Sam Greer claimed he had purchased Kits Point off of Indigenous people for $200 in 1884.
How much of it was true is a matter for debate. But they were definitely interesting stories.
Greer was born just outside Londonderry in what is now Northern Ireland about 1844. He left his homeland when he was 20 for Quebec, then set out for the California gold fields by ship, crossing Central America through Nicaragua and the Isthmus of Panama before hopping on-board another ship and arriving in San Francisco.Article content
In the late 1860s, he came to colonial B.C., arriving in Victoria when it “was more like a trading town than anything else.” He then set out to make his fortune in the Cariboo gold fields. In Greer’s obituary in The Daily Province, it said he found a one-inch “pay streak” at Williams Creek near Barkerville and “recovered $8,000 of gold from it.”
“The rear engine jumped the track and fell down the ravine for about 75 feet,” Greer told Robinson. “The passenger car, just as she reached the first point of land on the other side, rolled over, turned two complete somersaults, and then on a powerful stump, 50 feet above the Fraser River.”Article content
Greer fought the CPR’s claim to the land, arguing he had a signed contract witnessed by the “Indian agent” for the nearby Kitsilano Indian Reserve. But the provincial government refused to recognize Greer’s claim to “Greer’s Beach,” today’s Kitsilano Beach.
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