Digital Bob Archive

Uncle Dick Willoughby spent many winters at Funter Bay where he and a partner, Aaron Wair, had located the Tellurium lode claim in 1887 and several other claims later on. They often carried on development work together until Wair's death in 1894. After that Willoughby often worked alone. He had a snug log cabin on the beach near one of the claims and often lived there from late fall until spring, with an occasional trip to town for supplies.

It was a stormy night one February when Willoughby shambled through the door of Harry Ash's Hub Saloon, walked to the far end of the bar and ordered a drink without even a nod to his many friends. They looked at each other in amazement as Dick hunched over the bar. Finally an oldtimer from Cassiar days approached him. \"Dick, what is the matter? Are you in trouble?\"

\"Trouble? Friend, I'm so deep in trouble I ain't never going to get out of it. My own fool fault, too. It was my temper. If I'd stopped to think I'd never have pulled the trigger. I'd have let him off, even if he was a thief.\"

\"Good Lord, Dick, you killed him? Who?\"

\"Not a who. If it was a who I could talk my way out of it. But there's no talking away the bad luck that comes of killing a raven. The Indians told me that and I know it's true.\"

\"Aw, Dick, that's just superstition. Maybe you've been having a little bad luck, but killing a raven wouldn't be the reason.\"

\"Wouldn't eh? Well, you fellers gather 'round and I'll tell you what happened. Then you tell me the cause of it.

\"I been driving a drift on my claim, as you all know. Working at it every day and in about fifty feet now. Well, I kept my powder in the woodshed and this last cold spell it froze up on me. So when the sun came up, day before yesterday, I got out two sticks and laid them on a big flat rock to thaw out while I put in another hole. But when I went to get the powder, it was gone. No sign of it anywhere, but there was a seagull sitting on the bay and looking mighty satisfied.

\"Well, when I fetched two more sticks of powder, I got my rifle, too, just in case he should try it again. Went back to drilling and this time when I came out there was a big raven just swallowing the last of my powder. When he saw me he flew off, landed a little ways away and sat there, laughing at me.

\"Mad! I tell you I was seeing red and without thinking I pulled down and let him have it. The second I pulled the trigger I knowed it would be bad luck, but I didn't know it would be so sudden. Instant bad luck, you might say. You see, that bird was on the ridgepole of my cabin. I found a few feathers, a big pile of kindling wood, one stove lid and my good iron pot cracked right in two!\"

After that the next report we have on Dick Willoughby came from a Juneau friend who saw him at Woodland Park in Seattle in April 1902. His pockets were full of peanuts which he was doling out to a troop of kids he was entertaining with sleight-of-hand tricks. He was having a wonderful time, and so were the kids.

Two weeks later, on May 13, Dick Willoughby died in a Seattle hospital.