HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1975-04-17, Page 26Bill Bennett, Walton with one of his rabbits
Ontario
Congratulations
to the citizens of Seaforth who this year
are 'celebrating the 100th Anniversary
of the formation of the town .
PROVINCE OF ONTARIO
SAVINGS OFFICE
R.S. MacDonald, MANAGER
SEAFORTH ONTARIO
HOURS:— 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Friday 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
WILLIAM DAVIS ARTHUR MEEN
PREMIER MINISTER of REVENUE
Go west young man was the call
And in 1916 he went
(By Jean Bewley)
'Go West young man! Go
West!' was the slogan of the early
1900's. Many adventurous young
men from this community and
others like it heeded the call and
headed west to seek their
fortunes in a virgin land.
Bill Bennett, now of Walton,
was one of them. The spartan life'
must have created strong healthy
men as Bill is embarking on his
ninetieth year. In August 1973,
Bill, his daughter Mary, her
husband. Stewart Ilumphries and
their daughter.Kim attended the
60-year jubilee in Dinsmore
Saskatchewan where Bill shared
memories with many
homesteader friends, some of
them well over ninety. .
The "Call of the West" came to
Bill Bennett in 1906 when he was
twenty. Bill lived with his mother
and father and younger brother
Foster on 84 acres on the 17th of
Grey. He knew that they could not
all make a living off that small
farm... That year and the year
before he had been working at
building the railroad as it came to
Walton and with wages at a dollar
a day he knew there wasn't much
future there. In the fall of 1906 he
went out on the harvest
excursion. His uncle, Will
Ramsay ,was a contractor in
Killarney so before he returned
on the excursion, Bill had agreed
to go back in the spring to work as
a carpenter.
In March, 1907, he set out on
the train. Between Winnipeg and
Saskatoon,. near Gull Lake, they
were snowed in with snow higher
than the train. They walked to the
Hudson Bay Post in Gull Lake
where the first person he saw was
Jim McCall, formerly of Morris
Twp. near Walton. That night Bill
and Jim shaied the Hudson's Bay
loft with piles of furs brought in
by trappers from northern
Manitoba.
Bill's sister, Mrs. Sam
McSpadden lived in Minto, Man.
so he went to, their p lace. HFS job
was in Killarney twenty. miles
down the tracks he -walked ;all
the way.
May 27th, he went with his
unde to St. John's, North Dakota,
to build the quarantine buildings
on the new 'Jim Hill' road to
'Brandon. That day brought one of
the worst blizzards he had ever
seen. There were drifts three feet
deep.
Claimed a quarter
That spring (first of July) he
went to the land office in
Saskatchewan to make his claim
on a quarter section of land. He
hoped to get a quarter section in
the same are as former
neighbour Jim Colclough,
onounced Kokely) Cocloughs
had lived on the 17th of Grey on
the farm now owned by Ron Lee:
They homesteaded in Sask. and in
the winter of 1907 were home for
a visit. They had given Bill a list
of available sections near them.
Between Bill and the clerk, they
picked out one particular section
'sight unseen' and then Bill went
back to wok in Killarney for the
summer.
The first of November, he went
up to Hanley, about sixty-six
miles from his land, and hired a
man with a team and wagon to
take his load of lumber, three
hundred pounds of flour, a bit of
sugar, a stove and a five-gallon
can of coal oil. They had to cross
the Saskatchewan River by ferry.
Twenty teams were ahead of
them so they wasted a whole day.
It took them two and a half days to
cover the sixty-six miles.
They arrived at night just as it
was starting to rain. All Bill's
belongings were unloaded beside
a stake which showed this was the
proper section. During the long
. ride the jiggling of the coaloil can
against the lantern had worn a
hole in the can anckhelprecious
coaloil had leaked away. It was a
long dark winter with no lantern!
The man with the team headed
back to Hanley, the river froze,
and Bill didn't see a soul for the
next three weeks.
That first night, he rearranged
the lumber so he could sleep
under it and keep reasonably dry.
By the time the man with the
wagon came back, Bill had built a
shack 10 x 12 and was prepared
for winter.
Bill Bennett was a carpenter -
he didn't build the traditional
soddy house used by so many on
the prairies. His house, was made
with two-ply boards with tarpaper
in between. There were no
shingles available so he made
what they called a 'car' roof - two
ply 1/2 -inch lumber curved with
tarpaper in between.
60 Below
In the winter it really got cold
with temperatures down to sixty
. below. Bill only had a small stove.
He said "I thought we would
freeze up solid - all we had to
burn were poplar poles." ,
It wasn't a matter of going out a
few rods to cut the wood either as
these poplars grew along the
lakes about 15 miks away. There
wasn't a twig as big as your finger
on the prairie. That fall, a fire had
swept throligh and burned everyt
hing but a few weeds. Even the
game had been driven away.
Jim Colclough, whose house
was about a mile away, went with
Bill to- get wood every other day.
Bill would go over toIJim's about
five in the morning, feed and
harpess the horses, wake Jim up,
get breakfast then head for the
bush. They went btfore daylight
and returned after dark.
Sometimes it was so cold that the
sleigh runners just shrieked.
Every trip they thought they were
lost. When they reached home,
Jim prepared supper. He wasn't
the best cook in the West but he
did have a cow so he made small
cakes and fried them. By the time
he finished cooking them they
were black on both sides.
In the morning, the
thermometer on the wall inside
the house would register twenty
below.
Bill says, "You have no idea
what those people went through
and they didn't have a cent of
money."
Entertainment that winter
consisted of a walk to Colcloughs
ever.), night to play poker. They
used three whole boxes of
matches for poker chips.
Bill had never done any baking
before but he kept working at it
and to use his own words "by
Gaul I got pretty good at it." They
could buy fresh pork at 5c a lb. at
a place about thirty miles away.
He lived on bread and pork all
winter.
For three years, he worked• at
Killarney in the' summer ' and
homesteaded in the winter as
required.
In effect, the Government bet
160 acres against ten dollars that
the homesteader could not spend
six months of the year on the land
for three years, build a house
worth three hundred dollars and
break fifteen acres of land.
Bill won the bet and in 1910
claimed thepstent on his land!
That quarter section of land on
the prairie Southeast of Rosetown
and eighty-five miles southwest
of Saskatoon was his!
Old Black Horse
That year was his first full year
on the land. His father had sent
out a team of horses but they
proved too small to handle the
breaking so he bought an old
(Continued on Page 11)
10—THE HURON EXPOSITOR, APRIL 17, 1975