I did a story about George Turner as a B.C. beekeeper and a former deputy sheriff in Kansas. The story caught the attention of a staff member of the Nature Conservancy of B.C. He was preparing a report on the conservancy property on the Klinaklini River, so here is the result.
Dalton’s Hideaway
is a Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) property acquired in 2011 and located on the Klinaklini River near Tatlayoko in the western Chilcotin.
It is a square property of 160 acres that straddles the floodplain of the river as it enters the Coast Mountains, on its way to the Pacific at Knight Inlet. Based on a story from the landowner, NCC named the property Dalton’s Hideaway.
The Dalton Gang was an outlaw gang from Kansas that started robbing trains and then graduated to bank robberies. There were three brothers in the gang. In an attempt to surpass Jesse James, they decided to rob two banks at the same time in a town called Coffeyville, Kansas. Although the gang wore false beards, they were recognized by a townsperson. The town ambushed the gang as they left the two banks, killed two Dalton brothers, several gang members and wounded the third Dalton brother (23 gunshot wounds.) That brother survived and was imprisoned for life (but pardoned after 14 years.) The B.C. story was that one member of the gang came to B.C. to hide and settled in the Klinaklini valley.
While I was writing the baseline report and attempting to reference the history of the property, Peter Shaughnessy shared a historical article that suggested George Turner was a Dalton gang member who escaped to B.C. (T.Kay. 202. Transporting bees by stagecoach. B.C. Historical News, Vol. 35, No. 2 pp 26-27.) George Turner became a beekeeper as well as a trapper. The reference for this conclusion in the historical article was in a book written about the beekeeping history of B.C. from 1858 – 1958, by W.H. Turnbull.
In September 2012, an historian and writer, Andy Motherwell from Quesnel, wrote an article about George Turner that was published in the Quesnel newspaper (how timely.) Using the original book as a source, Andy concluded that the Dalton connection had no validity. Rather, George Turner was a deputy sheriff under the famous Bat Masterson, himself a sheriff and renowned gunman from Kansas. During Turner’s career in Kansas, he shot 27 men, each kill leading to another notch on his handgun. This was probably occurring at the same time as the Dalton gang was at large. At some point in time, Turner decided that a quiet life in B.C. would remove the threat from his many enemies. He first homesteaded in Bella Coola and then moved to the remote area of the Klinaklini River, where he made his living as a trapper. He found a wild bee hive and decided to establish an apiary at his cabin, thus removing the need to pack sugar from miles away when he was getting coffee and flour. When he reached an age of about 80, Turner applied for an Old Age Pension, but found he lacked evidence of his age and time in Canada.
A member from the B.C. Provincial Police visited him at the cabin, searched through 40 years of accumulated papers and found the 1903 homestead agreement from Bella Coola (which established the OAP claim.) The policeman also found a handgun with 27 notches in the handle,
and Turner’s story came to light.
When the policeman took out his own gun and offered to have Turner shoot at a milk can laying on the ground 25 yards away, Turner hit it four times in succession. When the can was thrown in the air, he hit it three times with four shots. I think Turner died in 1956.
Andy Motherwell helped satisfy me that George
Turner was never a Dalton gang member, although it makes for an interesting story.
He has photocopied the relevant pages from the beekeeper history and sent those to NCC.
It is interesting how people can read something and through the written word, misrepresent history.
Although NCC will not be changing the property name, it should have been more correctly called Deputy Sheriff Hideaway or Beekeeper’s Hideaway (my favourite.)
Prepared by Andrew Harcombe (with critical help from Andy Motherwell and Peter Shaughnessy) October 2012.