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British Columbia history that informs readers while entertaining them.

Cariboo Mystery Still Resonates

Cariboo Mystery Still Resonates

NOTICE!
TO ADAH HALDEN AND ARTHUR HALDEN: 

Take notice that you have been sued in the Country Court, holden at Quesnel, by David Arthur Clark, and that a copy of the summons has been filed for you in the Quesnel Registry of the said Court. You are required to dispute the said action by filing a dispute note in the said Registry within twenty days of the first appearance of this advertisement. 

EDGAR C. LUNN, Registrar.
First appearance of advertisement is on the 8th day of January, 1921.

Downtown Quesnel in the 1920s. The missing Halden family lived on the outskirts. —www.pinterest.com

Such was the legal notice posted in the Quesnel Cariboo Observer on Jan. 8, 1921. There’s nothing really out of the ordinary about this legal advertisement of a century ago. 

But there is something very, very unique about this particular advertisement in the 1921 Quesnel newspaper. 

Although it wasn’t widely known, Adah and Arthur Halden, and their teenage son, had gone missing; had been missing, in fact, for almost six months. No wonder then that David Clark, their hired hand, who’d granted them a large loan, wanted to track them down or recover the money he claimed they owed him.

The police, it appeared, had come to suspect the Haldens of having absconded with Clark’s hard-earned money. Indeed, their suspicions had been aroused. But B.C. Provincial Police Officer Greenwood believed that there was more—much more—than met the eye in their disappearance. 

There was, indeed, as you’ll read in next week’s Chronicles.

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5 Comments

  1. Hi Tom:
    I have been missing your columns in the Citizen of late and have not passed you walking along Koksilah Road when driving in to Duncan from Fairbridge.
    We were stuck on our plantation in Thailand for an extra 5 months thanks to the pandemic and didn’t get back here until July 12th.
    At any rate I was wondering if you may be writing anything up around Remembrance Day this year and if you wanted any information we have in the Fairbridge Chapel including plaques etc. We are going to be working over at the chapel most of this week after Tuesday as we have to clean the exterior of the clock tower. Give me an email or call (250 746-7519) or just pop by. I live in the old office building at 4718 Fairbridge Drive.
    Ron

    • Hi, Ron:
      Thought of you recently when filing some of my columns including the ones I did for last Remembrance Day. (I get waaaay behind sometimes).
      Thanks to COVID the Chronicles were dropped from the Citizen after 23 years because of tanking advertising revenues.
      So I’ve reinvented my column as http://www.CowichanChronicles.com; it’s much more of en e-zine than a blog with posts as long as 5000 words instead of the 1000 as in the paper. I publish weekly, on Thursday, just as the paper did when it dropped to a single issue a week.
      Bottom Line: There will be my usual Remembrance Day special edition, but online, in November.
      Because my website offers me almost unlimited scope I offer much more in the way of photos, graphics etc. than I could before, so I would be interested in doing something with the Fairbridge Chapel plaques, etc.
      As you can see, email works best for me.
      Please remind me in a few weeks of this conversation. I’m working 16-hour days and weekends so I’m going to put the onus on you to follow up.
      In the meantime enjoy our beautiful weather. Cheers, TW

  2. Love your articles.

    • Thanks, Rick. My subscription website, http://www.CowichanChronicles.com, sucks up most of my time and energy these days so I have difficulty in writing posts for twp.com, my free site. Hope you keep on reading, though. I will continue to add posts as I can. –TW

    • So do I (he said modestly). Thanks, Rick, please keep reading. You can also try my subscription site, http://www.CowichanChronicles.com for bigger and better posts. –TW

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