(1 Sept. 1820-7 Nov. 1888), prospector and figure of legend, and one of the very best remembered of all 19th-century Glengarrians. (Cariboo Cameron) Born in Charlottenburgh Township, GC. Parents: Angus Cameron and his wife Isabella McDougal. He was descended from John Cameron the Wise, and was the brother of Allan Cameron. John A. Cameron was in California in the 1850s, presumably as a gold prospector, but he was back in GC by 1860, then went to the Cariboo (British Columbia) with his wife to look for gold, and began a business association with Robert Stevenson. In Dec. 1862 Cameron’s group of miners hit gold in the celebrated Cameron Claim, which was to be the basis of Cameron’s future wealth. Meanwhile, his wife had died in the mining country. In the winter of 1863 Cameron and Stevenson hauled her body with great difficulty to Victoria for temporary burial. Later the body, in an alcohol-filled coffin, was removed by way of Panama to Cornwall, Ont., and reburied there. Cameron returned to GC a wealthy and famous man. It appears, however, from the material that appeared in the Cornwall Freeholder at the time that he was also arrogant and marked by violent behaviour. But life was good also, for on 5 July 1865, “in the presence of a large number” of his friends who were entertained after the ceremony at a “splendid dinner,” he laid the cornerstone at Summerstown of his house or mansion, Fairfield. (Cornwall Advertiser, 12 July 1865; and see J. G. Steacy) Work on the new house was, in fact, in progress from before this date, for when Cameron entertained the champion athletes R. R. McLennan and Thomas Jarmy at his home, it was noted that Cameron had “engaged the services of a highly competent architect to superintend the construction of a costly mansion on which a large number of workmen are at present engaged, and which we are informed will likely rival in costliness any private edifice between Kingston and Montreal.” (Cornwall Freeholder 2 June 1865)

     Amid his triumphs, Cameron was harassed by speculations about the real story behind the death of his wife and the strange journey of her coffin. One charge was that she was still alive, but that Cameron had sold her to an Indian chief for gold. On 19 Aug. 1873 Cameron had his wife disinterred and the face was shown to the crowd of spectators in Cornwall. Their child, who also died in British Columbia, had likewise been buried in Cornwall. It is probably impossible to tell now exactly how the travels of the child’s body connect with those of the mother. At any rate the two were now reburied at Summerstown in GC, where they still lie. How Cameron lost his fortune is not known in any detail. In fact, for someone so celebrated, surprisingly little is known about his career in GC from the 1860s to the 1880s. But at any rate, the money was gone when he returned near the end of his life to the scene of his gold mining triumphs in the Cariboo. He died at Barkerville, B. C., where his gold mine had made his fame and fortune, and he is buried close at hand at Camerontown, which is named after him. He was married: (1) in 1860 to Margaret Sophia Groves, of Cornwall Township, (2) in 1865 to Christina Adelaide Wood, who died in Montreal 3 Nov. 1928 a few days short of the 40th anniversary of her husband’s death. Her family were foundry owners at Lunenburg, west of Cornwall. (See life of Mrs Alexander Cameron). There is no truth in the legend that Christina Adelaide died destitute in an old people’s home her husband had endowed. However, Mary Mack, who remembered her as a tall, thin old lady living in somewhat spartan lodgings in Cornwall, confirmed that she was poor in her later years. Cameron’s splendid Fairfield was the home of Patrick Purcell before Cameron’s death, though it is not clear from the documentation what the legal processes of the transfer to Purcell were. Fairfield in recent years has been the home of Le juvenat du Sacré Coeur.

     There is a painting of Cariboo Cameron by Stuart McCormick. Cameron features in A.P. Gardiner’s The House of Cariboo (1900) and Alan Sullivan’s Cariboo Road (1946), both novels. Bill Gallaher’s The Promise: Love, Loyalty and the Lure of Gold: the Story of “Cariboo” Cameron (2001) tells the story of Cariboo Cameron “in the voice of Robert Stevenson,” i.e., it is in effect a biography of Cameron as told by an imagined Stevenson (Robert Stevenson this dictionary), and is both a novel and a fictionalized biography. It has material accordingly throughout on Stevenson himself. In 1999, a play by Gysèle Poirier, “Ode to Cariboo Cameron,” was staged at Glen Walter, GC. (Glengarry News 2 June 1999) There is at least one poem, Lee McKnight, The Colorful Career of Cariboo Cameron (1969), printed as a four-page leaflet. See also Thomas Hall, James McPherson, and J. C. Steacy in this dictionary.

     Several people in GC history through the similarity of name can be confused with John A. (“Cariboo”) Cameron. Cariboo Cameron himself had at least two nephews called John A. Cameron, and a William Cameron, of Williamstown, was also called “Cariboo.”

Life by Royce MacGillivray, Dictionary of Canadian Biography XI, and the sources cited there including the works by Robert Stevenson mentioned in his entry in the present dictionary, and Harkness: index * file of papers on Cariboo Cameron compiled in preparing the DCB life and now preserved in the collections of the GHS, Williamstown * Mabel Tinkess Good, “Once-Flourishing Camerontown Now Just a Memory Out in B.C.,” Standard Freeholder 26 Sept. 1953 * Mrs Dora Mossop’s article, GHS, Annual Volume 14 (1974-75), includes family knowledge * Chapter V, “The Odyssey of Cariboo Cameron” in Pierre Berton, The Wild Frontier (1978) * Harkness index * MacGillivray & Ross 686: the information for recovering the long-lost date of the disinterment of the first Mrs Cariboo Cameron * Dumbrille, U, 127-129 * Rhodes Grant, i, 94: legends * Senior 287 (group portrait) * interview with Mary Mack, 27 May 1976 * Gerry Boyce, Eldorado: Ontario’s First Gold Rush (1993) for Cameron’s contact with the Madoc Gold Rush * Cariboo Cameron in index to Bibliography of Glengarry for further publications on Cameron * Villeneuve 101, 138-139 * obituary of the second Mrs Cariboo Cameron, Cornwall Standard 8 Nov. 1928, repr. Glengarry News 16 Nov. 1928 * Elizabeth Hoople and the Wood Research Team, Jonas Wood U.E.L. (1984?) 18-19 for second Mrs Cameron * file of the CF 1865-1968 formerly owned by Earl Bradley, Alexandria, and now in Archives of Ontario has valuable material on Cameron’s behaviour in the period immediately after his return from the gold fields * 2 nephews , William (Cariboo) Cameron: SFH 12 March 1937 (20 Years Ago column), GN 8 Aug. 1947, CF 14 May 1925 (20 Years Ago column) * report that Patrick Purcell has purchased Fairfield, advertised sale (2 notices) of Cameron’s effects at Fairfield, Cornwall Reporter 5 March & 9 April 1881 * CF 30 Nov. 1922, W. M. Saucier, jeweller, Chesterfield, Ont., receives for repair one of the gold watches Cariboo Cameron gave to his brothers on his return from the gold fields * CF 27 July 1929, Cornwall Standard (2 items) 1 Aug. 1929, Wattie gold claim, Wattie family, of Cariboo Cameron connections * GN 16 Feb. 1956, Stuart McCormick’s painting of Cariboo Cameron loaned to Cornwall Public Library*