for assault.
But back to the bank robbery.
Until 10 o’clock the night before, Smith, Barnett and Waddell (Macdonald was in the Cariboo) prepared the shipment of coin and currency Smith was to take the bank’s Richfield branch next day. The treasure was placed in one of the bank’s two safes despite clerk Barnett’s not being able to correctly place a covering slide over the lock to prevent its being picked.
When, next morning, the janitor found the bank had been ransacked, the safe emptied, there was a major furor and a surprisingly lackadaisical police investigation. Barnett was arrested then released and, ultimately, the mystery went unsolved, the $30,000 not recovered.
Among those who took a financial beating with Macdonald and depositors was courier Smith who had $13,000 in savings in the bank. It was, it seems, one more setback in a career marked by misfortune.
Four years later he left the colony. Among his fellow passengers aboard the Portland-bound S.S. George T. Wright was journalist D.W. Higgins whom we’ve met before. When writing a series of reminiscences for the Colonist half a century later, Higgins recalled having met Smith at the ticket counter and travelling together to Portland where they transferred to the decrepit steamer Continental.
With her “aged timbers cracking and shaking as if with fright,” the old steamer crossed the Columbia River Bar and headed southward to the Bay City. Her decks awash as she wallowed in the waves, Higgins and Smith sought shelter in the lee of her smokestack where, unable to carry on a conversation because of the shrieking of the wind, they rode out the storm.
The noise, wrote Higgins, was so great that they could scarcely hear each other speak. But, above the storm, they could clearly hear the shouts of the captain, the “greatest brute and most profane man” Higgins had ever met in his long career as a journalist. Infamous for his brutality to his crewmen and to his contempt for his passengers, the captain was raging at an unfortunate seaman.
His temper had been provoked by the storm having opened the ancient Continental’s seams, making her sluggish and hard to steer. Roaring commands at his crew he ordered an unwary passenger to return to his cabin then realized he was being watched by Smith and Higgins.
“What in the hell are you doing there? Get down below, damn you!”
“Are you speaking to us?” asked Smith indifferently.
When the captain swore again and advanced menacingly, the unperturbed Smith stood firm. At that moment a lurching of the ship threw a passing seaman against the captain who turned upon him with his fists until the seaman drew a knife.
Instantly, the blustering bully became a blubbering coward.
The sailor, provoked beyond endurance by the officer’s unrelenting tyranny, lunged at him with his blade. As his audience of two watched, transfixed, the captain began to run, circling the deck with the murder-bound seaman at his heels. When, for the second time they circled the deck, it was apparent that the master was beginning to falter and the space between him and his assailant tighten.
All the while the captain had been shouting for assistance. Not one of his crew stepped forward; some even egged the pursuer on. As the gap between prey and hunter rapidly began to close Smith calmly seized the seaman by the wrist and flicked the knife over the side.
That’s all it took for the captain to recover his courage and kick the seaman’s face into an unrecognizable pulp.
To their shame, Smith and Higgins merely protested the captain’s assault rather than intercede, and let the sailor be beaten then imprisoned in the forecastle.
At least the captain’s overbearing attitude to this passengers eased up for the balance of the voyage, Higgins noting that he and Smith came and went on deck without being insulted. Nor did the captain thank Smith for saving his life. “The incident with the sailor had humbled him somewhat, and he treated the passengers with some consideration but he was as hard as ever on the crew...”
Higgins and Smith went their separate ways after the Continental wheezed into San Francisco and, when next the journalist heard of Smith, he was in Utah. According to reports he was again doing well financially. Well enough to make him a candidate as a son-in-law of the state governor.
But, as seems to have been his ill-starred fate, life again went off the rails when the governor’s daughter, who’d formerly encouraged him, abruptly rejected his suit and turned her back on him with a veiled reference to a competing suitor, one Dr. Snedecker. At first stunned, then angry (Smith’s famous temper again), Smith sought him out.
It was known that they exchanged heated words but what, precisely, passed between them went unrecorded. Only Smith’s parting threat, that Utah wasn’t big enough to hold the two of them, became publicly known.
Fate again played its hand only two days after their violent quarrel when both men chanced to meet while boarding a train.
No words were spoken as both reached for their revolvers. Dr. Snedecker, despite his being older than Smith, drew first and fired. His pistol ball struck Smith in the chest puncturing a lung and throwing him backwards to the floor where he continued to struggle to draw his gun. With the last of his strength he succeeded in raising his pistol and firing a single shot. Seconds later, both antagonists expired, Smith’s bullet having struck Snedecker in the heart.
So much for the former bank courier who lost his first fortune in the robbery of Macdonald’s Bank. His second time round with money (which he bequeathed, it was said, to needy relatives in Scotland) came years after the Victoria theft and would indicate that he wasn’t living off the bank loot.
The same, as has been shown, couldn’t be said for bank manager John Waddell who just three years later was operating as a successful businessman in Ontario.
The accusations that he scuttled his own schooner for the insurance at the cost of the lives of two crewmen were never proved in court. And, sadly, there’s no dotting the ‘i’ on the Macdonald Bank robbery.
But it sure is tempting to posthumously pronounce “guilty” a century and a-half later!
Have a question, comment or suggestion for TW? Use our Contact Page.