The double-barrelled, twin-trigger shotgun found buried deep in history along the steep banks in Fred Gingell Park will stay silent.
Volunteers working on the restoration of the slope last June found the rusty gun buried near a tree, part way down the slope. Included in the find were several plastic shotgun shells.
“The gun is going to remain a mystery, I guess,” said local historian and author Gary Cullen.
He co-wrote a book about the former pioneer resident of the home that was located just metres from the buried shot gun. Pansy May Stuttard lived on the lot above after a lifetime of skirmishes with the law.
Cullen co-wrote the book, Lord don’t want me: Devil won’t take me, said it can’t be said for certain where the gun came from.
Stuttard lived there until 1955, but the house remained vacant and abandoned until 1966, Cullen said. It’s possible her associates still used the place, Cullen said.
Stuttard died in 1963 in Cloverdale at age 89.
In the mid-1920s, Stuttard leased 27 acres at the south end of English Bluff Road and built a small house and lodge on the border. She brought liquor there, which was then legal in Canada, to smuggle into the U.S., according to a 2020 article in the Optimist by Cullen.
Later, she moved to the lot which is currently Fred Gingell Park.
“So some of her outlaw friends could have been hanging out there. Who knows what they could have been up to,” said Cullen. “It could have been somebody else who brought it there thinking it was a good place to hide it. Who knows.”
Volunteers turned the gun over to Delta Police. The shotgun was then cleaned up but there was no serial number on it and no name or date on it.
He said he doesn’t know what will happen to the shotgun, adding that it may have a shell stuck inside, saying it may be destroyed.
“It’s pretty much a mystery. The fact it shows up on her property and no one else had ever lived there. It’s got to be somehow, something tied to her, some how or another,” Cullen said.
