CHAPTER X.

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.

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.

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."