Hiram Clark Whims: Suspect
by Shawn Tedford
Hiram Clark Whims was born in Missouri in the United States in 1847.(1) Like many African-Americans living in the period leading up to the Civil War, Whims came to Salt Spring Island, B.C. for an opportunity to escape racial inequality and pursue a more stable life in a community where people of his colour were in the majority. In addition to prospects of gold, the pre-emption of land might have also influenced Whims' decision to re-locate.(2)
Although the exact date of his arrival on Salt Spring is unknown, he pre-empted land near Long Harbour in 1868. In March of that year, he was among the suspects associated with the killing of William Robinson.(3) Whims was the first to report Robinson's body to the island constable, Henry Sampson, and was initially among the accused, but later was absolved of suspicion and paid $2.00 for "carrying information to constable [Sampson] of the body of William Robinson".(4)
Whims abandoned his 1868 pre-emption, and pre-empted 100 acres of land in the community of Ganges on 9 February 1870.(5) In 1881, he was, at 36 years old, accused and convicted of abducting Henry Sampson's 13-year-old daughter. Whims' younger brother had married Mary Anne's sister Emily (another of Sampson's daughters) in the 1870s. The marriage was never acknowledged. In 1884, he took an unprecedented step for a Black settler and pre-empted land at the south end of Salt Spring Island.
Whims died of paralysis on 18 March 1901 after six weeks of stay at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.(6) He had been a religious follower of the Church of England, and a labourer by occupation.
Additional information on Whims is sketchy. According to Judge Needham's notes, he had a brother by the name of William Whims(7), whose signature appears on Whims' death certificate.(8) It appears, too, that Whims had relatives on the island as is evidenced in newspaper items in the Colonist and Saanich Pender & Gulf Island Review . While it cannot be known for certain, Whims might have had a son by the name of George Hiram Whims, who died at age 58 on 23 January 1947.(9) By deduction, Clark would have been around 42 at the time of his son's birth.
Notes:
1. British Columbia Archives (BCA), Vital Statisics, Marriage and Death Records, GR 2951, File 01-09-014425, Registration of Births, Deaths, and Marriages Act, Hiram Clark Whims, 18 March 1869.
2. Crawford Killian, Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia , (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1978), p. 102.
3. Joseph Needham, "Bench Books of Criminal Cases Heard Before Judge Joseph Needham 1867-1869, "Who Killed William Robinson?," March 16, 1997,
4. Killian, Go Do Some Great Thing , p. 7.; BCA, Supreme Court Records, GR 1303, Box 31, File 13.
5. BCA, Textual Records, Pre-emption records, GR 0766, Box 9, 1144 Saltspring Island Hiram Whims, 28 February 1870.
6. BCA, Vital Statisics, Marriage and Death Records.
7. Needham, "Bench Books," p. 9.
8. BCA, Vital Statisics, Marriage and Death Records.
9. BCA, Vertical Files, Anonymous, "Salt Spring Man Buried at Ganges," Colonist , 28 January 1947, p. 11.