|
Frederick
Fairhall
By Mrs.
Alex. Mitchell
Mr.
Tom
Greenway, who afterwards became premier of Manitoba, brought settlers
to Manitoba. Emerson was the destination by rail. From
there, my father, Frederick Fairhall, and family travelled to Crystal
City by covered wagon, where they lived a year, and where I saw my
first Red River cart which the Indians used.
As
the
people who owned the house we were living in wished to occupy their
dwelling, the Blackwell family invited us to stay with them at Long
River. My mother assisted with the household tasks.
When
our shanty on the south half of Section 10-4-17 was finished we moved
there. Later on a log house was erected on the same land.
The
first wheat grown was sold for thirty cents a bushel. Flour was
obtained by taking wheat to Gregory’s mill on the Souris River.
It made lovely bread. Wheat for sale had to be taken to Brandon,
the nearest market. Father and a neighbour, Mr. Wesley, would
take two loads of wheat in sacks to market. It took the price of
one load to pay expenses for the two.
James
Baldwin had a small store in his house on his farm north of our place.
Our
first home missionary was the Reverend Andrew Stewart who afterwards
became Dr. Stewart, a professor of Wesley College in Winnipeg. My
father was a local preacher. He conducted funeral for two
different children, in the absence of the minister. Divine
services were held in the home of Mr. Robert Squires, on the farm now
owned by Mr. Joe Pelechaty. Later in school houses.
The
Reverend William Elliot was our next minister. He afterwards went
to Japan as a missionary, with his wife who was a Miss Robinson.
Our
first school was Fairfield, still standing, and Father was the first
secretary-treasurer. Our first teacher was William Rodgers.
School was only held for six months in the year, owing to the
cold weather in the winter. Children who attended were the
Fishers, Burns, Squires, and three from my home. Later the Worden
children who lived where Mr. Joe Pelechaty lives now, near the school.
Mr.
Fisher owned an organ. One night the family brought the organ
along to our home, and we had a party. His son, Fred, played the
organ.
Mr.
Worden used to get barrels of apples from Ontario. These were a
great treat to neighbour children in those days.
Thomas
M. Fairhall
Thomas
Fairhall was born on April 20, 1965, son to Mrs. and Mrs. Frederick
Fairhall of Lucan, Ontario. The Fairhall family was a large one,
Frederick having married twice. His first wife died after bearing
four children. From the marriage with his second wife, Sarah
Long, ten children were born and eight raised to maturity. They
lived on a small farm near the village of Lucan, suffering the usual
hardships of a large family getting a living on a small Ontario
farm. Frederick Fairhall was a man of very deep religious
convictions and he endeavored to bring his family up with a true
spiritual training. Thomas Fairhall was the second oldest son and
the third oldest member of the family. He was my father and I am
endeavoring to tell his life history from stories I remember him
telling us of the trials, the enjoyment, the experiences of his
life. These stories were told to me long ago and I have to depend
on my memory which is not too good, for his life story. Many
important things will be left out simply because I have forgotten them.
I
can
remember him telling of his early school days in a small rural school
in Ontario. The standard of education in those days was very low
and the young men worked out in the summer and went to school in the
winter. Many young men were still going to public school when
they were seventeen or eighteen, most schools were taught by men
teachers who believed in the rule of using the cane and asking
questions later. My father told of his fear regarding the feuds
between the older pupils and the school teachers. He remembered
the teacher trying to cane a pupil who was much bigger than himself;
the cane was used until the blood started, then the pupil grabbed the
stick and broke it over the teacher’s head. All this made life in
school quite unbearable for my father and after passing into grade four
my grandfather gave him the choice of continuing in school or helping
him on the farm. Needless to say, my father chose the latter and
for the rest of his days felt that he had made the wrong choice.
My
father told many stories of Ontario. The maple sugar season where
his job was to lead the horse drawing a stone boat with a barrel on it
from tree to tree and dump the sap into the barrel, taking it to a big
vat where the sap was boiled in what they called “sugaring off.”
In the harvest season his job was to gather up grain cut by a sickle
and bind it into sheaves, in turn the sheaves were stooked and after
curing were loaded into wagons and drawn in to the barn floor where the
grain was threshed. He told of the twelfth of July celebrations
where the Orangemen held large parades led by drum and fife
bands. Although my father was just a boy and not an Orangeman he
was allowed to beat the drum on occasion. He also told of knowing
the Donley family, a notorious family of what was known as the Black
Irish. The family consisted of quite a few boys noted for their
lawlessness. The mother apparently encouraged them and felt the only
way a son of hers could become a real man was to kill another in a
gunfight. Jack Donley was one of the worst of the boys and in a
robbery attempt killed one of the business men of Lucan. A police
posse started a man hunt for Jack and he was eventually captured by
William Hodgins, the town policeman. Mr. Hodgins later migrated
to Manitoba and farmed six miles north of Killarney.
About
this time the Hon. Thomas Greenway, who was then Minister of
Immigration, came back to Ontario giving glowing accounts of the
possibilities of farming in Manitoba. That province was just
opening up and of course, the people of Ontario felt that Manitoba was
indeed the wild and woolly west so most of the natives, including my
grandfather, were skeptical about Mr. Greenway’s reports.
However, after seeing some potatoes and samples of wheat which Mr.
Greenway had with him, and hearing that land was practically given
away, my grandfather began to have some second thoughts. His
family was much too large for the farm they were living on and he felt
they would have to move. The family discussed the situation and
decided to split up. The children of the first marriage were
grown up by this time, and decided to remain in Ontario. The
children of the second marriage all agreed to come to Manitoba.
In the year 1881 when my father was 16 years old, my grandfather and
grandmother, with all their family, gathered up their belongings and
started out for the west. My memory is a bit faulty here, but I
believe they came on a mixed train to Emerson and drove by team and
wagon from Emerson to Crystal City where the Land Titles office was
located. My father told of an odd experience the day they landed
at Emerson. Apparently when packing their belongings at Lucan, my
grandfather felt it expedient to have their money put in various pieces
in their luggage in case of theft, so a certain amount was packed in
each child’s bundle. On arriving at Emerson, grandfather was
taking stock of all their goods and could not find the money in Aunt
Martha’s (Mrs. Tom Hillier) bundle. The whole family searched
through everything and as the amount of money was considerable at that
time, they all felt it a terrible loss when it was not located.
My grandfather always held family worship every evening before going to
bed and my father remembered him praying for some light to be given
them. They all went to bed and during the night, grandfather had
a dream. In the dream he was told where to look for the
money. In the morning, he went directly to one of the trunks and
found the money exactly where he had been told to look. That,
said my father, was the first time he was sure that a prayer could be
answered.
On
arriving at Crystal City grandfather and his oldest son George Fairhall
applied for homesteads in what is now the Killarney district. At
that time there were no railroads and it was only a guess where they
would go. The railroad officials had made two surveys; one called
the north survey, which would send the railroads north west from
Crystal City bordering the south side of the lakes Louise, Lorne and
Pelican going west through what is now known as the Rowland
district. The south survey was where the C.P.R. eventually placed
its tracks. My grandfather and Uncle George decided on Section
12-3-17, on the south survey. The clerk at the Land Titles
Office felt the north survey would be where the railroad would
eventually be built so my grandfather changed his mind and decided to
take land on the north survey, settling on sec. 10-4-17. It served to
show how the element of chance, or luck, prevailed. The railroad
was placed on the south survey and my grandfather’s farm was eight
miles from town instead of two if he had insisted on his first choice.
Uncle
George Fairhall was handy with tools so he took on a job as carpenter
while my grandfather and my father did the settling duties on sec.
10-4-17. Father told of the trying experiences driving from
Crystal City to the homestead. Apparently 1881 was a year of much
moisture. The rivers were all flooding, causing great
difficulties in crossing them. Grandfather and father had a team
of horses hitched to a wagon with a hayrack on it; on the rack was a
walking plow, a stove and the necessary articles to get a sod stable
built. When they came to a river, they had to unhitch the horses
and father would swim them across dragging a rope. Grandfather
stayed on the wagon and tried to keep everything intact while it was
towed across. By the time they got to sec. 10, grandfather was
nearly played out and felt they had made a very bad move coming to
Manitoba. Before they got the things off the rack and turned it
over for a shelter it was raining as my dad said “cats and dogs.”
They got the stove going but grandfather took and chill and could not
get warm. Father remembered seeing a homestead about seven miles south
east, so he decided they had better try to get back to that
place. They hitched the team to the wagon bunk and got to the
only house within miles which turned out to be owned by the Mason
brothers, and where Byron Mason later raised his fine family. Dad
said he was never go glad to see any place in his life. They
stayed with the Masons seven days and it rained every day. It was
getting late in the season so Dad and grandfather did what was
absolutely necessary on sec. 10 and drove back to Crystal City for the
winter. Dad spent the winter working on the farm of Hon. Thomas
Greenway, three quarters of a mile south of Crystal City. During
that winter Uncle George fell from a scaffold and was killed.
Grandfather went to the Land Titles office to see if my father could
take over Uncle George’s homestead even though he was not old
enough. The Land Titles officer suggested it would be quite in
order for my father to do the settling duties on the homestead and when
he came of age would receive the title. That is how Frederick
Fairhall got title to the south half of sec. 10-4-17, and Thomas
Fairhall got title to the north half.
The
team of horses Grandfather had brought from Ontario were not very heavy
and they traded them in for a yoke of oxen. Dad said if any
animal could cause a man to swear, an ox was it. He told about
the oxen getting hot and heading straight for a slough, no matter what
he did. How he would throw stones at them until they decided to
come out. However, he got so he could handle them quite well, at
least he must have because he was hired to plow out the road allowance
marker for that district.
Life
on
the prairie was pretty rugged but according to my father was thoroughly
enjoyed by the Fairhall family. The stories told by Thomas
Greenway were quite true and the wheat and vegetables grown on sec. 10
were quite satisfactory to my grandfather. The first two crops
were hauled to Brandon by ox team. I believe it took four days to
make the round trip, and took the price of one load to pay the expenses
for two loads. Father lived with the rest of the family during
the early part of his homesteading, but finally bult himself a log
house and batched with a school teacher by the name of William Taylor
who was teaching school to make enough money to take an engineering
course. Dad was greatly interested in engineering and felt that
if he had only taken more schooling, he could have become a railroad
engineer. He also told of having a young chap by the name of Hugh
Townsend living with him one winter. Hugh was a professional
boxer and they turned the old shack into a gymnasium where all the
young fellows of the district came to try out their skills. Dad
was an ardent ball player and although never classed as a top notcher,
he thoroughly enjoyed the game. I can still see him taking up a bat
when he was nearly seventy years old and wanting to see if he could
still hit the ball.
In
the
fall of 1898, my father felt it was time he gave up bachelorhood and
persuaded Georgina McCulloch to share married life with him, so on Dec.
27, 1898 they were married and lived on the old homestead until the
fall of 1938. That fall I decided to get married and my father
and mother purchased a home in Killarney where they lived until my
father died in 1941.
During
his life farming in Manitoba my father had his share of ups and
downs. He told of the prairie fires that swept across the open
grassland and endangered the homesteads. How he and his
brother-in-law, Thomas Hillier, spent all one winter cutting logs in
Turtle Mountain and drawing them a distance of thirty miles in order to
build their first big stock barns. I can remember when our barn
burned to the ground in the fall of 1923, Dad was on his way to
Killarney with a load of wheat. Uncle Will McKnight heard about
the fire and he jumped into his car, met Dad and brought him
home. The only thing he said when he viewed the wreckage was,
“There goes a lot of hard work.”
I
can
remember him going to town one winter day to get some coal and to bring
my sister Irene home from High School. One of those quick
blizzards came up shortly after they left town at 4:30 p.m. The
storm was so thick we could not see the barn – fifty yards from the
house – and at 9:30 p.m. Dad and Irene were still not home.
People were phoning from town equally worried along with us. Dad
was an excellent navigator in a storm but the team was young and lost
the road. Dad figured that if he kept the wind at a certain point
he would hit our fence and get his bearings. However, unknown to
him, the wind had changed, and instead of reaching our fence his team
was wandering out in the middle of sec. II. By this time they
were nearly played out and Dad decided it would be wise to wrap up and
stay where they were till morning as it was not too cold. He got
out of the sleigh while the horses were getting their wind, and found a
bluff of trees which he thought he recognized as being about a mile
from home. When he saw this bluff he was practically sure of his
directions so he kept going, realizing the wind could have
changed. Shortly after 10 p.m. we heard a sound of harness
rattling and I ran out in time to see the team, looking like grey
ghosts, come past the corner of the house. Needless to say, we
all breathed sighs of relief, and Dad again said that something kept
telling him to keep going when he decided to stay on the prairie.
It was thirty below zero next morning.
Thomas
Fairhall lived seventy-six years. During those years he put a lot
into them and left very fine memories when he passed on. He took
a very active part in church, school, and municipal affairs, and above
all, left his family with the assurance that, as an all around good
father, he was “tops.”
These
are a few memorable incidents from my father’s life. I am sorry I
cannot recall more.
George
Fairhall
|
|
