The New Settlements.
To some, the story of early settlement appears prosaic. To the deep
thinking, there is in it romance of the most thrilling kind. Who has not
read with sympathetic interest the story of Abraham going into a far
country that God would tell him of? How Scottish hearts have been moved
with the accounts of the Highland Clearances, when thousands of crofts
and straths and glens were left behind, and their occupants hurried
forth to find homes in Pictou, Glengarry, or on the banks of the Hudson!
It is not only in the painful separations, the leaving behind of spots
and scenes consecrated with the dearest memories, and in some degree the
sense of failure in having to give up old associations forced by hard
necessity; but the tearful outlook into the unknown, the dread of
meeting the inhospitality of a cold world, and the utter feeling of
uncertainty that give its human interest to the emigrant ship as it
sails forth from the old-world port, or the settler's wagon as it wends
its way through the bush or over the "interminable prairie."
All the pathetic scenes of early settlers' life became familiar in
connection with the Red River becoming a part of Canada. As soon as the
Rebellion had been quelled, and Manitoba became open for settlement, a
movement took place from all parts of Canada to occupy the fertile
prairies of the West. Farmers, whose families were finding the small
farm of one hundred acres or less on which they had grown up too strait
for them, sold off their possessions and journeyed to Manitoba to take
homesteads and pre-emptions on its virgin prairies.
For the first few years the journey was made by rail to St. Paul, in the
American State of Minnesota. Here the old-fashioned settler's wagon with
its canvas top--the prairie schooner as it has been called--was revived;
the household goods and a stock of provisions were packed in closely,
and after them the women and children entered to undertake a journey of
nearly five hundred miles to the new land of hope in the north. The
father and sons drove the herd of cattle and the extra horses; and from
camping place to camping place groups of settlers' wagons moved in daily
caravans over the prairie trails.
In one such wagon the writer remembers to have seen an old lady of over
eighty years, who, seated in her commodious arm chair, held her post
among the boxes and bedding and farming tools over this long and weary
route. At a stopping place in the then utterly wild territory of Dakota,
the writer remembers to have seen the quaint entry in the register of
the wayside hostelry of J. W., "Citizen of the World." The traveller had
evidently been impressed with the illimitable stretch of the prairie, so
like the sea. At times the unbridged coulée, with its depth of water,
was to be crossed, when all the goods had to be unloaded from the
wagons, the goods and chattels floated across, the horses and cattle
made to swim over; and a delay, sometimes dangerous, of several hours
checked the forward advance of the caravan. Sometimes the fierce storm
of the prairie rose, and compelled the parties to keep camp for two or
three days. The writer calls to mind one storm in 1872 that blew over
tents, drove horses and cattle hither and thither over the prairies, and
well-nigh brought bands of travellers to despair. Such are the dramatic
features of frontier life.
At times the settler and his family went by rail as far as the Red
River, and reached a town two hundred and twenty-five miles by land
above Fort Garry. Here a Red River steamer was taken, and by following
seven hundred miles of the winding river the destination was reached.
The Red River steamer was of the Mississippi type, flat-bottomed and
easily running over shallows. Indeed, speaking in western phrase, it
could run over the prairie if there was a good heavy dew upon the grass.
The extra goods were towed in barges behind the steamer, and old-timers
still delight to recount the picturesque scenes connected with the Red
River steamboat. At times, when the river had flooded its banks, the
steamer lost her course in the night, and was compelled to fasten her
bow to a tree on a prairie bluff till the morning. Thousands of the
early settlers of Manitoba remember the river steamers--the delay of
days together when stranded on the rapids--the wretched meals, and the
primitive accommodation. Arrived at Fort Garry, the settler found the
troubles and discomforts soon forgotten in the hurry and bustle of a new
life.
Then the toilsome journey, on steamboat or over muddy roads, with
myriads of mosquitoes and inevitable hardships, was past, and the
steamer "tied up" at the warehouse, or the prairie caravan crossed the
ferry of the Assiniboine and camped by the walls of Fort Garry. The sun
seemed to shine all the brighter and the air was all the more
exhilarating since the goal had been reached and the land of promise
entered on.
At a distance of about half a mile from the fort was now springing up
the straggling village of Winnipeg. This nucleus of the present city was
a separate place, with different ideals and often divergent aspirations,
from old Fort Garry. For years the struggle prevailed as to which should
rule, but the increase of population, the influx of men of wider view,
and the softening influence of time abolished the rivalries, and the
Hudson's Bay Company has in late years entered into all the objects and
prospects of the city along with its most enterprising citizens. The
picture of that early Winnipeg is a strange contrast to the city of
to-day.
Soon after his arrival the family patriarch and his stalwart sons found
their way to the land office, inspected the list of vacant lands,
ascertained where acquaintances had gone, and after visits and journeys
hither and thither, made up their minds where to take up lands from the
embarrassing plenty that was offered them. New townships were opening up
in all directions where the surveyors had gone, and east and west new
settlements sprang up like magic.
The Kildonan people, from their greater intelligence than that of their
neighbors, and their long residence in the country, were naturally much
consulted as to the best parts of the country and the localities most
desirable for settlement. Their habits of life, however, being more
pastoral than agricultural, had led them to different views from those
taken by the majority of the new-comers who were farmers. The writer
remembers very well in 1871 hearing of several Canadian families, who
had broken the immemorial custom of settling along the river bank, and
had ventured beyond Bird's Hill on the one hand, and Stony Mountain on
the other, several miles from the river. These were looked upon by some
of the old settlers as simply mad, their failure was prophesied, and the
expectation was strongly held that they would be frozen on the plains,
or lost in the snow-drifts if they attempted during the winter to find
their way to the old settlement. To-day, tens of thousands of Manitoba
settlers have their comfortable houses on the open plains.
SOUND THE GOSPEL CLARION.
Wherever the settler goes, there must the herald of the Gospel follow
him. Many of the early settlers of Manitoba came from the congested
agricultural districts of Bruce, Huron and Lanark counties, in Ontario.
As these were strongly Presbyterian localities, a very large proportion
of the incoming settlers belonged to the church whose foundation John
Black had been for twenty years so industriously and firmly laying. The
Presbytery of Manitoba had been formed just in time (1870) to deal with
this great influx of people, and applications came to it from almost
every new locality to have the Gospel preached. It was a great
responsibility. Money and men were scarce, and the source of both these
lay in the older provinces, from which so many of the older settlers
were coming. The doctrine was laid down that it was the duty of settled
pastors, ordained missionaries, college professors, students and also
efficient elders, to occupy the new and rising settlements, and the
leading members of Presbytery cherished it as an ambition to be the
first church to preach the Gospel in each rising settlement. That
ambition has been largely fulfilled in the quarter of a century that has
elapsed since it was formed. It involved great self-denial to accomplish
this. But the spirit prevailed. It has led to the enormous growth that
has taken place, as seen in the fact that the nine preaching places of
1870 have increased to the vast number, north and west of Lake Superior,
of 839 in 1897.
CHURCH STATESMANSHIP.
Much more, however, than this was necessary. The new province of
Manitoba was unknown. People do not send their contributions largely to
places of which they know nothing. There were many in the eastern
provinces who had no confidence in the future of Manitoba. One of the
leaders of the Church denounced it as a frozen Siberia, and declared
himself unwilling to spend a dollar of mission money within its
hyperborean limits.
It became the duty of John Black and his colleagues to do away with this
false notion. They knew well their advantage as belonging to the
Presbyterian Church. It is a church which legislates in its highest
court--the General Assembly--for the weak as well as for the strong; for
the maligned as well as for the popular; for the distant as well as for
the central interests. Accordingly the Manitoba men began the work by
letter, and full report, and map, and speech, and personal influence,
with the purpose of letting the church know the capabilities of the
country, and the prospect of a large population coming to cultivate its
fertile soil.
And this was not a mere spasmodic effort, but it has continued from
that day to this. The Presbytery of Manitoba kept up a constant
agitation as to its wants, knowing that the kindly mother in the east
but needed to hear the cry of her children and she would relieve them.
And so it has been. The outlook of the church has been so widened that
to day money flows freely to Manitoba, Assiniboia, Alberta, Saskatchewan
and British Columbia for the wide mission work of the west.
HARD WORK.
But the organization and development of the work in the new settlements
was a mighty task. In Mr. Black's letters are frequently found:
"Received your letter as I was leaving to visit Grassmere"; "Have just
returned from the new settlement in Springfield"; "Paid a visit on
church work to the Portage," and the like. This was to an equal or
larger extent the same with every ordained missionary, professor and
other laborer. The great question became, Who could do the most, not,
Who could escape the most. The work was carried on during the winter as
thoroughly as in summer.
In 1874 one of the ministers undertook to supply a new settlement, forty
miles from Winnipeg, once a month during winter. Preaching at the
distant point on Sabbath morning he came towards the city, about half
way took another service among people who had come in that very year,
and then struck homeward across the treeless, pathless, uninhabited
prairie, having nothing to guide him but the stars.
The roads over the prairie in early days were nothing but trails running
in a most perplexing manner, and missionaries were constantly losing
their way, and sometimes spent the night in the shelter of a bluff, or
solitary stack in the wide hay meadow. In some years the roads were very
bad. To become "mired" or "bogged" in a "slough," and to have the
shaganappi or Indian pony coolly lie down in the mud, was an occurrence
by no means uncommon. Winter with its biting blasts gave no respite to
the faithful missionary.
The history of Manitoba missions has been a marvellous record of
faithful, uncomplaining, self-denying service. Men have been placed in
charge of six or seven townships with settlers scattered sparsely
through them. They have carried on for years, in winter's cold and
summer's heat, service at six and seven points, three and even four on a
Sabbath, and all this on small and poorly paid stipends. Truly Christ
said, "My kingdom is not of this world."
THE HONOR ROLL.
Did time and general interest permit, the growth from year to year, and
from district to district, in Manitoba might be traced; the special work
of faithful missionaries might be given and their great services
recounted. This is not our present purpose. The presbytery, in its early
missionary plans in 1871, consisted of Revs. John Black, James Nisbet,
William Fletcher, John McNabb, and the writer. Mr. Nisbet was five
hundred miles west, at Prince Albert, and the little knot of members
seemed too small to face so large a work; but missionary after
missionary was sent by the generous and patriotic home mission committee
in Toronto. Prof. Hart, a missionary of the Church of Scotland in
Canada, came to join us in the following year, and Rev. James Robertson
two years after that.
[Illustration: WINNIPEG IN 1870.]
Frazer, Matheson, Donaldson, and Vincent were active members of
presbytery and worthy foundation builders. McKellar, Bell and Stewart
were a trio who did yeoman service in the splendid farming region of
Portage la Prairie and Gladstone. Scott and Borthwick and Ross took hold
of Southern Manitoba and laid the foundations of numerous congregations,
such as Emerson, Carman, Morden and others, now self-sustaining and
influential. Alex. Campbell, James Douglas, A. H. Cameron, and Alexander
Smith all earned a good degree in the later seventies, and are still
residents of the west. Such men as McGuire, Wellwood, Donald McRae,
Hodnett, and Polson were hard-working pioneers in the last years in
which John Black yet remained with us.
St. Paul's list of worthies was well called a cloud of witnesses in his
wonderful chapter in the Hebrews, and we honor those whose names have
become world wide for their faith and self-sacrifice; but many of the
names now mentioned are also those of men of unflinching courage, of
splendid endurance, of godly lives, and truest influence. The fact that
numbers of them, and others who have since come to the west, were
willing to bury themselves in obscure mission stations for the sake of
Christ, but showed them to be men of the same spirit as John Black, and
their virtues call for admiration and regard.
SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES.
The great mission work, from 1871 to 1881, was of the most difficult and
trying kind. The settlements were new, the people were very scattered,
were strangers to one another, their resources were small, and mission
work was carried on under the greatest disadvantages. But such
faithful, self-denying work never goes unrewarded. During one-half of
this decade the country suffered from the terrible plague of the
grasshoppers. The new farmers all through the settlements were greatly
discouraged. About the year 1875 there were thousands of settlers of
Manitoba reduced to the scantiest fare. The writer recalls those dark
days of the new settlement.
If ever the consolations of religion were needed, and indeed largely
appreciated, it was during the years of the grasshopper scourge. The
services were held in settlers' houses. The settlers kindly invited the
missionaries after service to share their scanty fare, and many a time
the missionary felt ashamed to be a burden on those who were literally
suffering from the lack of sufficient food. The settlers were, however,
in a country from which they had not means to return to their eastern
homes, and so, ragged and hungry, they were compelled to wait to be
delivered by a Higher Hand. In 1876 the last grasshoppers left Manitoba,
and gradually the new settlements have risen, till now neatly built
Presbyterian churches dot the landscape in all quarters of Manitoba, and
the sacrifice of pioneer missionaries, elders and people has been
rewarded.
EARLY WINNIPEG.
Perhaps the most picturesque and successful example of mission effort
was that in what was at the beginning of the period the village of
Winnipeg. For years before the transfer of the Red River country to
Canada service had been held by Mr. Black in the Court House near Fort
Garry. There had been little growth. The expectation roused by the new
state of things led to the erection of a small Presbyterian church in
the village. John Black obtained some $400 assistance from Canada, and
erected a wooden building, 30 × 40 feet. This building, yet unfinished,
but sufficiently advanced to be used, was opened for public worship by
Rev. Dr. Black on December 3rd, 1868.
The completion of this building was interfered with by the Rebellion of
1869-70, but the arrival of the troops and the coming of a few Canadians
led to the partial fitting up of the church in 1870, a committee
consisting mostly of the officers and men of the volunteer force doing
the work necessary. A view of the cut given herewith will show the
appearance of the church. The original intention was to have a tower on
the top, and in the sketch the timbers are shown which were to have been
the mainstays. For a year these posts were an eyesore to the community,
but one night they disappeared. It is said that the sexton, acting on a
hint from some quarter, clambered on the roof and removed the offending
posts.
The interior of the church was somewhat ambitious for those times. The
pulpit had a high Gothic backpiece, in harmony with the churchly windows
to be seen in the sketch. The committee of the troops in 1870
partitioned off a portion of the interior as ante-rooms, and left the
church seated for about one hundred and fifty persons. To this little
building John Black gave the name Knox church, in memory of the mother
church in Toronto, of which Dr. Burns, the patron of the Red River
mission, had been pastor.
KNOX CHURCH ORGANIZED.
In October, 1871, the writer was placed in charge of Knox church, and
regular services twice a day were begun. John Black took the most lively
interest in everything connected with the congregation. He knew that it
represented the movement in a city which was to become the central
fortress of Presbyterianism in Manitoba and in all the far west. The
congregation was organized in 1872 with eleven members, and a session
was elected in the following year. In 1874 the congregation had grown to
have seventy-three members, and unanimously called Rev. James Robertson,
of Norwich, Ontario, and though small in numbers guaranteed a salary of
$2,000 per annum. In 1872 the church building had been enlarged, again
in 1873 and a third addition took place in 1875. During the pastorate of
Mr. Robertson, which lasted seven years, there was a large immigration
to the province. Knox church grew very rapidly. Mr. Robertson was a most
faithful pastor, and took an especial interest in the incoming
population. He was ever willing to give a helping hand to the lonely or
discouraged newcomer. Knox church has ever been known as a great
supporter of the home mission work of the Church.
[Illustration: KNOX CHURCH, WINNIPEG, 1871.]
As has been well said: "The greatest enterprise in which the
congregation engaged, in addition to its regular and missionary work in
Mr. Robertson's pastorate, was the new Knox church building. This is
known as the second Knox church. This was largely accomplished through
the energy and personal effort of the pastor. Indeed so sedulously did
the pastor work up the subscription list, that it has been said that it
was in this that Mr. Robertson laid the foundation of the great success
that he has since gained in finances as Superintendent of Missions." The
congregation had in 1879 grown to have four hundred names upon the roll,
and thus desired to have a more comfortable place of worship. The second
Knox church, as will be seen from the accompanying illustration, was a
handsome and commanding building. In August, 1881, the first colony
from Knox church went off to form St. Andrew's church. This was placed
in the northern part of the city, and was begun just in time to meet the
great railway population which came in in connection with the Canadian
Pacific Railway. It was ministered to by the Rev. C. B. Pitblado. These
two congregations represented the Presbyterianism of Winnipeg during the
life of Dr. Black, but he always believed in the growth of Winnipeg. How
greatly he would have rejoiced could he have lived to see the handful he
had nursed and seen begun as a congregation in the little wooden church
with eleven members, develop into seven self-sustaining congregations
and two missions, with nine church buildings in all to-day, numbering
two thousand five hundred and fifty-four communicants in the city of
Winnipeg.
As we have said before, it has often been spoken of regretfully by the
friends of the pioneer that John Black was taken away just when the
fuller measure of the success of Presbyterianism in the great west was
dawning. However, Simeon-like, he was satisfied. He lived to see the
foundations well laid in the new settlements, including the new city of
the prairies. He saw the mission work become too large for management by
the ordinary machinery of the presbytery. He was quite in sympathy with
his brethren as to the necessity of a special agent being set apart to
superintend the rapidly rising missions, and when Dr. Robertson was
unanimously chosen as superintendent of missions, though Mr. Black
regretted his being taken from Knox church congregation, yet he rejoiced
in the appointment and gave his heartiest congratulation to the new
superintendent. Dr. Robertson had just begun his work, which has
yielded such a magnificent fruitage to the cause of Christ in the West,
while the good pastor of Kildonan was struggling for health in the last
few months of his life. How often do we see the true, the good, the
noble, thus
"By affliction touched and saddened."
"But the glories so transcendant
That around their memories cluster,
And on all their steps attendant,
Make their darkened lives resplendent
With such gleams of inward lustre."
[Illustration: KNOX CHURCH, WINNIPEG, 1879.]
[Illustration: MANITOBA COLLEGE, 1872.]