Edward Henderson (d.1898)
Edward Henderson was originally from Blackburn, Lancashire, England. In 1898, he was travelling to the Klondike with companions Tomberg Peterson and George Gale. Henderson had a bladder condition that caused him to urinate every ten to fifteen minutes and he slept close to a tin can for that purpose. The men were camped at Marsh Lake with Henderson and Peterson in one tent and Gale in another. The can of urine was upset in the night onto Peterson’s blanket, and he was shot in the ensuing fight. In August 1898, Henderson was sentenced to hang for murder on 1 November, the same day fixed for the hanging of the Nantuck brothers.1) The Dawson hanging was witnessed by doctors Thompson and Hurdman and the men were buried in unmarked graves near the police barracks hospital.2) In 2010, the graves of Henderson and brothers Dawson and Jim Nantuck were unearthed during an excavation for a new sewage treatment plant. Up to eleven men were hanged by the North-West Mounted Police during the gold rush and their grave sites were never mapped.3)