Portrait: John Busha/Bushie/Boucher



John Boucher - Back row, on left (1855)


Provision was made in the ninth article of the treaty of October 2, 1863 (aka Old Crossing Treaty), with the Red Lake and Pembina bands of Chippewa for a reservation of 640 acres of land for the Chippewa chief  "Red Bear," to be located on the north side of the Pembina River. The agent reported that before he could make this selection, there was not a section of suitable land in one body remaining on the north side of the Pembina River for a long distance from its mouth, and he, therefore, made the selection on both sides of the river and reported it in that form. As this was not in accordance with the treaty, legislation by Congress was recommended in Office report of March 5, 1872, (H.R. Ex. Doc. 183,) authorizing the selection in this manner. Favorable action was not taken by Congress in the premises, and as such action is necessary in order to ensure to this chief the benefits contemplated by the treaty, Congress should be again be requested to legislate for his relief.

Boucher, John C. [*1868] ·P108.4d
Bushey, John [R.L. Scrip #331] ·
Bache, John [R.L. Scrip #331] ·
Pembina Annuity Roll, Mis co muh quah's Band, 1868:97 - 1 man, 1 woman $ 8 paid

National Archives, RG 75, Entry 363, "List of Persons to Whom Scrip was Issued under Red Lake & Pembina Treaties...", Halfbreed Scrip No. 331, issued April 15, 1874, under the authority of Secretarial Decision, June 12, 1872, delivered April 15, 1874, notation of alternate spelling "Bache"

National Archives, RG 75, Entry 364, "Treaty of April 12, 1864, Red Lake and Pembina Half-Breeds," Scrip Stubs, Number 331, dated April 15th, 1874, 160 Acres, delivered April 15th, 1874, issued to John Bushey (Bache), delivered to U.S. Indian Agent [Ebenezer] Douglass

A (Back)Story of a Drowning: John Mortimer, St. Vincent, & the Red River

John Thomas Mortimer – Portrait of a Radical

by Isabel Watson

When we were children, my Mother often talked about her childhood: her parents, her brothers, their home life. She had a fund of stories too about aunts and uncles, many of whom we had never met but whom we came to know through the many retellings. This is often the starting point for family history exploration. One detail frequently mentioned was that her father had farmed in Canada at one point in his life and one of his sons from his first marriage had died tragically by going through the ice on the Red River "near Winnipeg" (read: St. Vincent, Minnesota) and his body had not been recovered until the spring. We knew nothing more than that bare outline of a story. It was not until I began to research my Grandfather's life that I came to discover the full extent of the story of John Thomas Mortimer.

My Grandfather, James Mortimer, was born at the Home Farm, Kirkton of Tealing, in the rural hinterland of Dundee in 1841. He came from generations of farm workers, many of whom had had small-scale tenancies on the Glamis estate, especially at Upper Arniefoul. Although James's father Alexander had moved to nearby Tealing, then to Balbeuchley at Auchterhouse, James returned to Glamis to serve his apprenticeship as a blacksmith with Peter Anderson at the smiddy there. Perhaps looking for more lucrative employment after his time was served, he moved to Dundee to one of its many jute mills, Ladybank Mill, and in 1864 married Ann Russell, a steam loom weaver, in Lochee. They were to have six children before Ann's untimely death from cerebro-spinal meningitis in 1876.

John was the fourth of the children, born on 3 March 1871 at 3 Laing Street, Dundee, becoming the eldest son, as the first-born boy, Samuel, had died aged two in 1867. After Ann's death, James was married for a second time in 1880 to Helen Innes (nee Watson), widow of a blacksmith journeyman. Their marriage certificate provided a surprising piece of new information: James's occupation was given as 'Insurance Agent'. From blacksmith to insurance agent – how had this transformation occurred? My Mother had always favoured the Prudential Assurance Agency because of her father's connection to that company. So I felt it would be worthwhile to approach their Head Office in the hope that they might have some archive material about former employees. Their Archivist was able to provide me with a full account of my Grandfather's career with them – treasure trove indeed!

The  history of the company, A Sense of Security: 150 Years of Prudential, gives an idea of how field staff were recruited, being 'only capable men of thorough respectability, and of favourable appearance and address'. In his latter years, my Grandfather continued to demonstrate a lively mind and interest in a wide variety of subjects. It is likely that he had pursued evening class studies as a young man and was eager for self-improvement, thus fulfilling the requirement of being seen as capable.

In the Census of 1881, the family was living at 13 North Wellington Street, Dundee, with father working as an Insurance Agent and Helen established as wife and mother to the five children, all still at home, Maggie (13), Annie (11), John (10), Alexander (8) and William (6), all scholars. Between his initial appointment to the Prudential in 1876 and 1884, James held contracts of employment in Dundee and Forfar, then in February 1884 he was appointed to a position in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, where he was to remain for most of the rest of his life.

By the 1891 Census, James and Helen were living at 13 High Street in Airdrie and had only two of the family still living at home, Alexander aged 18, a schoolmaster, and William aged 16, a letter carrier. The daughters had moved out, perhaps into employment, and John was in lodgings in Glasgow at 113 McAslin Street (St. Rollox) and working as a tailor. His fellow-lodger in the home of John and Mary Mitchell was Peter McPherson, who would become his brother-in-law by marrying his sister Maggie.

A moment of serendipity

I need to digress at this point to explain how it was I came to learn of the Canadian part of the story. What follows is a moment of serendipity. I had joined the Tay Valley Family History Society and being distant from the Research Centre in Dundee, was delighted when an e-mailing group, Tay Valley Bridges, was set up to bring into contact the many members worldwide who were not able to visit Dundee regularly. On one memorable occasion, an online conversation was taking place which involved Winnipeg. On a whim, I posted a request to see if anyone could tell me how to go about tracing the death of a young man named Mortimer by drowning in the Red River, on some unknown date. Back came the reply from fellow-member Susan Bethune, who happened to have in her possession a copy of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, with an entry about John Thomas Mortimer, tailor and Trade Union activist. And so his story unfolded.

It is by no means clear when John first went to Canada. He was registered as an American citizen in St. Vincent, Kittson County, Minnesota, on 11 June 1906, having 'landed at the port of St. Vincent on or about the month of November in the year eighteen hundred and ninety'. This information seems at least debatable.¹ His entry in the 1891 Census in Glasgow is quite clear and credible. There would not be any obvious reason why, having made the journey to the USA or Canada, he should immediately return to employment in Glasgow. His connection with St. Vincent came about through his wife, Lena Cameron, of whom more later. The first mention of him living in Winnipeg is in 1895, when we find him listed as a tailor in the Henderson's Directory and resident at 326 McDermot Avenue, Winnipeg. along with Wm. Mortimer, described as an engineer. The brothers remained at that address for each year until 1898.

The year 1895 certainly does seem significant. My Grandfather James and  his wife Helen also travelled to Canada in that year. James resigned from his employment with the Prudential in April 1895 and was awarded a gratuity of £30. He and Helen sailed from Glasgow on 25 April, occupying a second-class cabin on the SS Samaritan, and arrived in Montreal on 8 May. They would then have made their way overland to Winnipeg. Little is known of their time there. James had a farm near Brandon, north-west of Winnipeg, which he eventually sold to a James Fraser in 1897 before returning to Scotland. It was always related within the family that Helen was unwell and yearned to go back home to Scotland. Indeed she died in Airdrie in 1898 and is buried in the New Monkland Cemetery. Grandfather James subsequently married for a third time, to Isabella Ann Power, my Grandmother, and had a new young family of which my Mother was the only daughter.

John's involvement with the Trade Union movement in Winnipeg is well documented. John Hample, in his entry about John Thomas Mortimer in the Dictionary Of Canadian Biography, states: After September 1896 he began a rise to prominence in Winnipeg's working-class movement by helping to rebuild Local 70 of the Journeymen Tailors' Union of America (JTUA), affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

Local 70 had originally been formed in 1892 to give the tailors of Winnipeg protection from the sweatshop practices of the men's custom-made tailoring workshops. After a fruitless strike over an attempt by the merchant tailors to cut wages, Local 70 had been adrift. In 1897, JTM was elected its President and promptly set about galvanising the union, urging the City Council to impose conditions in their contracts for the manufacture of clothing and intervening on behalf of factory seamstresses during a strike which led to the establishment of one of the first unions of women workers in Canada.

By 1899-1900, he was President of the Trades and Labor Council of Winnipeg, representing that organisation at meetings of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada. During this period at the turn of the 20th century, he developed a close association with Arthur W. Puttee, acting as his election agent in a Winnipeg by-election which made Puttee Canada's first independent Labour MP in 1900. Puttee acted as John's best man at his marriage to Lena Cameron on 2 September 1901, immediately after the Labor Day Parade through Winnipeg.

Lena was the daughter of Edmund Cameron and Allis Clow, who had settled in St. Vincent, Minnesota, just south of the Canadian border on the east side of the Red River, having moved out west from Prince Edward Island, and like John she was a labour activist. John had begun to make a name for himself as an uncompromising militant, considered 'impossibilist' by some in his demands for workers' rights and justice, but was highly regarded within trade union circles. He had reputedly been saving money to enable a visit home to Scotland, but a major national strike of the JTUA saw him invest his money into the strike funds, only to be fired from his job, reviled in the press and ultimately blackballed from employment in the tailoring trade in Winnipeg.

Field Trip: Manitoba Border Churches

At the St. Michael's Ukrainian Orthodox Church cemetery, May 4, 2016

While out in the field taking photographs with Troy Larson on Monday, I realized I had a golden opportunity to get a good shot of myself that wasn't a selfie. Troy was very kind and took a couple of shots of me.

I love them! That's me nowadays. No more glamorous makeup and clothes; nowadays my priorities are pain relief, physical strengthening, and comfortable clothes. And documenting family and local history as much and as well as I can, for as long as I can...

The entire cemetery is surrounded by an old growth oak grove...

Reclaiming an Abandoned Cemetery

On September 19th of this year, Kim McAllister Anderson and I took a trip up north, into Manitoba, Canada. Emerson, to be exact. Town of my birth, and much more. But that aside, we were on a mission: To locate, by rough map, an old almost-forgotten cemetery.

Thanks to Wayne Arnesy, former Mayor of Emerson, he and some other helpers reclaimed the old gravestones they could locate and now it is roughly maintained annually. It is in a grove of oak trees in the middle of a farmer's field, not far from a marsh-like slough. A trail leads to it, which can be traversed in a 4-wheel drive off-road vehicle. Or if you're up to it, hiked a half mile from the street that ends at the current cemetery - closer to town and on higher of ground to prevent flooding.

Final Resting Places: Brown & Kabernagle

Sheriff Charley Brown's grave site is in the north section of the Pembina Cemetery;  his stone reads:

Charles J. Brown

Oct 4, 1884

Aged 39 years

Sgt. Co. I 20th U.S. Infantry

I took this photo when surveying for BillionGraves

Charley sadly had a short, yet amazing life...

Another smaller foot stone acknowledges his service 

as a soldier in the Civil War, but it doesn't attest to 

his time as a POW in Andersonville... 

Buried in the same section is Charley's business partner:

John Kabernagle
Born
Jan 8, 1853
Died
Dec 20, 1893
Aged
40 Yrs, 11 Mos,
& 17 Dys

It's sad that both John - friend and business partner to Charley
Brown - died young around the same age as Charley did...

Another old-timer that was well-known for his many services rendered the town - and his colorful character - is in the SW section of the cemetery:

William Moorhead

Who Settled in Dakota 1867

Died July 9, 1897

63 yr 10 mo 17 d

One of our area's true pioneers - Land Agent, Indian 

Trader, Trading Post Clerk, Buffalo Hunter, 

Undertaker, Farmer, and Flood Prognosticator... 

Charley's grave is also marked with a G.A.R. star,
signifying him as a Union veteran of the Civil War. 

The Dead of Fort Pembina

Some of the graves that were originally in the Fort Pembina Cemetery.
In anticipation of Fort Pembina (1870-1895) closing, the graves were  
disinterred and reburied at the Custer National Cemetery in 1892.

When Fort Pembina existed (1870-1895), it was in a sense its own town, almost entirely self-sufficient. That included having its own cemetery.

As Fort Pembina's time was winding down, the U.S. Army knew it would need to find a new home for the graves at the Fort's cemetery.  It was determined they would be disinterred, then transferred for reburial, to the Custer National Cemetery.  This was accomplished in 1892.

I recently became curious about whether the Fort had its own cemetery or not, and that's when I learned about the above after doing the initial research.  That wasn't enough for me - I had to know more.

I eventually learned that prior to Fort Pembina's establishment, the people of Pembina demanded protection due to the recent Dakota Uprising of 1862 in Minnesota.  To fulfill their request, the government formed a special unit which eventually became known as Hatch's Battalion.  Mustered in 1863, the battalion was ready to head to Pembina, Dakota Territory in early October; they arrived - after many challenges and losses of stock and supplies - on November 13th.  They encamped over the winter, building as best they could log buildings for the 300 men that comprised the battalion.  Their main objective was to hold back the hostile Dakota that had retreated across the boundary into Canada.  [In the end, they captured over 300 Dakota; the prisoners were remnants of the 1862 uprising that had been hiding 60 miles north of Pembina...]

Hatch received orders in April to transfer the Battalion to Fort Abercrombie.  In that same letter, dated April 26, 1864, he was ordered to put one company on patrol duty, up and down the Red River of the North between Fort Abercrombie and Pembina, "...to protect the route to Pembina, and keep open communication."  The immediate threat had passed, but an eye would be kept on the situation with the patrols.  Meanwhile, communications and plans were coming together, to obtain authorization for what would become Fort Pembina. In 1869 Major General Winfield S. Hancock, commander of the Department of the Dakota, recommended the establishment of a post near Pembina. Lobbying by citizens and local area politicians had worked.  With General Hancock's recommendation to the War Department, the fort would finally become a reality; "...danger from the Sioux and construction of two railroads" were cited as reasons for providing military protection to the area.

During the time prior to the fort's establishment in 1870, two soldiers with Hatch's Battalion were the first to die while stationed in Pembina:

- Joseph Gague (Co. C, Hatch's Battalion) D. 24 April 1864
- John Munger (Co. A, Hatch's Battalion) D. 8 March 1864

The Mists of Time

A recent newspaper article reminded me of how quickly we can be forgotten.

I have often imagined the St. Vincent of the future as being a Brigadoon.  Every 100 years, it will come back for a time, rising amidst the mists along the Red River. Nothing left but memories, but memories so strong, they materialize.

I also have imagined the St. Vincent Cemetery residents as characters like in Our Town's third act, remembering for a time who they were, but slowly forgetting.  For a time, they hold conversations, remembering the past, looking onto the living, their comments both insightful and bittersweet.

And then there is me (Trip to Bountiful).  I cannot let go of the powerful memories that invade my dreams and daytime thoughts, that compel me to write about the places and people who were, and are now gone. But no, they are not gone.  They live in my memories.  They live in many of your memories reading this.  And for all we know, they live on past this life in a way we cannot yet comprehend.

Each one of us affects far more than we ever realize...

In Memorium: Marjorie Defrance

I was sad to hear recently that the last link to an old St. Vincent family had passed away.  I'm very thankful that I was able to get to know her a little bit a few years ago.  Marjorie DeFrance and I had some telephone conversations, and we met a couple of times in person.  She was very generous, opening her home and her memories to me...

Obituary:

St. Vincent, Minn. - Marjorie Oakes Baker, 102, St. Vincent, Minn. died at Kittson Memorial Healthcare Center in Hallock, March 29, 2012.

Marjorie DeFrance was born at St. Vincent, Minn. to Roy and Eva (Sheldon) DeFrance May 31, 1909.

She graduated from St. Vincent High School in 1926 and went on to attend St. Cloud Teachers College, graduating in 1928. Marjorie taught at McArthur School her first year and then taught in several Kittson County country schools.

In 1935, she married Harvey Oakes and moved into a log cabin six miles south of Pembina. They later purchased a home in Pembina and moved there in 1944. Harvey died in 1972.

Marjorie was very active in the Methodist Church, Ladies Aid and the WSCS. She served as District and Conference officer through the years and was a former Dean of Methodist School Missions. She was also county president of the Homemakers, a Past Worthy Matron of the Eastern Star and a member of the American Legion Auxiliary.

In 1975, she married Frank Baker at Pembina. Frank died in 1996. Marjorie spent six months in Florida each year for over 35 years.

Family survivors include a son, Lawrence Oakes, Hemit, Calif.; a daughter, Linda Oakes, Albuquerque, N.M.; grandchildren, Jon, Lance and Brad Oakes, Patricia Ristvedt; six great grandchildren, and a sister-in-law, Amy Oakes, Drayton.

She was preceded in death by her parents; sisters, Gladys and Ione; and brothers, Melvin, Ralph, Ray, Norton and Delbert.

Funeral services were held April 2, 2012 at Pioneer United Methodist Church at Pembina, N.D. Interment was in St. Vincent Cemetery. Rev. Gary Johnson, presided...

Memories of a Humboldt Native

Anthony "Tony" Merck
Humboldt Depot agent

This reminicense by Margaret Matthew Panzer is full of memories and names of old Humboldt in the way a poem about the town was.  As you will read, there was a lot of community and fellowship as people strove to make a good life for themselves and their families, but there were also hard times (such as during the Depression)...

...My parent's farm was a little over a mile south along Highway 75 and we often walked to town and even to church on Sunday morning when the weather was pleasant.

Though my dad had a hitching post in our yard the only time I really remember a sleigh ride was on Thanksgiving when we went cross country to Len Sylvester's farm to enjoy the day. Lots of good food and crowding around her pot belly stove, playing the piano and working on the Charleston steps were all fun.

We did ride in a school bus in nice weather and a large sled during the winter weather.

Humboldt had been built on both sides of the main highway. East of the highway was really only about four large blocks. There seemed to be wide spaces between homes as some blocks had a home only on the corner.

Recovered Grave

Gravestone for John Bruce, St. Vincent resident - buried
in old Emerson, Manitoba cemetery (reason unknown)
[Photo Courtesy:  Wayne Arseny]

I recently contacted the mayor of Emerson, Manitoba concerning the upcoming St. Vincent 155th Celebration in 2012.  We got to discussing local history.  He shared this... 

...I was clearing some graves in our abandoned old Emerson cemetery.   It's situated directly east of our current one; abandoned in 1900 because the Bradley Creek made it too difficult to cross due to flooding.. a higher/closer spot was chosen.  The old cemetery was simply forgotten and lays tucked away in heavy bush cover.  The grave I was clearing was from someone who died in 1895… which stated he came from St. Vincent.  My thoughts then were how interesting that someone from there would be buried here...