Fountain
The British Columbia government lists several entries for features named Fountain,
including a number of First Nations reserves, a creek, a flat, and a locality, the
latter of which is likely the most relevant to the despatches, as it was a part of
the
Fraser River gold rush route of the late 1850s.
1The Fountain, or Fountains, is located roughly 10 km upriver from
Lillooet, and a few km above
Bridge River, near the mouth of Fountain Creek, and, according to Bancroft, it was
so named by the French Canadians on account of some natural features in the vicinity;
he goes on to report that Fountain was
the ultimate camp of the mining emigration of 1858.
2This despatch, from 1858, reports that
sluices
in and around the Fountain area
yield at the rate of 20 dollars a day to the hand.
And
this despatch, again from 1858, details
the average daily return of each of Five Rockers
extracted at the
dry diggings
of Fountain.
- 1. Search Results: Fountain, BC Geographical Names Information System.
- 2. Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, vol. 32, History of British Columbia 1792-1887 (San Francisco: The History Company, 1887), 454-455.