Henry Sampson: Special Constable

Henry Sampson was born in Kent, England in 1830. He came out to Vancouver Island in 1849, aboard the Norman Morrison , and worked as a carpenter and miner with the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Rupert in the 1850s. In 1859 he took up land at Beg's Settlement on Salt Spring Island with his Aboriginal wife and children. From 1864 onward, he was occasionally hired as a Special Constable. He took his work seriously: in 1866 he arrested his wife, who was accused by a neighbour, James McFadden, of being an accomplice in the attempted poisoning of McFadden, with Sampson's daughter. Mrs. Sampson was convicted, but received a pardon in 1867. She did not return to Salt Spring. Mr. Sampson lived with the children and another Aboriginal woman, Lucy. They had nine children together, marrying in 1904. In 1881, he arrested a would-be family member when their thirteen-year-old daughter, Mary Anne, eloped with a 36-year-old Black, Clark Whims (whose younger brother had married Mary Anne's sister). Sampson arrested Whims, who was charged and convicted of abducting a minor. Sampson and fellow-settler Norton provided important evidence incriminating Tshuanahusset during the 1869 trial.