NEW Book: Pembina County @ 150

Jim Benjaminson shared today:  

Well, its getting closer to reality - "Sagas of Pembina County, 1867-2017" is at the printers.  A 148 page, fully indexed compilation of stories written for county newspapers in 2017-2018 with added material and historical photographs.  We'll let you know when it's ready!

Traveling Shows: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source:  Pembina Pioneer Press (August 13, 1897)

In his book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the American Stage and Screen,” drama professor and theater historian John Frick of the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences chronicles how Stowe’s novel was adapted to theater not long after the book the plays were based on, was published – and details how, by the beginning of the 20th century, more than 400 separate companies traveled and performed some theatrical version of the story.

The Tom Shows as they were colloquially known as, were “ubiquitous and part of the common culture by the end of the 19th century...” Professor Frick said – a theatrical phenomenon that bridged culture, commerce and ideology.

The shows were a small industry built on the genre known as moral reform dramas or melodramas, such as “The Drunkard," “The Gambler,” or "Ten Nights in a Barroom," which were widely received.

Midway through the traveling shows' popularity, the show advertised in this newspaper ad (see left) came to our area, including Pembina.  Going by what the write-ups uncovered, it would have been quite the show, especially under a big tent as it was.  Excitement would have pervaded the atmosphere as you waited for the show to start!  Prior to the show, the show's performers  would arrive in town to much fanfare, later parading through the town to drum up business, encouraging one and all to attend the show that night.  Yes, it would be quite exciting for small towns in 1897...

Part of the Terry Show's train, and company readying themselves for the pre-show parade...

Terry Show troupe portrait, in front of the show's tents; note Uncle Tom's Cabin in center back...

Little Minnesota in WWII

I just got my copy of Jill Johnson's newest book, Little Minnesota in World War II:  The Stories Behind 140 Fallen Heroes from Minnesota's Littlest Towns.  As readers may know, Jill also wrote Little Minnesota:  A Nostalgic Look at Minnesota's Smallest Towns.  As in that book, so too does the newest book feature St. Vincent.  This time, in the form of two brothers who fought and died, one in each theater of the conflict...











The two entries about the Gooselaw brothers of St. Vincent, tell a fascinating and eventually sad story, all too common among many American families during World War II.  I can only share images of the entries in the book, but I encourage all readers to buy a copy, or borrow one from your library,and read these stories for yourself...


















"The Gooselaw family endured much tragedy during World War II. When Adele Gooselaw's husband died in 1942, she could not imagine that she would lose two sons in battle in World War II: Jerome in the New Georgia Campaign in 1942, and Arthur in the Battle for Metz, France, in 1944. Three other sons, Lewis, Edmund and Nazareth, also served in the army during World War II..."

Boundary Markers: "Soup Plates"

In the September of 1872, some two-hundred and fifty astronomers, blacksmiths, cooks, engineers, medics for the work animals and the working humans, naturalists, surveyors, topographers, wheelwrights, and woodworkers, gathered at the small isolated town of Pembina two degrees south of the parallel. When their American counterparts, flanked by the United States cavalry, arrived, the five-hundred members of the North American Boundary Commission were united in common cause. - From Beneath My Feet

George Mercer Dawson

A few months back, a friend of Jake Rempel - who is also a friend (and a fellow local historian) of this blog's writer - found a dish in an old basement north of Fort Dufferin near modern day Emerson, Manitoba.

How it got there is not known. Oral history has it that the building that used to be upon the foundation, was once a bar and a house of pleasure.

Boundary Marker Plate

Jake said, "I know they used different types of steel markers; I am not sure what they used right in the beginning, pole markers of some kind. George Mercer Dawson followed the survey crew and seems to have placed soup plates as each marker. This reference (below) in his book, Beneath My Feet, is all I have found about this type of marker..."

From George Mercer Dawson's Beneath My Feet

There is still an International Boundary Commission to this day. They describe their ongoing mission "...as maintaining the boundary in an effective state of demarcation. This is done by inspecting it regularly; repairing, relocating or rebuilding damaged monuments or buoys; keeping the vista cleared, and erecting new boundary markers at such locations as new road crossings."

"As mentioned in..."

To find out more about the book,
referencing Pembina & St. Vincent

The two rooms would be filled with fiddle music, he said, and sit-down dancers, when his St. Boniface relations came visiting in winter.  He vowed that he and Sara would cross the Red River to the French side to attend the winter carnivals, the snowshoe, horse and dog races a new priest in the parish of Ste. Agathe had taken to organizing.  Go from house to house on New Year's Eve, and celebrate the French way, as he used to do, firing his rifle into the wind, begging the favour of a drink and a kiss.  I have relations coming out of my ears up and down the river, he told her.  As far south as St. Joe and Pembina.  The Carons, Berthelets, Branconniers, Dubois, St. Germains, Delormes.  He recited the names, the syllables like a church bell tolling across the snowbound land.

______________

Emilie would not have believed that at that moment Oliver was going farther away from them, the lit-up town of Emerson beckoning. There was a small hotel there, he knew, and a cafe where he would get something to eat.  Then he thought perhaps he would bypass the town and cross the border, go to Pembina, where he'd heard there was a tavern.  Leastways, there had been years ago, and a woman named Ma Shorts who rant it.  She had a room at the back, and for a price she would let people sleep off a drunk or have a quick romp, whether or not the couple was married.  The night air had chilled him through, and he was no longer inclined to sleep under the stars.

From: "Children of the Day", by Sandra Birdsell

An Arduous Journey

I've been reading this book about Enos Stutsman titled Attorney for the Frontier. Ever since I came across "Stuts", as his contemporary friends called him, I've been fascinated by the man.  To my knowledge,  Attorney for the Frontier is the only book ever written about him, and it includes an entire chapter about his time in Pembina, his last home base.

Below is a letter he wrote to his supervisors.  As a past federal government employee myself, I am well-acquainted with the paperwork involved whenever you go away from the office.  Reports must be filed!  Read below on what this particular early government employee went through just to get from Point A to Point B; you'll note he has a pretty wry sense of humor, which I guess you had to have when encountering such difficulties.  All in all, if you take the time, you'll discover it's quite illuminating, and an enjoyable read...

The Book

The book cover shows the town in
an iconic photo of the 1897 flood...

As a lead-up to this summer's St. Vincent Town Reunion, I have put together a book for anyone interested in my hometown. It is available now for purchase.

I have selected the posts that are most directly related to St. Vincent itself. Even so, it's still 300 pages long. It is being offered as a print-on-demand book, meaning you decide what version of the book you want - hardcover v. softcover, b&w images v. colored, and physical book v. digital eBook that can be read on an iPad, Nook or Kindle.

The book is just a slice of the blog, since the blog has so much more to it - hyperlinks that take you to further information or other posts in the blog related to the one you are reading. The book isn't meant as a replacement for the blog, but rather just a representation of it to share with family and friends.

As always, I recommend most of all the blog itself that you are reading. It's dynamic, every-changing, growing, and convenient. You can read it on your laptop, on your phone or e-reader (yes, there is a mobile version of this blog!)

Christmas Eve, 1817

An early Christmas Eve in Pembina/St. Vincent tells how when Lord Selkirk's settlers had an insufficient harvest that fall, and came south looking for a place to winter when their supplies ran out, they were met with compassion by the locals...

The night of their arrival was Christmas eve of 1817, and the Indians and mixed bloods were touched by their haggard faces, and shared with them their own scanty fare... 

From The History of Minnesota, by Edward Duffield Neill

Little Minnesota: St. Vincent

Little Minnesota has finally been published!

I was excited to get a copy in the mail this week, and of course, looked up the entry on St. Vincent right away...

It was worth the wait! Jill did a great job on my hometown. One of her sources was this website, I am pleased to say. This is the first time I have gotten credit as a source for a book - very exciting!

Please take a look at the following two pages about St. Vincent - just click to enlarge...

Jill kindly sent me this thank you...

Line of Fire

Back in the day, just as now, lawmen worked together between Canada and America.  There was less red tape then, although that was there, too.  The excerpt below is about one of the early lawmen of our area, this time on the Canadian side of the 49th parallel.  He has been mentioned in passing before, in the story of Sheriff Charley Brown.  You could say he was Charley's counterpart over the line.

It's fun to learn more of his story, and the context.  We're very lucky to have this recounting - I have read that "virtually no documentation was preserved for the MPP"...

The North-West Mounted Police were not the only officers who made life difficult for bad men in the Canadian West. Even before the Mounties arrived on the prairies, the newly formed province of Manitoba organized a small, but effective, police force. The Manitoba Provincial Police began in 1870 with nineteen men. It was operated out of an old Winnipeg post office that was converted to a police station and courthouse. A log house behind the building was used for a jail. The force was poorly funded, so the officers had to provide their own firearms. They had no standard uniform. Within a few years, the department dwindled to a mere eight men. Some constables were dismissed for inappropriate behavior, such as public drunkenness, others resigned to seek better paying employment! 

In 1874, Richard Power, a twenty-three-year-old who had become an original member of the force at the age of nineteen, was made Head Constable - the equivalent of Chief of Police. The rapid decline in the force's number was only a part of the reason for this young man's promotion to such a position. Even before joining the MPP, he had allegedly served as a scout for the United States Cavalry. He was also a lieutenant in the Winnipeg militia. Power's contemporaries described him as "a fine looking man, magnificently proportioned, every inch a soldier with the courage that nothing could daunt. Power wore a Colt .45 with a nine-inch barrel, and a gunbelt that was always full of cartridges. Local newspapers called Power "a terror to evildoers." In A few short years, Power had shown himself to be a courageous and enthusiastic policeman. Some thought he might have been too enthusiastic. He had once been sharply reprimanded for shooting a Native during an arrest. 

By the time Power took command of the Manitoba Provincial Police, Winnipeg had been incorporated as a city and had its own police department. That left the rest of Manitoba under the eyes of Power and his tiny department. Power strategically placed men in the more populous settlements outside Winnipeg; towns like Selkirk and Kildonan. He kept a few men with him at his headquarters in Winnipeg. Most Manitoba communities had to depend on special constables - civilian volunteers - to keep the peace. If there was any real trouble, Power could send one of his constables out to see to the matter. The policing situation in rural Manitoba was not unlike that of rural Ontario and other points east. 

Manitoba, especially the country along the American border, was woefully under-policed, but the situation was same on the other side of the international line in the Dakota Territory. There was a sheriff in Pembina, just over the border, and another many miles away in Fargo. For those lawmen, just looking after their towns was a full-time job. They didn't have the resources, or manpower, to go chasing after the desperadoes who roamed the plains and hills of the Dakota country. Rustlers, gunmen, and other men on the dodge had only to keep out of the Sheriff's way to avoid arrest. With so much open country, that was not a hard thing to do. Moreover, American lawmen were often unwilling to apprehend fugitives wanted in Canada, unless there was a reward involved.

Little Minnesota

A few years ago, Jill Johnson began an adventure writing about small-town Minnesota.  She wanted to focus on writing about towns under 100 in population. Jill began writing about them on a blog. Eventually it became a book project, that I am happy to say will be published in the not-too-distant future.

And the best part? St. Vincent is one of the towns featured in the book!

Mathematic Word Problem

Something I had never imagined - of St. Vincent used as a textbook example - came across my screen when doing local history research the other day.

What is the difference between the average July temperature +65 and the average January temperature -8 at St. Vincent, Minn.?

From: Practical algebra, first year course (1910)

I got a kick out of seeing my hometown village used in this way...

Louis Riel Poem

Photo of Riel (1878)

It was from the border town of St. Vincent, Minnesota, that on December 26, 1878, Riel gazed longingly at his Manitoba homeland and composed the following lines.  Since he was still purging the five-year exile imposed on him in Ottawa in 1875, he could not enter Canada.  Filled with anger by the thought that a recent influx of English-speaking Protestant settlers was now controlling his province, he contemplates mounting an armed invasion of Canada which, with providential support, would liberate his people.  Riel condemns the actions of Lisgar and Dufferin, governors general, whose terms overlapped that of Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald.

Minnesota, Which I Now Entered (1878)

Minnesota, which I now entered,
Filled my heart with longing
For my home strung along its border.
I fell, sighting two cities, a bliss,
St. Paul and Minneapolis,
For eight or nine parents settled there.
I am moved almost to tears
As the train slowly draws near.
But the train moves on and the engine
Takes me to Breckenridge, to Crookston;
Then to St. Vincent from where, happy,
I contemplate my beloved country,
My sweet.
Manitoba,
Enticing as a loved one's charms,
Now held in the Orangemen's strong arms:
Manitoba,
For whom I have toiled unceasingly,
Your countenance inebriates me.
As if subdued by sweet catawba,
I reel.  Like Solomon to Sheeba
I am beckoned irresistibly.
For your glory my love must avail
And, God willing, my efforts prevail.

I have just returned from the Northeast.
While I waited, punished in exile,
Through the machinations of a Beast
Your innocent hearts have been reviled.
I, God willing, with renewed vigor
Will find ways to crush this enemy.
Friends on the banks of the Missouri
Will, with conviction as their armor,
Fight the native people's righteous fight
And, with me, armed by justice's might,
Fly swiftly on a northerly breeze
To help our Metis brothers resist.
Passions and fierceness I will enlist
And to great injustice match great fury.
They will attack Portage la Prairie
And destroy that wicked place entirely.
The river Boyne will be a bloodbath,
Red Assiniboine its aftermath.
Lisgar and Dufferin have bequeathed
Ignominy. Their men's legacy
Is betrayal. With revenge unsheathed
The Blackfoot will make Winnipeg pay.
Do not falter, worthy countrymen.
Oppose the English.  Respect your name.
John A., no better than a madman,
Ottawa will lose at its own game.
Spirit, be guided by Providence.
Do not too hastily take offence.
God moves his finger in mysterious ways.
By prudence, not by passion, be swayed.
All intentions are as scattered dust
When they contradict the divine plan.
If God tells me:  "Till the land," I must.
Or: "Make yourself stronger," this I can.
Or: "You must die," His will must be done.
Thus perhaps I am not intended
To help my people gain their freedom.
Let not my people be held ransom.
Let them thrive, let them be defended.

From:  Selected Poetry of Louis Riel

New Book Features Local History

A recently published book has references to local area events and locations...

...the rough and ready type common to the frontier gathered at local drinking establishments with names worthy of dime novels - "Dutch George's" and "O'Lone's Red Saloon" in Winnipeg, and "The Robber's Roost", "Dead Layout", and "The Ragged Edge" in Pembina.¹

From: Frontier Farewell: The 1870s and the End of the Old West By Garrett Wilson

¹ - In 1862, McKenney sold the Royal to “Dutch George” Emmerling, a recent arrival by way of the United States. McKenney then built the store which would become the hub of today’s famous corner of Portage and Main. From: First 50 Years Of Hotels In Winnipeg

...Colourful George Emmerling from Bavaria, a.k.a. “Dutch George” operated a small goods store for the settlers in the area and built the first hotel in 1885 (McIntyre Building). From: Manitoba Historical Society

Godon: The REST of the Story

Adz:  The murder weapon

Gilbert Godon has appeared in this blog before - the first time, as a character in a novel based on fact; the second time, referred to by a descendant relation when discussing our shared history in and around St. Vincent.


Now, I have found him referred to in a book of recollections by a soldier who served in our area; it fills out the tale we already knew about Gilbert.

It's always fascinating to find out more than just the bare facts...

Troop Socials

A pass was regularly made out for a Non-Com and file to go to Pembina, Dakota, for the mail. Passes were also granted at intervals to exchange visits with the American troops in their new fort, which was built a mile south of the town and named Fort Pembina. Our fellows were well treated by the American soldiers and citizens, except by those who had fled from Fort Garry and were wintering in Pembina. Among these were Colonel Stutsman, Jimmy (McCarthy) from Cork¹ (a cranky little Irish-American) and Bob O'Lone². Stutsman and Jimmy resented the visits of the Volunteers to Pembina. Bob O'Lone a more genial character, and the United States Sheriff, John Lennon, a brother of the late Dennis Lennon, the well-known hotel proprietor in Winnipeg, were always ready to prevent interference with the Canadian soldiers. In December, 1870, Bob O'Lone was killed in a brawl at a half-breed dance on the Pembina River, and the redoubtable Jimmy from Cork suffered death the following summer in a fight with Indians.

Immigration Chaos

From a traveler's observation of an immigrant train arriving in St. Vincent comes this account...

It was a dull rainy evening when we bade farewell to Pembina, and were ferried across the shallow muddy river to St. Vincent. I suppose it is called the Red River because the water is of a whitey-brown color. At the railway station confusion reigned. A large party of immigrants had just arrived with through tickets by the steamboat line to Winnipeg. But owing to the lowness of the water, and an accident which occurred a few weeks before, there was no boat ready to go down the river. The party must go on by rail, and the officers of the branch line from St. Vincent to St. Boniface, opposite Winnipeg, refused to make any allowance for the steamboat tickets. Despair ruled in the crowded, murky car into which we were packed. Many of the poor immigrants could ill afford the additional cost. We had to pay $3.25 for riding over sixty-five miles of wretched track at the rate of ten miles an hour. The road-bed is so rough that when they run at higher speed, the engine bell is rung by the oscillation.

Long after midnight we were landed in the mud at St. Boniface. Here we fell into the hands of the custom-house Philistines. Never have I seen courtesy and intelligence so successfully concealed under the veil of rude stupidity...

From: Harper's Magazine (May 1880)

Pembina Fire Department (1904)

In 1904, this was the Pembina Fire Department...

PEMBINA, pop. 929; fire area, 300 acres; mercantile bldgs., wood, 2 stories; private, wood, 2 and 3 stories; wooden roofs permitted; fireworks ordinance; fires investigated. Fire dept - 1 steamer, 50 c. ex., 1 aerial h. & 1 truck, 1 hose carriage, 1 hose wagon; hose, rubber, good 1,500 ft; fire alarm, bell; value of dept. equipment, $4,500; value of bldgs., $500; annual expenses, $750; total members, 20 - paid full time 1, volunteers 19; H. Miller, chief; underwriters' rating, third class.

Water Supply—Source, Red River; system, pump to reservoir.; capacity of reservoir, 60,000 gals.; works belong to city; J. M. Chisholm, mayor.

The Insurance year book: Fire and marine, Volume 32 (1904)

1917 Recipe

Hand-written recipe by Elizabeth Jane (Fitzgerald) Fitzpatrick,
my grandmother - used in the "Economy Cookbook" of 1917,
put out by the Ladies of St. Vincent...

Transcription of text in document

War Cake (Eggless, Butterless, Milkless)

Put in a saucepan 1 cup raisins, 1 cup sugar, scant 1/2 cup lard, 1 1/2 cups water, 2 teaspoonfuls cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoonful of cloves and nutmeg, pinch salt.

Boil them for five minutes and when cool add teasponful soda dissolved in little warm water, then add 2 cups of well-sifted flour with 1 teaspoonful of baking powder.

Bake in a shallow greased pan for 30 minutes in a moderate oven.

Pembina Christmas, 1801

The Time of Trouble at Cornplanter's Village, by Jesse Cornplanter

From the journals of Alexander Henry (the Younger):

Friday, Dec. 25th (Christmas) - Snowed all day. Indians perpetually going around coming from one house to another, getting what they ask for, without the trouble of hunting...

28th - Red Lake Indians arrived...We have our hands full; since my arrival it has been the same - never one day quiet.

Friday, Jan. 1st, 1802 - This morning the usual ceremony of firing, etc., was performed. I treated my people with two gallons of high wine, five fathoms of tobacco, and some flour and sugar. My neighbors came visiting, and before sunrise both sexes of all parties were intoxicated and more troublesome than double their number of Saulteurs; the men were fighting and quarreling all night.