R.A. ‘Volcanic’ Brown – Unlikely Hero, Legend—and Killer's
As we’ve seen, Volcanic Brown had to make some momentous decisions in his lifelong career as a prospector, such as the day he amputated his own gangrenous toes with a pocketknife.
But the decision that he made with the most momentous consequences (other than his hiking alone into the Pitt River mountains when he was over 80!) was that which he made in the spring of 1924.
For Bill Brown (no relation), the result was instant death; for Volcanic Brown, a charge of manslaughter.
This photo of what’s thought to be the remains of Volcanic Brown’s cabin was recently posted on the Boundary Heritage Facebook website.
—https://www.facebook.com/groups/BoundaryHeritage/
What would become tragedy began to unfold two ears earlier when returned soldier Bill Brown, 40, who was said to “bear many marks of he fighting,” moved to Grand Forks area. Settling into a cabin on Granby River, near that of Volcanic Brown, he cut poles for a living and, in the fall of 1923, married a widow, Mrs. Dan [sic[ Williams.
She and her three children continued to live with her parents, on the opposite side of the river, about 15 miles from Grand Forks, possibly because Brown’s homestead was insufficiently developed.
Mrs. Brown must have seen something in Brown that wasn’t visible to others as he’d gained a reputation for being temperamental. Moody almost to the point of paranoia, he seems to have laboured under the belief that “people were trying to ‘do’ him in different ways”.
Those who were more charitably inclined attributed Bill’s anti-social behaviour to his war experiences.
His festering rage erupted in the evening of May 8, 1924, after he’d been to Grand Forks with Mrs. Brown. While driving home by horse and buggy, he continued to drink heavily from a bottle of whisky, using beer as a chaser.
This put him in a jovial mood as, according to Mrs. Brown, he treated several acquaintances they met on the road. But his mood turned ugly when they reached the Lynch Creek property he’d just bought from Carl Jepson. Apparently Brown thought the purchase included the cabin on the land; but Jepson had removed it during his absence.,
Losing his temper, Brown threatened Jepson’s life and headed for his cabin, apparently to get his gun. Mrs. Brown, who’d remained in the buggy, later said that he seemed “to go crazy,” as he drove on so wildly that she panicked.
Just as she prepared to jump, the buggy lurched and threw her to the ground.
Although not seriously hurt, she was bruised and shaken and as she lay there, trying to catch her breath, Brown ordered her back into the buggy and threatened to beat her with the whisky bottle if she didn’t obey.
Upon reaching the Cooper home where they’d left the two youngest children, Mrs. Brown told the kids to hide in the woods. The youngsters, however, afraid for her safety, refused to leave her.
Brown, having found a rifle and two shells, did something that was totally out of character—he ordered the children to kneel then led them in prayer as Mrs. Cooper fled to neighbours to telephone Constable G.F. Killan.
Brown again insisted that his wife accompany him as he returned to his own cabin which was across the river and half a mile from that of Volcanic Brown. On the way, she said later, he fired one shot for no apparent reason. At the cabin, they were greeted by stepson Danny and his friend, a Doukhobour youth named Andersoff.
Brown threw a tin can at them; the boys retaliated by throwing some boxes.
The noise attracted the other lad’s father, Mike Andersoff, who, recognizing Brown’s dangerous state of mind, urged the boys to run to Volcanic Brown’s cabin and stay with him until the storm passed.
Still beside himself with rage, which he now directed at the boys, and seemingly having forgotten about Jepson and the missing shack, Brown followed them. Volcanic, who’d granted them refuge, refused to admit him and succeeded in persuading him to leave.
About 10 o’clock that evening, however, they heard Brown stumbling toward the cabin and Volcanic, sure that he could again reason with him, went out to light his way with a lantern.
Brown was carrying a large club and before the old prospector, who thought of him as a friend, could beat a retreat, he cursed and struck him savagely on the head, inflicting a deep gash in the scalp.
At that moment, Mike Andersoff, Tracy Cooper and Fred Wassolm charged to his defence. Andersoff grabbed Brown from behind, permitting Volcanic to crawl to safety, while yelling to the others to help him with the struggling Brown. They, however, refused to become involved and ran off.
Realizing that he couldn’t hold the wildly thrashing Brown much longer, he released his hold and stepped aside.
Brown, ignoring him, charged towards the cabin which was in darkness, and tried to break in the door. Failing that, he smashed a window then proceeded to a second.
By this time Volcanic had recovered sufficiently to get his rifle.
As Brown battered away at the second window, Volcanic levered a shell into the firing chamber of his .30.30 while repeatedly ordering Brown to back off.
Brown replied with more curses and vowed to kill them all when he got inside.
That’s when Volcanic Brown who’d faced many a life threatening challenge as a seaman, boat builder, draper, railway contractor, lumberjack and miner, from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, made his fatal decision.
There was a deafening report as the heavy calibre slug tore its way through Brown’s heart.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
“I hated to do it; we had been good friends,” Volcanic testified at the inquest, “but the man was crazy, he had a knife in his possession and I knew if I did not get him first, he would get us, so I fired. I make no bones about it.”
R.A. ‘Volcanic’ Brown doesn’t look like someone who’d shoot a neighbour.
— https://www.westcoastplacer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/VolcanicBrown.jpg
He immediately dispatched young Cooper to telephone the police and Constable Killan escorted him to the Grand Forks courthouse where they arrived about midnight.
The inquest, held the next afternoon, was brief. After hearing the testimony of witnesses, and Volcanic Brown’s declaration that he’d fired in self defence, the jury ruled that the deceased had come to his death from a shot fired by R.A. Brown. Their verdict and the evidence was then forwarded to the Attorney General’s office for review. The official ruling was that Volcanic was to be released.
He then told a newspaper reporter: “I am fully convinced that I saved the lives of at least our or five others when I fired the bullet that put Bill Brown to sleep last Friday.”
To the crowd that greeted him, he said with a smile, “I hate to leave you, everybody has been so kind, I have never known such luxury before.”
His parting remark had been prompted by his treatment by police and visitors; he’d had so many callers that, at one point, the police chamber in the courthouse had been described as a “veritable drawing room or reception parlour”.
Two days before his release, Grand Forks had been swept by a rumour that he’d attempted suicide. This was the wrong interpretation, said the Gazette, of “Mr. Brown’s bleeding himself. He had been allowed a good deal of latitude, more in the nature of a guest, and being a man who lives close to nature he has his own ways of getting rid of surplus blood.
“On Wednesday he tapped himself on the arm and removed two quarts [sic!] of blood and says he expects to soon feel [better] as [a] result of the operation.”
(Volcanic Brown, as noted in last week’s Chronicles, had a widespread reputation as a herbalist.)
Upon stepping into the street, a free man once more, he found himself surrounded by a crowd of well-wishers, the Gazette noting that his release “is one that meets with unanimous approval locally”.
Further good news awaited him when he was informed that a cheque for $500, which he’d given up hope of receiving, had arrived. When asked what he was going to do with the windfall, Volcanic answered in typical fashion.
He was, he said, going to take a “summer cruise” in search of lost treasure.
Seven years after, he vanished in the rugged mountains of the Pitt River country while searching for murderer Slumach’s fabled Lost Creek Mine.
* * * * *
There’s an interesting sequel to the story.
In July 1980 I received a letter from A.G. Jepson in response to an article I’d written in the Daily Colonist: He identified himself as a son of Al Jepson who’d sold Bill Brown the piece of land without the cabin whose removal had provoked Brown’s murderous rampage.
“I was born at Lynch Creek [in] 1919 and my father Al Jepson was section foreman on the railway running from Lynch Creek to Grand Forks. My father was a friend of Volcanic Brown.
“I was one of the kids [with] my mother Hilda [who] sought refuge at Volcanic’s cabin.
“My dad told me many stories about Volcanic Brown. The words as my father told me of the shooting many years later—the words Volcanic uttered [in warning to Bill Brown as he tried to smash his way into the cabin] were, ‘If you break the glass in the door I’ll shoot.’
“And the glass was broken—by a rifle butt, and Volcanic Brown shot [Bill] Brown stone dead.”
During his stay in town to attend the inquest then await word from the attorney general’s office as to his being charged or released, “The women in Grand Forks brought Volcanic Brown all kinds of goodies while he was in jail...”
Bill Brown, Mr. Jepson’s father told him, had a sinister reputation as” a Yankee fugitive”.
He then added a new slant to the story that’s not mentioned in the above account which I’ve based upon newspaper reports. I failed to notice this in Mr. Jepson Jr.’s 1980 letter and it’s too late to ask him now: That Brown, who’d been drinking all day, was in a jovial humour until he found the cabin removed from the property he’d bought from the senior Jepson.
As we’ve seen, according to Mrs. Brown, he “went crazy,” threatened Jepson’s life and headed for his cabin, apparently to get his gun.
In his letter Mr. Jepson Jr. wrote that Brown “beat my father up—gave him quite a licking. My dad was a big man, 6’1,” 200 lb. and no pushover. This happened on the same day as the shooting.”
This has to have been before he and Mrs. Brown went to town, before he began drinking then, on the way home, found the cabin gone. Brown and Jepson Sr.. had already quarrelled. It strikes me that Jepson had removed the cabin that afternoon in retaliation.
“Volcanic Brown was the only man home that fatal day. My mother sought shelter at Brown’s cabin with all her kids. I don’t know who the other women were; one of them was supposed to be [Bill] Brown’s common-law wife...”
What motivated Brown to follow the boys to Volcanic’s cabin, strike Volcanic down with a club then try to force entry after threatening to kill all within, we can only surmise. But his known moodiness combined with alcohol and rage resulted in his own death.
It was a tragedy all round. One that, had it not been for Volcanic Brown who’d faced danger many times in his adventurous career, might well have been even worse.
* * * * *
How I regret that work pressures and the fact I was living up-Island in 1980 prevented my following up with ‘Tex’ Cowboy Jepson who’d retired from the pawnbroking business.
I’ll let him sign off today as he did then: “Have tried my hand at many things and have had various jobs—from hoboe [sic] to pawnbroker. Retired now.”
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