Nanaimo Was the End of the Trail for Klondike Killer
Part 2
As we’ve seen, to Joseph Camille Claus goes the dubious honour of committing “the first cold-blooded premeditated murder...in the frozen north”.
According to the Victoria Colonist, anyway. Claus, it should be noted, had yet to face trial let alone be convicted by a jury of his peers.
But the circumstantial evidence, so far as was known in Victoria in the spring of 1898, was pretty damning. The bodies of Claus’s prospecting partners, Charles Hendrickson and James Burns had been found axed to death and a man matching Claus’s description had been seen fleeing the scene.
The fact remained, however, that, to date, communications from the frozen Stikine River country were based on almost pure hearsay. Only Chief Constable William H. Bullock-Webster’s confidential correspondence to his superior, B.C. Provincial Police Superintendent Fredrick Hussey, could be relied upon—and it was sketchy enough.
B.C. Police Supt. Frederick Hussey oversaw the Stikine River murders from his Victoria office. —B.C. Archives
Those public details that did seep out from the northern B.C. wilds via coastal steamship travellers were fascinating but unreliable and contradictory even when the Colonist published a more detailed—but inaccurate—followup from its “own correspondent” in Vancouver:
“Further particulars of the murder on the Stikine trail are to hand. The Jess brothers mentioned in yesterday’s despatch are from Chilliwack, while Claus, the suspect, and Hendrickson and Burns, the murdered men are from Vancouver. Burns has lived in Vancouver six years, lumbering and mining. He has money in the Bank of British Columbia here.
“Charlie Hendrickson had been living here for three years. He was a native of Finland, while Burns came from Australia. Both were quiet, sober, inoffensive men.”
The Jess brothers were actually the Viponds, Joseph, James and Alex, from Nanaimo, not Chilliwack, and Hendrickson was later said to be a Norwegian.
Anyone reading accounts of the murders as printed in the Colonist and the Vancouver News-Advertiser, which published the following day, would be pardoned for thinking that they were reading not two slightly different versions but about two slightly different crimes.
While the Victoria daily received its dispatch upon the steamer City of Seattle’s docking at Vancouver, the latter daily’s reporter, identified only as “informant,” had jumped ship at Nanaimo and taken the S.S. Joan to the Mainland.
To scoop the opposition, the Vancouver News-Advertiser’s reporter transferred to the S.S. Joan, left, at Nanaimo. —BC Archives
The Vancouver reporter’s somewhat garbled account of “murder and sudden death,” had been related to him by George Mee, a guide for the Mackenzie-Mann railway project. According to Mee, Burns and ‘Hendritson’ were travelling with the Jess brothers of Chilliwack, a man named ‘Vierpont,’ also said to be from Chilliwack, and a Dane or Swede named Claus.
This is getting confusing so let’s get back to the real cast of characters. The partners who’d sailed north from Nanaimo in April with high hopes of striking it rich in the Klondike were Joseph Claus, Charles Hendrickson, James Burns and the three Viponds.
From an island at the mouth of the Stikine the original party of six headed upriver over the snow with their packs and two horses. —Wikipedia
But, once on the trail from the mouth of the Stikine River, they’d split up. The Viponds, resenting what they described as the stocky Claus’s “bossy” manner, went on ahead, leaving Claus, Hendrickson and Burns to follow at their own pace.
Mee, who was headed the other way, met the Viponds (whom he identified as the Jess boys and Vierpont) at Glenora shortly afterwards. When he later approached their last campsite, Mee found it a scene of excitement, the NWMP already in charge after a Los Angeles party headed by a man named Robinson (not Langstroth as reported by the Colonist) having discovered a blown-down tent and two apparently bludgeoned bodies wrapped in a blanket.
There was no sign of Claus although a man had been seen fleeing the campsite, drawn on a sled behind a buckskin horse. Constable Malcolm McLean, formerly a detective with the Vancouver City police, was acting for Bullock-Webster in the case, according to Mee’s information.
Burns’s and Hendrickson’s money, thought to be about $1,000 (then a substantial sum) was gone. So were Joseph Claus and the Viponds (the police not yet knowing that they’d split with the party). Perhaps, Constable McLean surmised, they’d been attacked and murdered, too, their bodies disposed of elsewhere.
The motive, he was sure, was robbery. Both bodies, recovered from where they’d been hidden under snow and rocks, were in their underclothes, indicating they’d been attacked while in their sleeping bags. Burns had been axed to death but Hendrickson was both bludgeoned and shot in the head.
The mighty Stikine River where gold seekers risked life and limb in 1898 has become a tourist Mecca. —peakadvisor.com
The identity of the killer, or killers, was made no clearer when officers recovered a rifle, later deduced to be the weapon used to kill Hendrickson, from beneath the ice of a nearby stream. Recovered also from the water were Burns’ bank book, gold watch and chain.
The case began to come together when the Viponds turned up, to swear that they knew nothing of murder, that they’d left the party because of the increasingly obnoxious behaviour of fellow traveller, Claus. Could it be, wondered police, that the mysterious Claus deliberately caused friction within the group so as to divide them, so as to be able to deal with the cash-carrying Burns and Hendrickson when opportunity presented itself?
As they wondered–who should mush into Teslin Lake, and into the arms of a waiting constable who’d been warned by telegraph of his suspected flight, but Claus.
Known to have been near penniless, he was carrying four $100 bills, two $50 bills, a $20 gold piece, some gold valued at $85, and some silver. He attempted to divert suspicion from himself with a flimsy story about a stranger named Brandy, saying, “I would murder nobody if they treated me right.” He admitted to having mortgaged his farm to come to the Klondike and said that he regretted having left home.
The mystery only deepened when the Colonist published a letter in its April 27th edition from a former, unidentified Victorian who wrote from Telegraph Creek. The newspaper’s original account was more accurate in several respects than that of the News-Advertiser.
But this letter is also a mishmash of facts and incorrect identities, likely a liberal mixture of second and third hand rumour.
“About a month ago a party of six left Vancouver for the gold fields, going under the name of ‘Jess & Co.’, their names being James Burns, Vancouver; Charles Erickson, Vancouver; Joseph C. Clause, Nanaimo; James Vipond, Nanaimo; and Alex Jess, Chilliwack. [Note that only five are named.] After arriving at Wrangel they took passage on a small tug boat and started for the island at the mouth of the Stikine, intending to start up the river over the ice. The party had two horses and about two tons of merchandise.
“About fifteen miles up the river they had a breaking up and after dividing into two parties, one consisting of James Burns, Charles Erickson, Joseph C. Clause, and the other, of Joseph Vipond, James Vipond and Alex. Jess, they once more started on their way up-river. The Vipond brothers and Alex. Jess, who were pushers, quickly left their former comrades far behind and arrived at Telegraph Creek two days before the news of the murder reached there.
“As far as can be learned the names of the murdered are James Burns and Joseph C. Clause, and their slayer is supposed to be Charles Erickson, for two days after the tragedy it was learned that a man started up the trail with a horse like that described by Mr. Vipond and that same evening two sacks of flour and one sack of bacon were lost by a party who had cached their goods along the trail.
“The bodies were first discovered by a party of four who noticed a tent down and thought that perhaps it had blown down, but on going a few yards further one of them went over to the side of the river to get a drink, and was horrified to see the leg of a man protruding from under the ice.
He immediately called to his companions and they hastily began investigating, thereby bringing to light to one of the most fearful butcheries in the history of British Columbia.
“One of the young men had his head split open and the other, who had evidently made a struggle, was chopped from the head to his breast, and the axe with which the deed was done was found within two feet of where their bodies lay.
“After committing the crime the murderer took the bodies to the side of the river and shoved them under the ice, piling a few rocks on them and then throwing some snow on top. The deed was done at night for the only wearing apparel they had on was an undershirt and a pair of drawers.
“Now comes the strangest part of all, showing that the man who committed the murder was either crazy or a man of unusual nerve.
“The parties who discovered the affair went ahead a few hundred yards and decided to go into camp. Hardly had they got their tent pitched when a man with a horse and sleigh drove by and stopped at the cache where the men were murdered and took a bale of hay and some oats off the top and turned around again and started up-river. He was hailed by one of the party, but paid no attention to him.
“When another called to him and asked him if he owned the hay he had just taken and started to run after him, he jumped up on the horse and drove like a madman over the ice.
“The description of the man and horse are identical with that given by all three of the Jess party, who have reached Telegraph. There is no possible chance of the man escaping the vigilance of the police, who are surely to overtake him. He was seen and recognized by several who have just come over the trail from the lake, and appeared to be taking his time.”
The various and contradictory accounts make for quite an amalgam of facts. Essentially, all agreed that the original party, generally acknowledged to be composed of six partners, had split up. Three had remained in camp where two were axed and shot to death while sleeping by the third, their bodies hidden under rocks and snow.
Once we get past the confusion of names and spellings, we are left with James Burns, Charles Hendrickson) and Joseph Claus.
It all began in Nanaimo where the Vipond brothers, Joseph Claus of nearby Nanoose Bay, and Burns and Erickson teamed up to seek their fortunes in the Klondike. In just two months fate would come full-circle when Claus was returned to the Hub City and tried for murder. —BC Archives
But this correspondent has thrown a totally new slant on the crime by naming Erickson/Hendrickson as the killer and Claus/Clause as a victim.
By May 10, Bullock-Webster had sorted everything out but, needing legal advice as to how best to proceed with the case, he wrote directly to Deputy Attorney-General Smith from Telegraph Creek regarding Rex v. Claus:
Sir. I have the honour to send herewith the Information, deposition of witnesses etc. in this case. You will notice that the accused is charged with the murder of James Burns. I chose this charge because the accused had upon his person in a pocket book, Burns’ free miners’ certificate, proving conclusively to whom the pocket book belonged.
I am at rather a dis-advantage in not having any of my books to refer to on the point as to whether it is advisable to commit on both charges in the case of a double murder. I know that the usual practice is to choose the stronger case. But here we have exactly the same evidence although, and I would have no doubt about the matter were it not for the defence (if such it can be called) set up by the accused.
Should a jury acquit him of the murder of Burns he should be tried on the other charge. I should very much like to have your advice as soon as possible. I regret that the depositions are not in quite as good order as I should wish, but you will perhaps make allowance for the roughness of Cassiar courts.
I wrote a full report of the case to Supt. Hussey which I hope you have seen, in which I pointed out among other things the necessity of an early trial as I cannot undertake to hold the witnesses.
A day should be appointed and I should be given about three weeks time to have everything ready. Trusting to hear from you soon,
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
Wm. H. Bullock-Webster.
P.S.
Mr. Brownlee D.L.S. (Dominion Land Surveyor) has just taken a photograph of Claus. The negative with others will be sent to Mr. Brownlee to be developed in Vancouver, and he will send it to Mr. Hussey. Will you kindly tell him that he may expect it.
The man is in double irons, taken sitting in front of a cell.
Wm. H.B-W.
The “double irons” described by Bullock-Webster don’t show in Brownlee’s photo of Claus. The alleged murderer looks quite respectable under the circumstances. —BC Archives
(To be continued)
