Francis Carver’s assault on Anna Wetherell and her subsequent miscarriage entered the narrative through disputed courtroom testimony. On 11 October 1865, Carver encountered Anna while she was pregnant; he later admitted that he slapped her. Emery Staines testified that the assault was more severe and that Anna lost her child that same day, while acknowledging that he had not witnessed the encounter. The gap between what Staines reported and what Carver admitted leaves the event’s account contested, even as its consequences reach beyond the road encounter to Crosbie Wells and the question of the child’s paternity.

Background and chronology

The testimony takes place during the trial, where Walter Moody questions Staines about his poor opinion of Carver. Staines connects that judgment to Carver’s treatment of Anna and dates the assault to the afternoon of 11 October 1865. He is precise about the day, but not a firsthand witness to what happened between them.

Staines learned of the incident later that afternoon from Benjamin Löwenthal. Benjamin had found Anna by the road and, according to Staines, could confirm her condition when he discovered her. Staines had called on Benjamin to place a notice in the newspaper, an otherwise separate errand that became the means by which he received the news. The distinction matters: Staines’s testimony about the assault and its aftermath rests on what he was told, not on personal observation.

Competing accounts in court

Asked directly whether he assaulted Anna on 11 October, Carver admitted that he had slapped her. He described the act as a response to her laughing at him after he asked her for directions, and said that it was the only time he had laid a hand on her. His account narrows the confrontation to a single slap and presents it as a reaction to her conduct.

Carver also recalled seeing Anna beside the road while travelling from Hokitika towards Kaniere to inspect the Aurora goldmine. A quarterly report had indicated that the claim was producing little gold, and he said he was going to investigate. He described Anna as heavily affected by opium and speaking incoherently; after failing to get useful directions, he said he rode on. In his account, he did not know what happened to her after he left.

That version does not match Staines’s testimony about the seriousness of the assault and the child’s death. Carver acknowledged physical contact but rejected Staines’s account of its extent and disclaimed knowledge of the miscarriage. Staines, for his part, testified to the loss while making clear that he had not seen the assault himself. The court therefore hears two accounts with different claims and different limits: Carver describes what he says he did and saw, while Staines reports what Benjamin told him and what he later learned about the child.

The news reaches Crosbie Wells

After Benjamin told him what had happened, Staines went directly to the Arahura Valley to inform Crosbie Wells. He considered the news important because he believed Wells was the father of Anna’s child and thought Wells should know that the child had died. The episode thus links the roadside encounter to a private relationship that Staines brings into the public courtroom record.

Staines recalled that Wells said little when he heard the news. They had a drink together and sat for a while, and Staines stayed late. The account gives no further detail about Wells’s response; its restraint is part of the testimony. What it establishes is that the reported loss was conveyed to him that evening, and that Staines understood the news not merely as an injury to Anna but as the death of Wells’s unborn child.

Evidentiary significance

The trial’s questioning separates the event into a chain of knowledge: Carver’s admitted slap, Anna’s reported condition when Benjamin found her, Staines’s receipt of Benjamin’s account, and Staines’s decision to tell Wells. Each link carries a different degree of certainty. Carver provides a self-limiting account of his own conduct; Staines provides a secondhand account of the assault and identifies the basis for it; the child’s death is central to his testimony, but he did not witness either the encounter or its immediate aftermath.

The event’s significance in the courtroom lies in this tension between admission and denial. Carver concedes that he struck Anna but contests the description of what followed and says he knew nothing about the pregnancy loss. Staines testifies that Anna lost the child on the same day and explains why he went to Wells. The record presented here therefore establishes the date, Carver’s admitted slap, the reported miscarriage, and the route by which the news reached Wells, while preserving the conflict between the witnesses’ accounts.