Mohammed Ali Bhamrahad, Peddler

When Mohammed was born (August 1, 1892), the countries we know today didn't exist. During the Ottoman rule "Syria" was the name of a region that was otherwise known as the Levant. The word "Syria" did not depict any separate entity/state but a geographical area the same way we use today the words "Western Europe", or "Far East". Lebanon was in the region of Syria but it was a semi-autonomous mutasarrifiyya (like a country) which was established in 1860. The leader of Lebanon was chosen by European nations and it was off-limits for the Turkish army.

When France took over the (Syrian) region, there were actually 6 countries: the state of Aleppo, state of Damascus, Jabal el druze, Alexandretta, Allawite state and Greater Lebanon. Some of the five other regions were annexed by Lebanon.

Toward the end of the mandate, Alexandretta got annexed by Turkey, Lebanon gained full independence, and the other four were merged together into a new country that adopted the name "Syria".

Lebanon has always been a de facto separate entity since the 1500s even if many historic maps don't show it; France simply decided to put it on paper and make it official.
___________

Mohammed Allay Bomrad was born near Beirut (?) in Damascus, Syria in 1892. He arrived in the Edinburg, North Dakota area in 1915, using that town as his mailing address while he traveled around Walsh, Pembina and Cavalier counties, selling his wares and working on farms during the busy seasons.

As a country peddler, he first made his route with a sack on his back selling notions, toiletries, dress goods, medicines, jewelry and other essentials.

In 1917, he bought his first horse. In 1922, his "one hoss shay" was replaced with a wagon when he bought a second horse, making a team - Bud and Biada, which he treated with utmost care. When talked sharply to them, he would say: "I'm talking Irish."

He wasn't "fussy" about where he slept - hay stacks, hay lofts - but later, when he was better known, he would find lodging and a bite to eat at some farm homes. For a number of years, he frequently stayed at the Sigurdson home west of Gardar.

Although he was thrifty, he was known for his kindness and generosity. During the flu epidemic of 1918, he spent weeks helping farmers who were victims of the "flu bug," never mentioning pay. He loaned money, trusted his customers when they were unable to pay. He sent much money to relatives in Syria and retained his Islamic faith by reading publications. He made regular trips to Vang on election days to mark his "X" as he had received his citizenship papers in Cavalier County. He stated it was a privilege for an American to vote.

"The Syrian Muslim, Mohammed Ali Bhamrahad...He lived among the Icelanders in America his entire life. He was
quite a legend and a very sweet man." - Janet Muldoon.  [Photo taken west of Mountain, ND and up the hill on the
Pembina Escarpment, also known as Schroeder Hill, on the Swanson farm, rural Cavalier County, North Dakota]

Although he had enjoyed good health, he had been the victim of several accidents, runaways and once losing all his wares when his horses stepped off a bridge crossing a flooded area.

While all his material possessions could be contained in his wagon, he stated his wealth was immeasurable. His unfailing health permitted him to be amid the beauties of nature, the joy of music and most of all - the hundreds of friends he had acquired while living in this country.

Eventually he retired to Canada where he expected to enter a nursing home among relatives. He passed away in February 1989 at age 97.

Excellence in Local History Award

Wonderful news arrived in today's mail.  The work here on this blog has been recognized and awarded the Excellence in Local History award by the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

It is an amazing honor to be chosen for this award.  It is my hope that this award will bring further recognition to the amazing local history of my hometown, its neighbors, and the surrounding communities which are so interrelated.  The individuals that make up these communities are related by blood, marriage, and culture, and their shared histories deserve not only to be recognized, but remembered...

Rivalry & Politicking: Geography is Destiny

One of Dakota Territory's earliest territorial courts...

We first encountered the resistance to Pembina having serious territorial influence in 1872.  It's now 1873, and the resistance intensifies...

Three male members of one family were pioneers in many legal and political matters in North Dakota.

The patriarch, Alanson H. Barnes, held the first territorial district court hearing in Bismarck and established the judicial seat for the district court in Fargo. His son-in-law, Alfred D. Thomas, became the first U.S. District Court judge from North Dakota. Another son-in-law, Evan S. Thomas, became the second mayor of Fargo and came within three votes of becoming the first governor of North Dakota.

On Nov. 7, 1873, the acting governor of Dakota Territory, Oscar Whitney, reassigned Judge Barnes from Yankton to Pembina but, under federal orders, rescinded the order on Dec. 11. On Jan. 10, 1874, the Department of Interior reinstituted Whitney’s original proclamation.

Instead of going to Pembina, Barnes located the federal court for District 3 in Fargo. There was no courthouse in Fargo, so the trials were often held in business establishments.

In addition to court sessions in Fargo, Barnes held quarterly hearings in Bismarck. The first U.S. District Court to meet there began on June 18, 1874.
...

In December 1874, Alexander McHench, a Fargo legislator, successfully pushed a bill through the territorial Legislature that officially transferred the court from Pembina to Fargo.

Seal of the territory of Dakota

For major trials and appeals in Dakota Territory, Barnes traveled to Yankton to meet with the other two justices of the Supreme Court. He also had to travel to Deadwood to conduct trials in southwestern Dakota Territory.

Because of this, Barnes was a major proponent of dividing the territory into North and South Dakota. During a session of the Supreme Court in 1875 in Yankton, he stated: “The people of the northern Dakota want a division of the territory because they are so far removed from southern Dakota that they do not feel any identity of interest.”

Enos Stutsman, a noted lawyer and legislator of early Dakota days, started the separation movement, but died in 1874.

Source:  Fargo Forum

Old Pembina Photos - Part I of II

Recently, a friend to this blog sent me links to several of the images below, found on Digital Horizons, part of the online collection of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. I later visited the site myself and found even more. I was aware of the website, but as often happens with online collections, it's not static and changes, which is a good thing. More images are being discovered of our area all the time, and I want to share several of them with you here.

NOTE:  The first photo here shows a hotel readers of this blog should be very familiar with - at least those that have read the Chuck Walker books, Sheriff Charley Brown, and Bordertown - where it was featured in both books as well as its owner, Lucien Geroux...




Hotel built before 1882 as the Geroux House, name later changed to Winchester Hotel.
Photographer Unknown/ Ronald Olin North Dakota Postcard Collection.

Ephemera: Promotion of Progress

The image above is from an envelope I have in my possession. It is in the upper left-hand corner representing the return address of Charles Johnson of Pembina. I haven't been able to find out much about Mr. Johnson, but do see him listed in the Pembina County Pioneer Daughters Collection of the Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections, Chester Fritz Library, at UND.

To me, it shows the ambition of not only Mr. Johnson, but the dreams of the communities he represents themselves. At the time of the late 19th/early 20th century, things were changing fast, and hopes were high...

Huron City

Huron City - Location: 485950N by 0971400W - was a real place that no longer exists. I grew up just a stone's throw geographically-speaking from where it once stood and never knew. I discovered this place (and a few others) through my research for this blog, stumbling upon it quite by chance. It appears to have been the 'twin city' to Noyes, as Pembina is to St. Vincent, it being on the Dakota side of the Red River. The more I find out about my hometown area, the more I realize that much more land than I had any idea of, was at one time populated as camp, fort, mission, or town, then later went back to what eventually became farmland...

Heading north out of town, they approached Huron City at the International Boundary. In spite of land speculators' wild claims as to the town's grand future, only a few cabins and a small hotel were in existence. Charley knew that the hotel held the reputation of being the local brothel. Crossing the boundary line, they came to the road between West Lynne and Emerson. The hot, humid afternoon seemed to wrap the two men closely. - From BORDER TOWNS (Chapter 14), by Charles Harris Walker

Colloquium 2010

The Centre for Rupert’s Land¹ Studies at The University of Winnipeg will be hosting its 2010 Colloquium from the 19th to the 22nd of May, 2010. The Colloquium will be held in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

During the Colloquium, Aboriginal and fur trade researchers from many disciplines will meet in Winnipeg to share their research and interests, and take advantage of the rich history that is still being made at the Forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers.

¹ - Pembina/St. Vincent was once part of Rupert's Land, part of a small portion of a territory that is now Canada...

Local Aviators & Aviation History

Carl Ben Eielson - As a member of the Hatton Aero Club, barnstormed around eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota in a club “Jenny” and performed at fairs, baseball games and any place a crowd was willing to watch his acrobatic stunts. He did some amazing feats, eventually dieing in a plane crash over Siberia while trying to rescue passengers from a ship on the Bering Sea. He had come a long way from North Dakota and his barnstorming days... Northwest Airlines built an airport in Pembina in 1931. In 1957, when Northwest decided to make non-stop flights from Grand Forks to Winnipeg, the City of Pembina decided to acquire the airport in order to protect its International Airport of Entry status.

Floods Make Good Neighbors

The border communities of Pembina, ND and Emerson, MB depended on each other for information. Two respondents said they often compared forecasts and used the activities of the other community — such as evacuation and return — as a gauge against which to measure their own activities:

I got everything I ever wanted from Emerson. I just had to call and they were...just wonderful....There was always someone there on the phone to answer [questions] and to tell us what they were doing. And it’s good to be able to get a little support or advice.

I called [Pembina regularly] to see what was happening.

When Pembina evacuated, the town offered their sandbags to Emerson. In turn, Emerson helped North Dakota residents load sandbags while their Canadian workers were loading their own bags. These American and Canadian elected officials recalled:

At the time, we left the extra sandbags and it was a way of helping Emerson...They didn’t take that many, and then they helped load up, a few of the rural people who came to get sandbags, they helped them load up and it worked out fine. We sent trucks in from Canada— again, with no customs clearance. We went to Pembina and got three semi-loads of sandbags...As we were loading our trucks, there were some residents from outside Pembina. They were coming in with their pick-up trucks to get sandbags. They didn’t know how to run the pallet fork so our operator would stop taking, putting sandbags in our trailer, and go over there and put one in the back of [their truck] and then go back to load and then turn around and then another farmer would come...There was no country there. They weren’t saying, “Hey, what’s that Canadian doing driving our forklift!” They were just happy for someone to put a pallet of sandbags on the back of their truck and away they went.

Some American citizens who depended on Manitoban hospitality actually assisted another Canadian operation. According to one respondent:

Prior to [Emerson’s] evacuation, we had people from Grand Forks [who had] already lost their homes [who] were heading to Winnipeg. I guess to take the invitation of Mayor Thompson and I guess some of the service groups here to stay [in Winnipeg]. [They were] coming up [Interstate 29] and, seeing the sandbagging initiatives from the duty free shop, pulled in and stopped, took their shirts off, and started sandbagging with us. And they said, “We already lost our homes. We’ve got nothing to do once we get to Winnipeg. We wouldn’t mind, you know, spending six to eight hours here helping you guys on the way.”....So there were Canadians and Americans working side by side.

Canada and the United States assisted each other when such activities served the overall interests of both countries, and because, over time, the social or economic ties within the region have produced a sense of affinity between the province and the states. Three respondents elaborated further:

Minnesota, North Dakota, and Manitoba are probably [more of a]community than we are with let’s say some of our sister provinces. You know, like it or not, that’s the truth. A lot of camaraderie and a lot of common ground.

They’re very good neighbors to us.

A lot of Manitobans and Winnipeggers go to Grand Forks to shop or just to have a get away, and similarly, so do Grand Forks people come to Winnipeg. In some ways there’s more affinity between these two cities than there is, you know, across [the country].

Manitoba, North Dakota, and Minnesota are physically and symbolically connected by the Red River. Valley residents viewed these three sub-national governments not only as adjoining jurisdictions but also as neighbors. Generally speaking, Canadians and Americans were willing to do what they could to help their neighboring country. These instances of cross-border assistance occurred on individual, collective, and organizational levels, and were particularly evident in border communities.

INTERACTION BETWEEN
CANADIAN AND AMERICAN
GOVERNMENTAL AND NON-GOVERNMENTAL
ORGANIZATIONS DURING THE
RED RIVER FLOOD OF 1997

submitted to the
International Joint Commission
Ottawa / Washington

by
Tricia Wachtendorf

Disaster Research Center
University of Delaware
January 2000

A Rose by Any Other Name...

Did you know that North Dakota was almost named Pembina? I didn't either. Read on...

There was a great deal of objection from influential quarters, including societies interested in philological subjects, and from various parts of the Union, to calling Dakota by any other name, and particularly to adding a prefix such as "North" and "South," and the same was true at home in Dakota. Either portion of the territory would have been delighted had the other half proposed or consented to select a new name, and let but one of the states be named "Dakota." This, however, could not have been agreed upon by Dakotans at that time. The southern half claimed the name by virtue of age and long use; and the north division insisted that its grain product had given world-fame to the name "Dakota," and it would retain it if only for a valuable "trade mark" already recognized the world around.

South Dakota, in its substantial and majority opinion, believed that the name of "Pembina" should be taken by the north, and North Dakotans shared in this opinion for some years after that portion of the territory was occupied by a civilized and industrious people. The early Legislatures, in memorializing Congress for a division of the territory, usually recommended Pembina, or some other cognomen, but never North Dakota, for the name, and there was no objection by the northern members, but on the contrary the name was left to their suggestion. All believed that Pembina was as widely known as Dakota, and they knew it was a century or more the elder. Before the Territory of Dakota was organized, the "Pembina country" was the title given to all or nearly all this portion of the Northwest. The Hudson Bay Company knew it as Pembina. The Canadians had no other name for it, and the early explorers of the United States War Department used it in referring to what is now a great part of the Dakotas. Nearly every intelligent person in the United States had heard of "Pembina," and knew where the Pembina region was situated, and that it covered a large area of the wilderness of the Northwest.

Under these circumstances it is somewhat remarkable that the name was not retained for the territory or state, for "Pembina wheat, No 1, hard," would have been as euphonious as "North Dakota wheat," of the same unapproachable quality, and would have added just as much value to the land, and been a more distinctive commercial asset than "North Dakota," for when one would speak of any Dakota product it became necessary to use the right adjective to indicate in which section it was produced. The Dakota Legislature at one time organized nearly a fourth of the territory into a county and named it "Pembina," and if we have a correct understanding of the location of the Indian tribes, a very small proportion of North Dakota was ever occupied by the Dakota Indians. The Chippewas held all the territory east of James River, and a large part of that west of the James was unoccupied except that held by the Mandans, Rees, and Gros Ventres who were not Dakotas but were undoubtedly the oldest settlers. Lewis and Clark found no Dakotas or Sioux in villages above the Cheyenne, and the reader has observed that the senators and representatives who made any examination of the nomenclature of the Indians in the Northwest favored "Pembina" as the name of Dakota's north state, and Senator Burrows was so wedded to that name and had such an exalted idea of its appropriateness, that he refused to report a bill for a new territorial organization in that region with any other name than "Pembina."

Senator Dawes, of Massachusetts, in December, 1888, presented in the Senate a memorial from the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, giving reasons why the states soon to be admitted, should have more distinctive nomenclature than that furnished by the words "north," "south," "east" or "west," and to accord with the theory upon which the Government had gone theretofore, that our political divisions should not be in any way identified with personality. On this basis the society asked that "North Dakota," when admitted, be called "Pembina," and Washington Territory, "Tacoma."

Other names for South Dakota were: "Minnises Wakpa," is the Dakota language for "Missouri River"; "Tinta-Maka," "Prairie land"; "Mazatinta," or "Maatinta," the land of the priarie; "Maga-Wakan," God's country; "Magatanka," big country; "Wah-ca-tin-ta," the "Prairie flower"; "Waz-yata," means "northern"; "okali," means "south," Itokali, "southern."

From History of Dakota Territory, by George Washington Kingsbury

Minnesota Norwegians

The Norwegian journalist Paul Hjelm-Hansen was appointed by the governor of Minnesota as a special agent of the newly established Board of Immigration on June 5, 1869, recommended by Senator Aaker. Helm-Hansen was mostly concerned with promoting Norwegian settlement. His name has to a special degree become associated with the Red River Valley, and he is regarded as the one who opened up this area, in both North Dakota and Minnesota, to Norwegian settlement.

He emigrated from Norway a mature and experienced man of fifty-seven in 1867. He became concerned with the increasing number of his compatriots who for one reason or another settled in a city, such as Chicago, where, as he warned in Norwegian-American newspapers, they would become a part of a workers' proletariat, re-create the conditions they had left by emigrating, and be "doomed to poverty and annihilation." He made himself a spokesman for the healthy life as a farmer on the fertile soil of Minnesota.

In the summer of 1869, Hjelm-Hanson went by ox-drawn wagon from Alexandria in Douglas County all the way to the Red River district [the region around the Red River of the North in what became Manitoba...] When he returned to Alexandria after three weeks, he wrote his travel accounts, sixteen in all. These were printed in the newspapers Nordisk Folkeblad (Nordic People's Paper) and Fadrelandet og Emigranten (The Fatherland and the Emigrant). Hjelm-Hansen underscores how advantageous the new regions would be for "Scandinavian farmers" and how healthy "the clean air" is. For potential farmers, it was perhaps more important to know that the land was "to the highest degree fertile and extraordinarily easy to cultivate, for there was not as much as a stone or a stump to block the plow."

From The Promise of America by O.S. Lovoll

My own family, on my father's side, was part of that wave of Norwegian emigration. They settled in Polk County near McIntosh, Angus, and Tabor. Later his uncle opened a cafe in St. Vincent, and while working there, my father met a local girl he eventually married, my mother...

Ferry Command: First Delivery

On 15 January, 1940 just west of Emerson, the silence of the early morning was broken by the sound of aircraft. A truck, loaded with 45-gal fuel drums, several cars, their motors running, a team of horses and half a dozen people, some with newsreel cameras, were waiting in the freezing cold. The bundled individuals were looking skyward just to the southern horizon. Suddenly two twin-engine planes became visible. They were the first of a consignment of eighteen planes. They came in low. The cameraman started shooting film. The planes circled, the pilots clearly visible in the cockpits. After a quick check of the wind sock they circled to the south and began their final decent. Touching down on the US side of the field, the dark camouflaged Lockheed Hudson bombers, without markings or ordnance, taxied up to the boundary line.

Joe Wilson, a local Emerson farmer, guided his team of horses, Prince and Fred, toward the planes. He attached a hook and tow rope to the aircraft’s wheel and dragged the bomber into Canada. The newsreel cameras rolled and newspaper photographers popped their flash bulbs. The sudden rush and the flashes were a slight annoyance to the team of horses, but Joe was an efficient teamster and within a matter of minutes both planes were on Canadian territory. The truck rolled up and the driver and a helper dressed in military-style coveralls, started filling the craft with fuel from the 45-gal drums. Moments after the planes were fueled up the flight crew emerged from the idling waiting cars. The engines roared into life and the Hudsons lumbered down the airstrip. Becoming airborne they circled once over the airfield and headed north for Winnipeg’s Stevenson Field.

- Excerpt from “Bombers Across the Border” by James McClelland. Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada Review, June 1996

The Civilians of Ferry Command

I received an email from a local resident of Emerson this weekend asking for our help. Yes, you read right - OUR help. This email was not only directed at me, but to all who read this blog.

As you will read below, help is being requested on collecting all extent information - oral, written, photographic, or film - on an event I covered previously - but obviously has a lot more to it.

Hello Trish

It has been awhile since we were in contact. I have a request for some information regarding some events that took place in Pembina back in 1940. I was hoping that you might be able to post it on your page.

Specifically the story goes like this:

In 1940, prior of the United States entry into World War II, a number of military aircraft were flown from California to the Pembina Airport. These planes were later flown to the border just west of Emerson, Manitoba. At that point they were towed with a team of horses into Canada (see this article regarding why...)

These events occurred in January 1940. Now the reason for my interest is that I am acting as liaison for Ted Beaudoin. These events are part of story that Mr. Beaudoin is writing.

He is an Ontario-based writer and the author of a three–volume set of books dealing with Canadian and international military/civilian aviation history adventure. He is also working on the production of a movie Earth Angels Rising. Mr. Beaudoin's purpose is to pay tribute to the civilian men and women who came to rescue of the Allied governments between 1939 and 1945. These individuals gave life to an organization known as Ferry Command. The aircraft that arrived in Pembina in 1940 may have been part of over 10,000 bombers and fighter aircraft that were ferried across six ocean bridges to various theatres of war.

Mr. Beaudoin would like to hear from any from anyone who might have information or pictures of these events. In 1940 the Pembina New Era was covering these events extensively and he was also hoping that these files might be available for research.

If any one can help they should contact Mr. Beaudoin directly or myself at:

Ted Beaudoin
52-C Empire St
Welland, ON L3B 2L4
Canada
Tel.: 905– 714-1788
E-mail: jw-dunn@hotmail.com

James McClelland
Box 301
Emerson MB R0A 0L0
Canada
Tel: 204-373-2544
E-mail: djmcclnd@mts.net

From the Montreal Gazette (July 19, 2003)

The photo accompanying this post is a picture of one of the aircraft landing along the border west of Emerson/Pembina . The aircraft is on the US side and is taxiing up to the border.