SASKATCHEWAN, THE SECOND RIEL REBELLION 1885

Patience continues:  When the Rebellion first started two Indians came to our door and as was my custom I went to get them some bread and butter, for as the old saying is “a full stomach makes a good child.”  The younger of the two took the bread and put it in his coat and went off.  The older one, a fellow about twenty, sat down in the house with his gun standing beside him.  The gun had a piece of red flannel tied on the barrel. I gave him a piece of a loaf of bread and he threw it out on the snow bank.  Pretty soon he came out with our buggy whip in his hand. Grandma Caswell said “I’ll not let him take that!” so out she went and told him to put it down and when he would not do it she went up to him and caught hold of the whip and hit him over the knuckles with a willow stick she picked up. He finally let go and went toward the river.

     After that things began to happen in double quick time. We got word that Big Bears band of Indians were coming in from Battleford on the old government trail and that was a little west of our house.  We never feared the half breeds but we did fear the Indians. So John took Grandma and I, with the baby, to Saskatoon.  We were there for two weeks until the scare was over.  I then came back and was at the Crossing when the first company of Middletons men marched in from Humboldt through snow and water and ice, for it was in the breakup in the spring.  It was a grand sight for us to see the redcoats and the bayonets brilliant in the sunshine for it was a beautiful morning.

     John and his brother Joe started out to buy hay to sell to the Government for the Cavalry horses and the horses in the transport service. That kept the men busy.  Then they two cut the wood for the steamer, which played such an active part in the charge at Batoche. The young men in the Army wanted bread instead of hard tack, so the quarter master told us he would give 100 lb. of flour for 60 lb. of bread.  I baked from 20 to 25 loaves of bread every day, except Sunday; all the while the troops were at the Crossing.

     We had some noted personages call to see us, Lord Melgun, who afterwards became Governor General of Canada.  He and John worked two and a half days together putting the Cavalry horses across the river. We then had the head of the C.P.R. Surveyors, Professor Saunders of the experimental farm in Ottawa, and lots of the men from Middletons camp. We were well acquainted with young Gilchrist whom the Indians shot at Frog Lake. He use to play our Organ for the boys and they would have a real sing (our organ was the first in the Colony) whenever the line men came in to the Crossing to camp. Telegraph line repairers were there all summer.

     The Metis cut the telegraph wires.  Rob headed east to repair them, Joe headed west on Grey, a horse he valued.  Rob was captured by the Metis, thrown into a cellar at Batoche; he was vouched for and his life was spared.  Joe patched the wires as he rode to carry word to the NW Mounted Police at Battleford.   

The following is their stories:

     Between 1883 and 1885 Rob Caswell got to know a number of the Metis,  on his journeys in connection with building branches of the telegraph line.  One Metis was determined to make a match between his daughter and Rob, until Rob told him that he was already married.  From time to time Rob was stationed among them as telegraph operator, notably at Duck Lake in 1883 and again in 1885. 

     Land claims of the Metis and Indians, and the Government’s failure to deal with them were the cause of the Second Riel Rebellion.  The first survey made had followed the Quebec pattern of long narrow acreages with the farm houses fairly close together or clustered in villages.  The second survey was rectangular, which not only deprived some families of their homes, but also struck at the social structure of Metis society.  Some of the Caswell land claims were also caught up in this change.

     In Robs diary he expressed his opinion on the second rebellion.  The Metis just like many other people have loud talkers and can give a harangue and lead the rank and file quite often against their better judgment.  These people settled all along the river as squatters.  The land had not been surveyed.

     There was no trouble with the Indians.  Their treaty with the government was carried out and they received their treaty money annually.  The Metis sent a committee to Montana to bring Louis Riel to organize the Metis and the Indians to force the government to settle their claims even to go to war to enforce their claims when this agitation was being carried on. 

     The Government built a telegraph line from Clarks crossing in 1883 to Prince Albert and I was appointed operator at Clarks Crossing.  In the spring of 1884 an operator was brought from Nova Scotia to take over the office and I was put in charge of maintenance.  I built a loop line from the Prince Albert line at Batoche to Duck Lake and I set up the instruments in a small house provided by Hilliard Mitchel who had charge of the Stobart Store.

     On March 25th, 1885 I was instructed to go to Duck Lake and take charge of the office there as the government could not depend on the reports sent in by the young operator.  I made arrangements for the daughter of the Government telegraph operator at Clarks Crossing to live with my wife while I would be away.

     On the morning of the 26th of March I went to the office to see if there were any fresh orders, and was instructed to follow the line as it was cut or broken.  There was a heavy all of snow that winter and it was still on.  There had not been any thaw yet.  There was a heavy crust which skimmed the legs of the ponies, when I had travelled about fifteen miles the pony played out and I went over to the river and got down on the ice where the snow was more uniform and I got to Angus McIntosh settlement and stayed there all night and the next morning I went to the Dowling brothers, close by Fish Creek.

     Dr. Willoughby had been at Batoche on his way to Saskatoon and stopped at Angus McIntosh the night of the 25th and reported the breeds were getting quite excited but not expected to do anything until spring.

     The next morning, March 27th I went on to the Dowling brothers from close to where the Fish Creek fight took place about a month later.

I hired one of the brothers to take me to Duck Lake.  The winter trail ran through the yards of the Metis from Fish Creek to Batoche and as I drove through a yard in sight of the Catholic Church at Batoche, Kerr the storekeeper opened an upstairs window and gave me a full report of the Duck Lake fight the day before telling me how many were killed and wounded.  There was no window or door except the one Kerr was in, that part of the house I was behind a high woodpile therefore I was not discovered by any of the other inmates.

     Kerr was on parole kept in this house as a prisoner on honor not to leave.  He warned me to not go any further and Dowling started to leave me, I called for him to wait.  I wanted all the information for the government that I could get.  He replied if I wanted to go with him, I would have to go at once.

     To have information and be held as a prisoner would not be much use to the government, so I decided to go.  I got all the information that was necessary. I had the number killed and wounded at Duck Lake.  It was on my report the troops were ordered out.

     While I was talking to Kerr a Metis went past going to Batoche and evidently reported my presence at the Venn house and a few minutes after we left two teams arrived where we had been.  That mule travelled some; the driver was scared half to death.

     We only got away a few miles when we were stopped by four Metis and detained for about half an hour; my friend who had wanted me to go to see his daughter, was in the party and he was responsible for my release.  He knew I was a government employee, but did not give me away.  If they had known that I was and employee of the government, I would never have gotten away.  I had a full set of telegraph instruments in my box on the jumper. 

     When I arrived about four or five miles from home, I saw my brothers John and Joseph cutting wood on the river bank.  I stopped long enough to tell them what had happened and then went on to the office and reported to Ottawa through the superintendent at Battleford.  My eyes had not got over the snow blind caused by my other trips and when I arrived home I again suffered terrible with snow blind.  When I left to go to Duck Lake to take charge there Archie Brown was brought to the office at the Crossing to take care of the ponies and the lines.  (Archie’s story to follow.)

     When I made my report to the Superintendent at Battleford, Anderson, a pet of the Superintendent shipped his wife and children (she was the operator at Humboldt) to Qu’Appelle, leaving no operator at Humboldt where there was a detachment of mounted police and no means of communication with headquarters.  The superintendent seemed to think I was a football for him to kick around; he ordered me to go to Humboldt and take charge there.  I refused to go.  I was snow blind and it was not my duty to go.  I told him that I had a wife and that was where I was going to stay.  A couple of days later he asked me to go and he would bring me back in two weeks, and when the time was up I told him I was going home.  He had refused to have me taken home.  He lied in the first place; he never intended to take me back.  By this time general Middleton was north of For Qu’Appelle and when his field operator cut in in the evening I got him and told him I was closing the office.  I told him the conditions under which I came to Humboldt.  The operator got the General and he asked me to remain there until he arrived at Humboldt and he would give me a pony and saddle to take me home.  He said the office could stay closed after he got that far.  I agreed and when the general arrived at Humboldt he invited me to his tent and he asked many questions concerning the terrain around Batoche, etc.  He ordered a pony to be brought for me and I bundled up my bedding and other articles, gave them to a teamster with the troops and at eleven o’clock I started for home.

When the troops arrived at Humboldt they had no hay to feed the teams and the man that had the contract for supplying hay for the teams asked me what chance there was for hay at the river.  I told him no hay there.  He knew I was going home and he said he would give me twenty dollars per ton for all the hay I would deliver at Clarks Crossing.  I called up the operator at Clarks Crossing and asked him to have Archie Brown take a message to my brother-in-law – who was staying with his sister, my wife and for him to go to Saskatoon, buy all the hay he could get and have it delivered each day for a week; to make a deposit on all contracts and if he could, have a couple loads delivered twenty miles east of the river as soon as possible.  An extra price would be paid for any delivered east of the river.  It was a windfall for the Saskatoon farmers.  All played square with me except one man that was never known to do a decent thing.  He brought a load and sold it direct to the contractor.

      Further news of the Caswell involvement in the Rebellion came from Archie Brown in an account he wrote in 1903 about the early years in Saskatchewan.  (Archie was in the same party of Temperance settlers as Rob & Joseph.)  “In the early spring of '85 great excitement was caused by rumors of arising among the Indians and half-breeds. Robert Caswell who was then Government telegraph line repairer, resigned his position as he did not care to be away from his family. I was hired to take care of the line repair horses. The Government Telegraph station was then at Clark's Crossing a short distance up the river from the C.N.R. where the main line crosses the South Saskatchewan. Mr. Malloy was operator there and had a wife and large family of children. One day word was brought to the telegraph office that the Indians were making for Batoche from the White Cap Reserve (Moose Woods) and had threatened to destroy the telegraph office that night. Malloy decided to move with his family for that night to Robert Caswell's two miles away. So we buried the instruments in the manure heap, in a box, and in the afternoon Malloy drove away. They wanted me to go too, but I figured Caswell's house was small and accommodation limited. I doubted if the Indians could with safety cross the river after dusk as the ice was getting treacherous. I knew they were not keen on night attacks and I knew every one of them personally.

    If they did come and decided to get nasty I concluded that I was as good as one or two Indians anyway and would be able to give a good account of myself before they got me. However, no Indians appeared and I had a good sound sleep and did not even dream of them. Malloy and family returned next afternoon, instruments were dug up, and business went on as usual, except that the operator had now something to do.  He was kept busy relaying military messages having to do with the rebellion, He used to get up about nine, answer his call, go back to bed until his wife called breakfast, then relay a message or two, talk with some other operator on the line about general news and go to dinner. Same routine in afternoon.

     One day the line between Clark's Crossing and Battleford went out of commission, Gen. Middleton wired up: "Could a message be got to Battleford somehow?" I offered to go for five dollars a day from time of leaving to time of return. Malloy said "Not enough, ask ten." I said all right. Then Malloy said ask for a guarantee for the horse. Gen. Middleton then wired the risk was too great to send a man alone, answer came get another. Joseph Caswell called at the office; Malloy asked him if he would go. He said "Yes", and went to make his preparations and get his horse.' I had arranged with old Mr. Blackley for a good saddle horse. The ice got in such shape the horses could not be got across the river, so I had to take one of the Govt. Tel. ponies.

     We made an early start one morning, one blanket and three days' provisions, plenty for the horses to carry with us through the drifts. All day it was plunge and struggle through the drifts. Night found us thirty-five miles out at Telegraph Coulee where the horses were glad of the shelter of the repair man's stable and we were glad of our portion of it to shelter us. Early start again next morning. Travelling was now much easier as a warm wind was sweeping this part of the country, and the snow had largely disappeared.  While riding along the line we discovered a break and repaired it, resuming our journey. Near noon we arrived at Eagle Creek, a most uninviting place to cross. It was running bank full, large cakes of ice coming down. If the horse missed the crossing and got swept below it there was no chance for him; the current was too swift and the banks too steep to scramble out. A man might have saved himself by hanging on and pulling himself out by the brush. Right there a discussion was held. Caswell claimed that I as a man hired to carry the message should lead the way. I claimed that he knew the crossing; having been across several times in the summer and would know just where to head his horse, so he should lead. Finally l won out and he led the way. Just as the horses lost their footing their forefeet caught on the opposite bank and we were soon on dry ground again. That night was spent in the next line repairers' shelter and the next afternoon the old town of Battleford was entered. This was deserted; everybody had gone to the Barracks across the Battle River. Buildings were burnt, rolls of dry goods were tumbled out of stores on the road, everything being scattered as if the looters had been in a hurry to get away. No doubt they were, as the Police kept it hot for them. Dead pigs were lying around, being shot by the police, I suppose as something seen at a distance to be moving. We were expected and the police wagon with a boat soon arrived to take us across the river. My horse being only a pony was turned into a corral with lots of hay. There were snow banks to eat so he was supplied with drink also. Caswell refused to risk his horse, so he swam him across behind the boat. While waiting for the police to come across the officer in charge called to us to keep under cover in case of shots from the hill. As soon as the Barracks was reached we had to report to the Officer in charge. We delivered our message. His first question was "did you repair the line?” proudly we answered "Yes." To take the conceit out of us he then said. "In future when carrying out military instructions carry out your orders to the letter, but do not undertake to do things which you were not told to as you have no means of knowing that what you are doing is not directly contrary to the plans of the officer in charge. Make yourselves comfortable, rest before returning home."  The police treated us like kings.  After a two days' rest we started for home.