Bathurst Courier news item reprinted from the Carleton Place Herald
From
GOLD FEVER
Lanark County’s 49rs
Fatal Accident in California – It is our painful duty to announce the death of our townsman Mr. William Moffatt, who left this place about eighteen months ago, in search of a fortune in California. It appears by what we have gathered from those who have returned, and by letters which have arrived, that he was one of a party of twelve (ten of whom were from this neighbourhood) who had been unsuccessfully prospecting for the precious metal, in the unsettled region, in the northern part of California. The day preceding the accident, they met in with a party of native Indians, who were about commencing hostilities with another tribe, and were anxious to procure the assistance of our adventurers, which they properly declined to give. read– Lanark County Residents involved in the California Gold Rush
William Muirhead was born at Paisley, Scotland, in 1812 and at the time he headed for the California goldfields, at the age of 38, was living in Beckwith Township. He did not marry until the age of 50 when he was married to Catherine McEwan at Carleton Place in 1862. The father of two sons and two daughters, William Muirhead, yeoman, died near Franktown in 1870. Read Killed by Zulus — Duncan and James Box
Nathaniel McCaffry was a Carleton Place man, possibly the brother of Absalom McCaffrey who operated a hotel, bakery and wine shop in Carleton Place in the mid 19th century. Nathaniel was married, in 1842, to Elizabeth Sheldon. He went to California with the first rush of men in 1849, returned, and then went back to California with the ‘Ogdensburg Company’ in 1850. By 1852 he was home again, living in Beckwith Township. read-OFF TO MANITOBA 1879– Local Lads Names
Peter Cram, born in Beckwith Township in 1831, was the son of James Cram and Margaret McPhail. He lived on the family farm until, according to his obituary, at “… twenty-one he became filled with the gold fever, the rush to California being then almost at the height, and he joined in the procession westward”. He remained in California for two years and on his return went into partnership with his brother John F. Cram in a “tanning and wool pulling business” at Appleton.
In 1857 he married Margaret Campbell and the couple had five children. The family later moved to Perth “to provide better educational facilities” for their family. In 1882 Cram purchased and moved to a farm in Beckwith Township. Peter Cram died at Carleton Place in 1920. William Moffatt, who accidentally shot himself to death on a Californian mountainside in 1852, was born in Beckwith Township in 1824, the son of David Moffat and Elizabeth Nevin. A carpenter by trade he married Anne Chambers in 1847 with whom he had a son and two daughters, the youngest of which was born in 1851 the same year he left for California– Peter Cram of Beckwith Perth and High Street in Carleton Place
Lanark County Residents involved in the California Gold Rush
Killed by Zulus — Duncan and James Box
OFF TO MANITOBA 1879– Local Lads Names
Peter Cram of Beckwith Perth and High Street in Carleton Place
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