ARRIVING IN SASKATOON

During a meeting of the Saskatoon Historical Society, May 3rd, 1922, Frankie Caswell (wife of Robert Caswell) shared some of her memories of early Saskatchewan life: “They called it the City of Saskatoon, but when we arrived there were seven houses, and not one properly finished.  People had told me not to go but we thought since it was called a city, it must be a good sized place.  We expected to find wheat fields, with wheat growing over our heads, and wagons piled up with strawberries.” Mrs. Caswell tells her story of getting married.  "I was married August 4th, 1884.  We drove to Prince Albert with a horse and carriage.  We stopped at Mrs. Cameron’s twenty miles this side of Prince Albert and she went with us.  We stopped the first night after leaving at Mrs. Clark’s, Clarks Crossing.  We crossed the river and went up to Fish Creek and stopped at Mr. Batoche’s.  He had a beautiful home and from there we went to Mrs. Cameron’s, and then to Prince Albert.  We had a government horse and a government buggy so we drove in style.  It was a long way to go but it was worth it.  Mr. Williams married us.”

HOMESTEADING NEAR SASKATOON, 1884-1885

     This is the balance of the letter written by Patience Smith (Mrs. John J.) Caswell.  This letter was addressed to “Abbie”. (We have not been able to determine who Abbie is. During my correspondence with the Saskatchewan Archives they had sent a copy of this letter to me.  John was very pleased to receive a copy of it as he was not aware of the existence of this letter from his grandmother.)

     We had so much stuff to start for the Colony. John hired a car then he bought two cows, a team of ponies, and three pigs. Well that left Grandma and I to go on the train for John would have to go with the car.

     Albert was born the 24 of May 1884 so we waited until he was three weeks old then started. My, it is looking back a long way, he is now one of the Professors in the University at Eugene, Oregon. He studied at Manitoba College before going to Stanford Jr. University where he took his Doctors degree.

     Grandma had seven canaries to take and a big dog so you see we had some luggage. We went through to Moose Jaw.  Regina had a few houses and the Mounted Police Barracks.   Moose Jaw was not much better, only it had an Emigration Shed instead of the Barracks. Our household goods were all piled in the Emigration Shed and I did not see any of it till the next November. I had the baby clothes and a change of underwear and the dress I had on.  That constituted my wardrobe that summer.

     We left Moose Jaw for Clark’s Crossing with the wagon loaded to its capacity. The meteorological instruments to go to Clark’s Crossing were in the front of the wagon.  Then the spring seat with the bed mattress on it and down far enough for my feet to rest on so I would not get cold.  Back of that was the hen and chickens, the canaries, pigs, and any other thing that could be crowded in.   Even the top of our kitchen cupboard that John made in the evenings after we moved into our own little house in Winnipeg. Our house had two good bedrooms and a living room 16 x 16, and a wood shed.  We were comfortable indeed compared with some people.  Lots lived in tents all winter.

     The first day after leaving Moose Jaw we drove till about six o’clock when a terrible thunderstorm was all most to us.  We turned into a little shanty to keep from getting wet, put the ponies in the lea side to protect them. Then the boys took our food out of the little cupboard and made our evening meal.  Brought the mattress in to keep it from getting wet, put it down on the ground for Grandma and I to sleep on. Sometime in the night I awoke to find the bed full of water for the rain had flooded the ground and wet our clothes. I had to sit on the end of a box by the stove the next day till my dress dried. We left there at two p.m. the next day.

     We pitched our tent every day on account of rain till we got to Saskatoon, nine days in all. The prairie was simply beautiful with wild flowers. One morning we looked over to the Northeast to a rise of ground and there stood an elk with great big antlers.  What a wonderful sight, he was watching us. He went on and by and by we came to the elbow of the Saskatchewan River where we had to ford a rather wide creek. We had overtaken two other wagons with four men. One of the men walked over to the creek and exclaimed “the noble Saskatchewan” which caused us all to laugh for if he had looked the other way he would have seen the real river. The Medicine Hat trail and the trail from Moose Jaw join at the elbow of the river. 
     When we got there Riel and his wife with her two children and their friends were just fording the creek. He rode back to take a look at us. He rode a pony and was all dressed up with a white collar, and had a belt on with two rows of cartridges. His wife was driving a pony hitched to a red river cart.  She and the two children sitting flat in the bottom.

     It was there I first saw Saskatoon berries. Riels crowd had some with them and they dropped some, which we picked up. When we arrived at Saskatoon “which is now Tutana”, there was one good house, a makeshift of a store, a blacksmith’s bellows on a post and an old scow on the river. The scow was paddled across by four men. We arrived safely on the west side along with three Surveyors and their ponies.

     The Rebellion started the next spring on St. Patrick’s Day. We were two miles north of Clarks Crossing on the west side of the river, living in a little house 16 x 16 with a kitchen 7 x 8, and a good well just outside the door and a shed for wood. The next week after the half-breeds at Duck Lake had rose in Rebellion, “White Cap” on the reservation south of Saskatoon started to join the others at the lake so had to go by our place. Instead of going on by, the whole tribe camped opposite our place on the east side of the river.  For three days we did not know whether they would come across for us or not, so I said if they come I am going to be dressed ready so I slept in my clothes and so did the baby.  In fact we did not know what they might do. After they had passed on we breathed more freely.

     Let me say just here that I gathered the cream and made the first butter at Clarks Crossing.  After I had stirred it with a big spoon, (for that is how I churned it) when it was already to gather in a lump, Grandma Caswell said she would take the jar to the tent where we kept our supplies and gather it.  So she picked up the jar, for it was the jar I kept sugar in, and took it to the tent and I took up the baby.  In a little while she came to the door and told Mr. Molloy, who was the Telegrapher, and all to come see the butter.  She wanted the honour of making it.  But the honour was snatched away in a very funny fashion, for she had forgotten to hook the tent door and some little pigs we had running loose ran into the tent and upset the jar and ate up the butter and buttermilk.  All we could say was “it was Caswells butter and Caswells pigs”.

     Our mail in those days was brought in from Moose Jaw by anyone coming to the Colony.  Then when anyone was going to Batoche they would put out letters under a big stone and we could see them as they drove along on the other side of the river.  John would take the rowboat and go across to see what mail we got. During the remainder of the first summer there were two more very good houses built in Saskatoon.  They were used the next summer as hospitals.

     In those days if our coal oil ran out we lit shavings on the hearth of the stove to see to get the evening meal and get the baby ready for bed. The men went to Moose Jaw twice a year for our provisions and clothing. One time the horses got away and it was several weeks before we got our supplies, so we had to do without flour and sugar for two weeks. 
     After the Rebellion the Indians and half breeds used to go driving around with a white flag tied on their carts.  Saskatoon never had a real fort; they appointed men to do picket duty day and night while the Indians were in the vicinity.

     When we had children enough in the settlement to establish a school.  I taught until the Inspector could get a teacher. His name was Canon Flett.

     We used to take our clothes to the river in the summer time to wash them, and had to melt snow in the winter time.  The water in the well was so hard we could not use it to wash with.

     We used to see the big white jack rabbits stand on their hind feet and have their front feet up on the hay stack. Thus they would make their supper off the hay. Every fall the wild geese would come in hundreds to our wheat fields and feed around till they rested up for another flight south.

     In the month of August, when the ducks lose their pinion feathers, our old water spaniel would go into the lakes and bring them out by the dozens. We always lived high on fowl during the summer. John’s sister gave me a goose and gander to start raising some.    One evening they were waiting for me to let them into the barn when a fox came along and picked up the goose, just back of her head.  Swinging her up on his back off he went.  I ran out and chased him but I soon saw he was gaining on me so I turned back.

     One day I saw a big flock of geese feeding on the stubble back of our grove. So when John came I told him and asked him to try and shoot one. So he took old Fan, an old mare that was out on the stubble with her colt for a blind. The colt was quite a piece away when he gave her a slap to make her move on so he could shoot. As soon as she started to go the colt started to follow. But John had pulled the trigger and the charge of shot killed the colt and three geese. The feathers in one of the pillows, I told Grace she could have, was from those geese.  A few feathers I had in the house.  Now that sounds like a fairy tale but it is true none the less.

     Our nearest doctor was the government doctor on the Indian reservation of Duck Lake and was 10 miles away.  When I hurt my knee and had to have it lanced we had to send to Duck Lake for Dr. Stewart.  R.J. Molloy was the telegrapher operator at the Crossing as long as the Government had one there and R. W. Caswell was line repairer. When we had a post office established at Clarks Crossing, J. F. Clark was our Post Master.

     The Government ferry was at Clarks Crossing until the men in Saskatoon came up to the Crossing, cut the cables and took it to Saskatoon.  They said it was needed there, so much more than at the Crossing.  Well I have written so much you will be tired reading it, and I suppose you will find lots of mistakes in the spelling. I have written it in such a hurry. Hoping it will help you to make up your story. I could write reams more but you have enough I think so will close.

     (In another hand) Patience did not mention the tipping over of the scow and losing a lot of rations by Middeltons men and they told John he could have all he could rescue from the river.  Of course all the biscuits and bread stuff was ruined but they saved enough tinned stuff to last them all summer.  They took the hams and bacon and washed them and peeled off the outside and put it in new brine. When one fall Patience forgot to put yarn on the list when they went for supplies she had to ravel out tops of old stockings and knit new feet on others with it to get through the winter.

THE CASWELLS, SASKATCHEWAN PIONEERS

Saskatoon - Founding Temperance Colony 1882

     The year 1883, marked a shift from the dispersal of the Caswell siblings to the forming of a new cluster, this time out in the Northwest Territories, where the Saskatoon Temperance Colony was seeking colonists.
   As mentioned in Patience Caswells letter, the visit to their home in Winnipeg by George Grant, agent for the Temperance Colony resulted in most members of Andrew Caswells family again pulling up stakes in order to settle on land the Temperance Society had secured in Saskatchewan.

     The idea of coming to the northern portion of the Great Plains appealed to many.  There was adventure, a new challenge, free land and ownership of 160 acres of fertile soil, with no rocks and no forests to clear.  It was a dream and a golden opportunity.

“Saskatoon’s founders dreamed of creating a temperance colony.  The government of the time, in a hurry to develop the country, was offering large blocks of land to colonization companies.  Many in Toronto’s Methodist community saw this as an opportunity to escape the evils of the liquor traffic.  They formed the Temperance Colonization Society Limited (TCS)”.

     The first Colony Trek took place in wagons heading out from Moose Jaw.  Two of the youngest Caswell brothers, Joseph and Robert, were part of the second group to travel to the Temperance Colony.  

     The next year their brother John brought his wife, his mother and his baby son, Albert, to the homestead which his brother Joe had claimed on his behalf.  John built a cabin on his homestead.  Joseph, who had been living with Rob, went to live with John.  In August Rob brought his bride home and his mother moved in with them.  (She had been with John & Patience).

In 1883 the names of the following appear in the Minutes of the Temperance Colony Pioneers' Society as members without having been entered as voted into the Society.(A pioneer settler is defined as one coming in by trail and before the railway in 1890   The presumption is that they are charter members from its inception on March 1st, 1884, and therefore came into the settlement during the previous summer (1883). However, as all the minutes are not embodied in the Minute Book, there is some doubt in the case of names only appearing in and after May, 1884. When there is substantial corroborative evidence of their coming in in 1883 the names are placed here as charter members.  1883 Charter Member: Caswell, Joseph The following also came in 1883: Caswell, Robert W. 1885  Others were Caswell, J. D., with wife and children, Mary, Martha, Jennie, Andrew, John. 1888 From the Minutes of the Methodist Mission: Donnan, Hugh, with his wife and children.