News from Cariboo!

The British Colonist, February 27, 1863

Dates to February the First.

Great Excitement at the Mines!!

$30,000 in Gold Dust brought
Down by Barnard's
Express from Williams
Creek Alone!

$10,000 IN PRIVATE HANDS!

Large Amount on the Way!

By Dietz & Newton's Express we have the following highly important intelligence from Williams Creek:

Mr. Wm. Humphrey, of Barnard's Express, left Richfield on the 1st of February and reached Lytton in the extraordinary short time of nineteen days, being a feat unprecedented we believe in expressing at this season of the year....

George Harvey, the miner, and his two companions at Deep Creek are getting quite well of the small-pox. They expected to be able to leave in a short time after the Express was there. The Indians from the Forks of Quesnelle down to and including Lillooet have nearly all been carried off by the epidemic, which has been raging among them all the season. The survivors have sad tales to tell of the dreadful scourge which has wrought such fearful havoc among their friends. At Lillooet report sets down the number of natives who succumbed to the violence of the disease at 170, and what was once a powerful tribe of warriors is now reduced to a few miserable beings. There was more business than formerly reported in Lillooet, so far as business was concerned; and the arrival of Mr. Humphreys with 140 pounds of gold in the town created rather a sensation. The hotels are all open, preparing for the miners going up, and packers and forwarders are resolved to make the first start on the 15th of March for the upper country. The river was still frozen over and horses and cattle were constantly being driven across the ice....