The town of Millford was established in 1879 on the banks of the Souris River, in what is now the Municipality of Glenboro-South Cypress. Colonel R. Z. Rogers, a real estate promoter from Ontario, had surveyed the site and commissioned construction gangs to erect houses, stores, grist mills, and saw mills.
When the Canadian Pacific Railway bypassed the town in 1881, Millford faded away. By 1890, it was largely deserted. On 14 June 1945, Lieutenant Governor Roland Fairbairn McWilliams unveiled a large concrete monument at the site of the original town. The present stone monument has the metal plaque of its predecessor.
Among those buried in the nearby Millford Cemetery is Letitia Mooney (1833-1920), mother of author and suffragist Nellie McClung. Millford was the fictionalized setting for McClung’s first novel Sowing Seeds in Danny. Also buried in the cemetery are several members of the Vane family who lived at the Criddle-Vane Homestead.
The cemetery is a municipally-designated heritage site (2001).
The original Millford commemorative monument (June 1945)
Source: Archives of Manitoba, Millford 12.
Unveiling ceremony for the Millford commemorative monument (June 1945)
Source: Archives of Manitoba, Millford 21.
Millford commemorative monument (August 2010)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough
A grave in the Millford Cemetery (August 2010)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough
Millford Cemetery (May 2021)
Source: Rose KuzinaSite Coordinates (lat/long): N49.62004, W99.56412
denoted by symbol on the map above
See also:
Place Names by Irene Craig
Manitoba Pageant, September 1956Historic Sites of Manitoba: Municipally Designated Historic Sites
“Along the home front,” Winnipeg Free Press, 16 June 1945, page 3.
Millford Cemetery and Townsite, Manitoba Historic Resources Branch.
We thank Reid Dickie and Rose Kuzina for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 28 January 2022
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