1939 article by C.V. Tench found!

Mr. Cal Mark called our attention to an unknown 1939 article by C.V. Tench, titled “Hoodoo Gold in British Columbia: Death Guards Lost Creek Mine,” published in The Standard, Montreal. Cal Mark provided us promptly with a copy. Click here to read or download a transcript of the article from the Slumach Web site. It is a wonderful contribution.

Jack Mahoney and Hugh Murray did put together the classic “Slumach” and “Jackson” stories only half a year earlier and Tench borrowed heavily from their creation. Tench used Mahoney’s spelling of the name: Slummock and added a cameo appearance of Hugh Murray in his article, but he does not cite Murray anywhere. He also included a copy of the text of the “Jackson” letter from Mahoney’s piece.

In Mahoney piece it “was believed but never proven, that the half-breed Slummock had drowned three of his Indian ‘wives’” and that Slummock was hanged for the murder of another half-breed man. Tench changed the rumour into fact and increased the number of murdered women from three to eight. He also alleges that the Indian Slummock went to the gallows because of the murder of one of them. The real Slumach of course was executed for the murder of Louis Bee. Tench introduced the idea of a curse on the gold to the story and the word “Hoodoo.” The word "hoodoo" turned up again in Clyde Gilmour’s story of 1947 and "the curse" would grow into "Slumach’s curse" in the tales about Lost Creek gold.

In 1956 C.V. Tench, who was a well-known contributor to Canadian pulp magazines, would expand his 1939 tale into a well-illustrated article with the gory tales about "John Slummock” the nine murdered women and B.C. Provincial Police Constable Eric Grainger. The picture shown here of “John Slummock” appeared both in his 1939 and 1956 article and is of course not a picture of Slumach.