Next Meeting: Wed. Feb 5, 2025 @ 7:30 pm on Zoom
Murder in Cayoosh
Finding the brother of the first Jew buried in Victoria
By David Scriven
During the night of February 1st 1861, a Jewish storekeeper named Morris Price was brutally murdered in Cayoosh (now Lillooet) in the Colony of British Columbia. The shocked citizens raised a large reward and within a short time the perpetrators were apprehended. The local Masons buried the unfortunate man but three months later his body was disinterred and transported to Vancouver Island where he was buried with pomp by the Masons and Jews of Victoria becoming the first Jew buried in that cemetery. In Oct 1861 one Jacob St Losky of Vancouver Island, the brother and next of kin of Morris, was appointed Administrator of his estate.
The question was put to us by a law professor in Toronto who studied this case: “Who were Morris Price and Jacob St. Losky?”
We will try and unravel this mystery as we follow a pathway that leads from Prussia to England and America through the Panama Isthmus to the towns of the California Gold Rush and lastly to the Fraser Valley Gold Rush. Along the way we will encounter burglary, attempted murder, fire, Cuban cigars, smuggling and the Pony Express. We will briefly hear about President-elect Abraham Lincoln and consider the difficulty of communicating from the isolated colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island to the eastern parts of the North American continent before the building of a telegraph or railroad that crossed either country.
David Scriven is a scientist recently retired from UBC and long-time member of the JGSBC.
The Jewish Genealogical Society of British Columbia (JGSBC), a non-profit organization, brings together people who are interested in pursuing their Jewish ancestry or family history. Together with the Jewish Museum and Archives of BC we try to restore the history and family links that time has erased.
While there are many resources available on the internet, their use does require some skill and training. Many traps await the unwary: name changes, spelling errors, the same name for two different people, the many vagaries of census takers, clerks and other takers of record. The difficult task of digitizing the records has led to other errors creeping in. We will help you to avoid those pitfalls and develop an accurate and descriptive family tree. If you are interested in joining us, you can pay for a yearly membership here. Any questions? – send us an email.
This site also has links to resources (including Jewish newspaper archives) that we have found useful in our research.
JGSBC is a member of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies