RICHES TO RAGS: — Despite his remarkable gold find, Sam Napier

The two men stealthily filled the hole and pulled their crude plank table over the spot. Then they shuffled about on the tent’s earthen floor in an attempt to wipe out all evidence of their midnight excavations. Finally they paused and looked at each other in the light of the single lantern suspended from the centre of their canvas home. Their faces radiated exultation.

“We did it, Sam,” one of them finally managed to breathe. “We got her hid before anyone got wise.”

“Tomorrow we’ll book passage out of here,” his companion replied, his voice trembling with anticipation. “Then it’s the good life for us, Charlie. We’ll be rich men. They’ll never believe this, back home in Bathurst.” He rubbed his worn boot over the tent floor again and grinned. It had all been worth it, he thought, as he recalled signing on as a crewman aboard the Marco Polo, reputedly the fastest clipper in the world, then jumping ship in Melbourne, Australia, to join his brother Charlie on his claim. Now he could return to his home in New Brunswick, not simply a rich man, but a very rich man.

It was Aug. 14, 1857. The place was the Kingover Gold Field of Australia. That afternoon Sam Napier and his brother Charles had discovered what was to prove to be the largest gold nugget ever discovered up to that time. Indeed, it was such a size that when Sam’s pick first struck it, he believed he had simply encountered another rock. The brothers had proceeded to uncover it and were amazed to find unmistakable evidence that the huge lump was rich with gold. The nugget weighed 145 lb., was 2 ft., 4 inches long, 10 inches wide and more than 1.5 ft. thick.

Afraid of being attacked and robbed if their discovery became known in the lawless community, they had unobtrusively transported it to their tent by wheelbarrow. Under cover of darkness, they hid it in the earth beneath their table.

At the first opportunity, they quietly left the gold field and embarked for England. Experts who examined it on their arrival in Britain declared it to be 95% pure gold. Overnight the brothers were famous.

They were invited to tea with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. The nugget was named “Blanche Barkley” for the daughter of Governor Barkley of Victoria and was placed on exhibition in the Crystal Palace where it was viewed by thousands.

The Bank of England eventually purchased it for 10,000 pounds and melted it down, but not before a replica was made. Today that reproduction is in the Memorial Branch of the British Museum, Cromwell Rd., London. The brothers divided the money. Charles decided to return to Australia while Sam chose to return to his home in Bathurst, N.B.

Sam had been born Samuel Hawkins Napier in 1937 in Scotland. He had immigrated as a child with his parents to Quebec, then to Bathurst, where he was educated in the public system and later employed in the lumber and milling businesses of the area.

His older brother Charles was lured to Australia when the gold rush there was in full swing. His enthusiastic letters to Bathurst excited young Sam’s imagination and he decided to join his brother. At the age of 20, Samuel Napier made his awesome discovery. But his story does not end there. Sam received a warm welcome on his return to Bathurst. He went into business and became a popular figure in the village. By the time he was 25, he was married to the daughter of the captain of one of the ships on which he had sailed and had a 1-year-old daughter who was to be his only child. In June, 1870, he was elected to the New Brunswick House of Assembly. He sat in the legislature until 1874, when he retired from active politics. Then trouble overtook him and he suffered severe financial reverses. His wealth dwindled until he was obliged to seek employment with timber operators. In 1896, he left New Brunswick, eventually finding his way to Ottawa where he became a timber cruiser and watchman for one of the lumber firms operating in the Gatineau River district.

He was last seen alive in June, 1902. His body was discovered the following August in an isolated cabin in the Gatineau wilderness, guarded over by his dog which had been his only companion in the final hours of his life. It was a sad end for a man whose glittering find had astounded the world 45 years earlier.

And perhaps his brother Charles fared no better after returning to Australia. A letter in

the New Brunswick Provincial Archives dated Aug. 16, 1918, from a Miss B. Napier of Melbourne asks

if perhaps she has been mentioned in her uncle’s will and engages a firm of Edinburgh, Scotland, solicitors to look into the matter. Was this perhaps Charles’s daughter? Had she fallen on hard times as the result of the dissipation of her father’s wealth and been forced to seek money from her Bathurst relatives?

Today, there are only small remnants of the brothers’ great find left in Canada. One of their relatives in Vancouver has a ring made from a piece of the nugget, while another in Halifax has a watch containing a bit of its gold. Sam, his brother, and their amazing find live on mainly as legends legends that confirm the dreams of prospectors

everywhere.

— Gail MacMillan is a writer living in Bathurst N.B.