Caspar Phair
Irish
1846 – 1933
Caspar Phair was an Irish-born teacher, merchant and magistrate at Lillooet, British Columbia, who as Government Agent served the Bridge River and Cayoosh Creek mining country for decades, running a general store that lasted over fifty years.
Biography
Caspar Phair was born in 1846 in Ireland and emigrated to British Columbia in 1873 by way of California, arriving at Lillooet around 1877 to take up the post of village schoolteacher. Lillooet, which had boomed as Mile 0 of the old Douglas Road during the Fraser and Cariboo rushes, remained the service town for placer miners working the Fraser, Bridge River and Cayoosh Creek country, and Phair became its leading citizen.
Appointed Government Agent, he accumulated the assemblage of offices typical of a colonial-era country official: magistrate, mining recorder, chief constable, coroner, fire chief and game warden. In this capacity he presided over the district's later gold excitements, including the Golden Cache mania on Cayoosh Creek in the 1890s, when Lillooet briefly filled with speculators. His most lasting mark was commercial: the general store he launched served the district for more than fifty years.
In 1879 Phair married Cerise Eyre, and the couple built Longford House, an elegant home said to be modelled on Mrs Phair's family home in Eyrecourt, County Galway. Their son Arthur (Artie) Phair became a noted chronicler and photographer of Lillooet history. Caspar Phair died in 1933; Mount Caspar near Lillooet and Cerise Creek recall the family's name.