• Lunatic Writer
  • Novels & Novellas
    • Big Ledge Front
    • Big Ledge Back >
      • Big Ledge Review
      • Big Ledge More Reviews
      • Chicken Thief
      • Heaven
    • Loose Ends >
      • Loose Ends Back >
        • Loose Ends Interview
        • Reviews
    • Lunatics >
      • Copernicus Images
    • The Draper Catalogue >
      • Reviews
    • Eta Carinae >
      • Reviews
    • All Saints Day
    • Eta Carinae
    • Echoes
    • Book Reviews
  • Short Fiction
    • Sweet Melancholy
    • More Short Fiction
  • Drama
    • Willful Pursuits
    • More Willful Pursuits
    • Sproule's Folly
    • Gravity
    • Audio Drama
    • All the World's a Stage
    • Theatre Reviews
  • Astro
  • Author's Blog
  • Comments & Contacts
  • Res Naturae
    • Valhalla Provincial Park >
      • Gwillim Lakes
    • Record Ridge
    • Skattebo
    • Rock Slide Lake
    • Kootenay National Park >
      • Juniper
      • Marble Canyon
      • Paint Pots
      • Cobb Lake
      • Redstreak
      • Stanley Glacier
    • Waterton Lakes National Park >
      • Bear's Hump
      • Red Rock Canyon
      • Bertha Lake
      • Wall Lake
      • Prince of Wales
    • Old Growth Forest
    • Ripple Ridge
  • Abroad
    • Jamaica >
      • Aerial Creatures
      • Land Creatures
      • Ocean & Beach
      • Miscellaneous
    • France >
      • Paris I
      • Le Sud
      • Paris II
    • Oregon >
      • Washington
      • Cannonbeach
      • North Coast
      • Portland & Corvallis
      • Central Coast
      • Ashland
      • Crater Lake
      • Mt. Rainier
    • Belize >
      • Birds of Belize
      • Daily Life
      • Water Scenes
    • Greece >
      • Athens
      • Hydra
      • Argolid
      • Crete
      • Santorini
      • Mykonos & Delos
      • Delphi
    • Canyon Country >
      • Red Rock Canyon
      • Valley of Fire
      • Zion NP
      • Bryce Canyon NP
      • Grand Canyon
      • Sedona
    • Cuba >
      • Varadero
      • Jeep Tour
      • Havana
    • Cozumel >
      • All-Inclusive
      • Island Tour
      • Tulum
      • About Town
    • UK & Ireland >
      • London >
        • Ealing
        • Tower of London
        • Westminster
        • British Museum & the Eye
        • Thames & Greenwich
        • Victoria & Albert Museum
      • Northwest >
        • Grasmere
        • Chester
        • Liverpool
      • Southeast >
        • North Marston
        • Oxford
        • Hughenden Manor
        • Brighton
      • IRELAND >
        • Dublin
        • Killarney & Dingle
        • Muckross
      • York
      • West Midlands >
        • Hereford
        • Shrewsbury
      • Wales
      • Southwest >
        • Bath
        • Cornwall
    • Arizona >
      • Phoenix
      • Biosphere
      • Tucson
      • Nogales
      • Tombstone
      • Chiricahua
      • Kitt Peak
      • Casa Grande
  • I See You
  Lunatic Writer

Robert E. Sproule

11/15/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
          Sproule (rhymes with “coal”) is the central character of Big Ledge.  Born in Weeks Mills, Maine, like many young men of his generation, he was drawn to the lure of gold and instant wealth, promised in the bonanza discoveries all across North America in the 1800’s.

       Sproule had prospected in Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Washington Territory. There are even reports that he spent time in South America and possibly South Africa, looking for diamonds. He’d come close in Oregon. He’d found a promising deposit of coal near Tacoma, but rival interests apparently “framed” him on a charge of arson and forced him to leave or face the possibility of imprisonment.

            In the Kootenay District Sproule was convinced his luck had finally changed. His claim was clearly prior to anyone else’s. And any idiot could see that Big Ledge was tremendously rich in lead and probably some silver as well. There were technical difficulties, for sure.  There was no easy route to the mine site. No apparent way to move the ore out. And Sproule, personally, had none of the financial resources necessary to build the needed infrastructure.

            Nevertheless, Sproule was certain he could build his fortune here. It came as quite a shock that, within weeks of his initial claim, rivals were hot on his heels,  a syndicate of prospectors and businessmen headed by John C. Ainsworth of Oakland California. They had big plans for the area, which included not just staking out as many mining claims as possible, but building rail lines and putting steamboats on Kootenay Lake. In a very palpable way, things had set themselves up as a David vs. Goliath story at Big Ledge.

            To my knowledge there is no existing photograph or portrait of Sproule.  He seems to have had no distinguishing physical features but he is variously described as strong, a good worker, a tough mountain man, and an experienced miner.  Most important perhaps is his age. He was forty-something when he first came to Big Ledge, at least ten years older than most of his peers. He would have been considered an “old-timer” by the young bucks and, in his own mind, he must very much have regarded Big Ledge as his last chance to strike it big.

            There is much disagreement about Sproule’s character. His friends describe him as reliable, trustworthy, a good worker, knowledgeable.  Hendricks, who became his great financial backer in 1884 had no hesitation in hiring him as his superintendent of mining operations.

            His enemies, however, paint a very different picture. They describe Sproule as a man of unpredictable movements, vengeful, argumentative. Indeed some describe him as a criminal, not only guilty of arson, but probably murder too—more than one.

            There seems little doubt that Sproule had an intense dislike of Thomas Hammill who just before the close of the mining season in 1882, jumped his claim. His many threats against Hammill’s life are well documented. So when, on June 1, 1885, Thomas Hammill was found shot in the back, Sproule immediately became the prime suspect.

            All the evidence against him proved to be circumstantial and,  right to the moment before his hanging, Sproule continued to profess his innocence.

            Who was the “real” Sproule?  And what exactly happened on the day of the murder? That is the work of Big Ledge to explore and hopefully for my readers to enjoy.



Want to read the the start of the novel?   Click HERE!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.






    ​Author

    Brian d'Eon, fiction writer: whose work modulates between speculative, historical and magical realism.

    Categories

    All
    1917
    2010
    Ainsworth
    Albert Einstein
    Apollo XI
    Astronomer
    Baillie Grohman
    Baillie-Grohman
    Begbie
    Big Ledge
    Blade Runner 1982
    Blade Runner 2049
    Bluebell Mine
    Book Review
    British Colonist
    Bruce Dern
    Capitalism Vs Climate
    Chapbook
    Civilization
    Climate Change
    Cosmology
    C.S. Lewis
    Dandelions
    Davie
    Dead Crow
    Deon
    D'Eon
    Diana Morita Cole
    Draper Catalogue
    Dreams
    E-books
    Economics
    Editing
    Eileen Delehanty Pearkes
    Eta Carinae
    Fassbender
    Flashbacks
    Gravity
    Gray
    Green Manifesto
    Grohman
    Guess Who's Back?
    Hammill
    Harold Fry
    Hayao Miyazaki
    Hendryx
    Hitler
    Internees
    Isaac Newton
    Jamaica
    Jfk
    Jobs Vs Environment
    John Keats
    Kenneth Clark
    Kootenays
    Korolev
    Lily Langtry
    Lunatics
    Mark Twain
    Matt Haig
    Mikado
    Millet
    Nebraska Movie
    Nelson
    Nixon
    Novel
    Novel Drafts
    Novella
    Novel Structure
    Opium
    Oscar Nominees
    Photography
    Pitch
    Plague
    Point Of View
    Primack & Abrams
    Publishers
    Queenie Hennessy
    Rachel Joyce
    Rejection
    Review
    Richard Bausch
    Sam Mendes
    Saoirse Ronan
    Science And Religion
    Science Literacy
    Sean Arthur Joyce
    Serkis
    Shakespeare
    Sideways
    Sinixt
    Sproule
    Sputnik
    Steamer
    Stranger Things
    Submissions
    Sweet Melancholy
    Telescope
    The Humans
    The Price Of Transcendence
    The Wind Rises
    Travel
    Treasure Beach
    Van Gogh
    Victoria
    View From The Center Of The Universe
    Von Braun
    Winter Photos
    Yeats

    Archives

    February 2022
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    June 2019
    October 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    July 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012