Tanner.
Born at London, Ontario on 4 February 1848, son of Ellis Walton Hyman and E. Kingsbury, he settled in the Red River Settlement in the summer of 1869, and opened a tannery at Stinking River. According to later accounts, he was a spy for John Christian Schultz, the leader of the Canadian Party. On 22 October 1869 he made an affidavit about the proposed Métis resistance, and he later joined the party in Schultz’s house that surrendered to Louis Riel in December. He tried to escape in January 1870, was recaptured, and was eventually released. His feet were frozen during the abortive escape, and he was removed from Fort Garry in a sleigh.
In December 1870, he opened a boot and shoe shop in Winnipeg and, in 1874, built a small steamboat and operated it on the Assiniboine and Red rivers. That same year he lost his right arm in a shooting accident and received the first patent granted to a Manitoban (for a pipe wrench). He may have been Winnipeg’s first Jewish resident.
In 1871, he married Mary Jane Hyman (1851-1946) and they had a daughter, Mary Frances Hyman (1872-1941, wife of John F. Tod).
He died at London, Ontario on 8 January 1914.
“Personal and social,” Manitoba Free Press, 14 January 1914, page 9.
Death registration [Mary Frances Tod], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Obituary [Mary F. Tod], Winnipeg Free Press, 5 December 1941, page 12.
Obituary [Mary Jane Hyman], Winnipeg Tribune, 3 September 1946, page 15.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
Walton Francis Hyman, FamilySearch.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
We thank Darryl Toews for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 7 June 2024
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