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The
Euro-Settler Experience
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2. A Manitoba ghost
town
By Ida E. Sanderson
WESTERN PEOPLE February 4, 1988 p. 4
The
cairn, eight miles northwest of Morden, is an imposing rock, weighing
several tons, erected on the original townsite of Nelson,
Manitoba. Unveiled June 29, 1958, in memory of the district’s
pioneers, its bronze plaque bears the following inscription:
TOWNSITE OF NELSON (1877-1885)
In 1877, Adam Nelson built a Grist Mill on Silver Creek marking the
beginning of Nelson. 1882 saw Nelson as an Incorporated Town of over
1,000 people. It had a Land Titles Office, was Judicial County
Seat of North Dufferin. A newspaper was published from
1880-1885. Nelson was on a regular stage-coach route. The
railway by-passed Nelson in 1883, and the people gradually moved their
business places and homes to other locations, the majority going to
Morden. The last building was moved in 1905. The community
was later named Dunston. In 1958 the cairn was erected in memory
of the pioneers, under the auspices of the Dunston community.
Now the cairn is the only reminder that, in the 1800s, there used to be
a metropolis, by prairie standards, there. The hand of time has
gradually erased any signs of the once thriving town. Through the
years basements that hinted of a former urban community have become
obscured by shrubs and trees.
From 1877 to 1882 the town was called Nelsonville, named for the Adam
Nelson family, pioneers who had come west from Ontario. A grist
and sawmill built by the Nelsons on Silver Creek made it possible to
have wheat ground into flour and lumber made from local timber.
In 1882 the town incorporated under the name Nelson. By 1885 this
town of more than 1,000 people was dying. The Pembina branch line
of the Canadian railway, in 1883, had bypassed it. The migration
began the next year. It happened quickly. By 1886 it was a
ghost town. The southerly route chosen for the CPR sealed its
destiny.
Ironically, Thomas Duncan, Nelson’s mayor, had previously lead a
delegation to Ottawa. They received assurances from the prime
minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and the CPR’s manager, Sir William Van
Horne, that by 1884 the railroad would reach their town. Nelson died;
Morden, a new town on the new rail line, was born.
It was a group of disillusioned people who moved established businesses
and homes. The majority relocated in Morden. Some sold
their buildings and had them dismantled on the site. A few chose
other locations. In 1886 the site of Nelson had been
abandoned. The last structure was gone by 1906. In 1879 Jim
Sanderson walked cross-country 70 miles from Portage la Prairie to
Nelsonville to file a claim on two half sections northwest of Holland,
Manitoba, for his father and to file another claim for himself.
The Nelsonville he saw was not only prospering but expanding.
Real estate prices were sky-rocketing. A lot in Nelsonville was
selling for as much as $1000. The future of the town not only
seemed bright but assured.
The town eventually had three doctors, three lawyers and three
ministers – Presbyterian, Anglican and Methodist. Three or four
grocery stores, one with a liquor outlet, had opened. Two private
banks, hardware stores, hotels, a real estate office, jewelry store,
bake shop, and furniture outlet were in operation. As well, there
were two blacksmith shops, two livery stables and a harness repair shop
serving the area.
Following incorporation in 1882, the new Nelson town hall was
built. It housed the judicial county seat for northern Dufferin,
council chambers, a registry office and on the second floor was an
assembly hall.
A weekly newspaper, the Nelsonville Mountaineer, was published from
1880 to 1885. A December 1880 issue advertised pork at eight
cents a pound. In the summer of 1881 hay was selling for $6 a
ton. In one of its last editions, the editor included the market
price for wheat – 70 cents a bushel.
A resident of Baldur, Manitoba, Alice McTavish, recalls her parents
went to Stevenson’s Pine Grove Nursery at Nelson at each harvest to buy
apples for the threshing gang. Mr. Stevenson, a horticulturist,
experimented with imported seedlings and fruits. Apples were his
favorite – at one time he grew 100 varieties. It was from some of
the stock that the Morden Experimental Farm, in 1916, had its beginning.
Mail came in to Nelson by stage coach – and later by riders on
horseback. From there it was distributed to post offices in the
surrounding small communities. Nelson seemed to have every
amenity. It was a town with a band, an Orange Lodge, and a squash
club. The first cheese factory in southern Manitoba was built
there.
As Nelson disappeared the community was re-named Dunston, and is still
known as Dunston today. The Dunston United Church north of the
cairn is still used for special services.
With farm land on all sides, the former site of Nelson has reverted to
a quiet countryside. Only the words on a wayside cairn remind the
traveller that for eight short years Nelson was an impressive
settlement.
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