Description of Historic Place

Blessing's Grave consists of a solitary gravesite with a modest, wooden headboard and a white picket fence enclosure. The site is located on a hillside just off Highway 26 to Barkerville (formerly the Cariboo Wagon Road) near the unincorporated community of Pinegrove, 43 km east of Quesnel, British Columbia. The grave site is surrounded by a forest of native alder and coniferous trees. A parking bay off the highway with a permanent wooden sign marks the access to an uphill 100 yard-long path leading to the grave site.The provincial designation applies to the grave site and the 1.2 acre parcel of land surrounding it.

Heritage Value

Blessing's Grave is significant as the last resting place of Charles Morgan Blessing, an American miner murdered on the site in 1866 by his Cariboo Wagon Road travelling companion. The site is important as a tangible reminder of the 1860s Cariboo Gold Rush that brought tens of thousands of prospectors and investors from all over the world to this area, and links the establishment and development of the Cariboo region to the feverish quest for gold.

The grave has historical and cultural value as evidence of the efficient, organized policing of the area and the law-enforcement and judicial systems that handled murder cases urgently and seriously in extremely remote areas of early British Columbia. It contrasts a Canadian concern for fairness and justice with the disorder of the earlier California Gold Rush.

The site is significant for its association with the historic Cariboo Wagon Road travelled by miners, such as Blessing, on their way to the gold fields. The Cariboo Wagon Road was a crucial transport route constructed between 1862 and 1865 that allowed the interior to be accessed, exploited and settled. The gravesite's location in the forested hillside above the road still recalls the wild, remote setting travellers would have encountered along the Cariboo Wagon Road and the rustic conditions they would have experienced in this area from the 1860s until the 1960s when the road was paved.

Blessing's Grave is a reminder of the often-harrowing events and stories associated with the gold rush that took place along the Cariboo Wagon Road between the communities of Quesnel, Barkerville and Wells during the Cariboo's gold bonanza. Its enduring social value is evident in the ongoing marking of and care for the site over many decades by local residents and historical groups, including local MLA Louis Lebourdais and the Cariboo Historical Society.

Source: BC Heritage Branch, Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations

Character-Defining Elements

Key character-defining elements of Blessing's Grave include:

Site:
- Location just off the 1865 Quesnel-Barkerville Cariboo Wagon Road route
- Relatively remote and isolated location in the forest
- Cleared forest trail leading from the road to the gravesite with wooden steps near the parking area
- Permanent sign marking the site at the roadside
Grave:
- Gravesite surrounded by a fence
- Wooden headboard in the gravesite with painted, handwritten text: "In Memory of C.M. Blessing, A Native of Ohio, Age 30 Years, was murdered near this spot, May 31, 1866"
- White painted wood picket fence around the burial site with decorative corner columns