Old time milling [microform] : the history of milling in the Red River Valley

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OLD TIME MILLING.

The History of Milling in the Red River Valley.

Chas, N. Doll in Northwest Miller.

We liave to go p, long way back in time,
comparatively speakinK. to review the in-
troduction of wheat growiuK to the valley
lands of tlie Red River of the North. A
few words on fanning of any kind under-
taken on the banks of tlie Red river will
not be out of place here. The fur traders
of the Northwest Fur Co. had established

gosts on the upper Red river, in the neigh-
orhood of the spot where now stands the
town of (irafton, as early as 1800, and the
imployes of the Hudson's Bay Co. aoou
followed them. The Northwest company
was a Canadian concern, with its head-
quarters atMoutreal, their means of trans-
port being confined to the bark canoe. The
Hudson's Bay Co. supplied its Red river
posts from Albany House, on James' bay,
though its most important post was at
York Factory, on the west shore of Hud-
son's bay. The latter place supplied all the
posts north of Lake Winnipeg and on the
Saskalchetvan river.

From t he old journal of a partner of the
Northwest companv, I ttnd that on the
17th of May, 1801, Alexander Henry, the
partner mentioned, proceeded to the east
side of the Red river, opposite the mouth
of the Pembina river, and on what la now
the site of St. Vincent, he planted "thirty
small potatoes,,' which had been brought
from the fur trading post of the company
at Portage la Prairie on the Assinibolne
river. Here was the site of a former post
of the Northwest company built about
1798 by one Peter Grant. On this same
day Henry established Fort Pembina,
which has been the

CKNTKAL POINT FOB SETTLEMENT

in that locality e ver since. The fort here
was situated "on the north side of the
Pembina river, on the point of land be-
tween that and the Red river, about one
hundred paces from each." On the 3rd of
October, Henry took from his garden
patches one and a half bushels of pota-
toes.

Continuously after 1801 crops were rais-
ed at Pembina, and curiously enough, the
next year Henry gives us a rei)ort of his
garden produce that fully equals anything
in the crop report line that emanates from
the imaginative brain of a Dakota editor.
On the a)th of October, 1802, he wrote: "I
took in ray potatoes, 420 bushels, the
produce of seven bushels, exclusive of
the qujintity wc have eaten since our
arrival, (from Lake Superior at the
yearly gathering of the traders), and
what the Indians must have stolen,
which must be at least 200 bushels more.
I measured the circumference of an
onion, which was 22 inches. A carrot
was 18 inches long and at the thick end it
measured 14 inches in circumference.
A turnip, with its leaves, weighed 25 lbs."
etc.

The next list of his vegetables given
was in 1804, when, in addition to the
coarse roots, he had cucumbers, melons,
squashes and Indian com. This is the
first mention I find made In the old re-
cords of any grain, though, from another
.journal, I flna that the &d River Indians,
prior to 1809, regularly resorted to the
Missouri River to trade with the Man-
dans for corn, ^a 1806 oats were sown at
Pemblnr

APPARENTLY FOR THE FIRST TIME,

and the Indians at the mouth of the Red
River were also growing com, the seed
having been supplied to them the previous
year. It was not until the year 1812 that
barley is recorded as forming part of a
yearly crop raised at the permanent posts
of the fur companies.

In 1812 the first batch of eraigranij» -vas
sent out via Hudson's Bay to the Red
River by Lord Selkirk, a Scottish noble-
man, who had secured control of a ma-

jority of the stock of the Hudson's Bay
Co., and voted himself a tract of land
bordering on the Red and Assinibolne
rivers. In the present State of Minnesota,
Territory of Dakota, and Province of Man-
itoba, comprising In all some 110,000
square miles. Lord Selkirk aimed at
establishing a colony on the banks of the
Red River which would serve to break up
the fur-trading operations of the North-
west company as well as provide a home
for the evicted Highlanders, who, driven
from their holdings were forced to emi-
grate. For several yt-ars after 1812 suc-
cessive parties of emigrants from Scot-
land Ireland and Switzerland, arrived at
the colony, and wheat now became one of
the leading articles of production. The
seed wheat appears to have been brought
out from England, and certainly barley
was introduced from Groat Britain at an
early date In

THE HISTORY OF TUE .SETTLEMENT.

The colonists were all settled on the Red
River immediately to the north of the
present city of Winnipeg, but owinar to
th3 scarcity of provisions freq uen tly passed
the winters at Pembina, when on the
south side of the Pembina River, and op-
posite to the Northwest Company's post,
they had established a fort, or collection
of log houses, which went by the name of
Fort Daer, being called so after Lord Sel-
kirk, who was also Baron Daer. Trouble
soon arose between the governor of the
colony, who had been appointed by Lord
Selkirk, and the officerr of the Northwest
Fur Co. One act led to another, and the
result was, first, that in 1815 the North-
westers induced the great majority of the
Selkirk people to emigrate to Upper Can-
ada, and second. In 1816, to an encounter
between the rivals, which ended in the
death of Gov. Semple and 20 of his Selkirk
servants, while the Northwesters lost only
one man. The remainmg colonists were
driven away to Lake Winnipeg, and their
fields, houses, etc., nearly all destroyed,
but Lord Selkirk pushed up from Canada
with a large band of discharged soldiers
and in turn drove olf tlie Northwesters.
The British government then interfered,
and the settlement grew and flourished,
and was strengthened by the coalition of i
the fur companies in 1820-21. i

In 1826 there was a great flood throiigh- j
out the length and breadth of the Red ;
river valley. The dwellings, barns and |
fences of the settlers, with the forts of the j
Hudson's Bav Co., were swept away. Left i
homeless, and almost, starving, the se i
tiers were driven to despair, and when the j
waters subsided, In the middle of .lune,
the majority of them, including nearly all j
the I)e Meurous and Swiss, decided to
abandon the Red rivor country. Accord- >
ingly on the 2.Srd of June a party compris-
ing 242 persons of both sexes and all ages,
started for Fort Snelling, where, after
passing safely through the territory of the
warlike Sioux, they arrived in good time
and settled down.

THE REMAINING COLONISTS

set to work to rebuild their houses, and
notwithstanding the lateness of the sea-
son, sowed what seed wheat they had
saved from the flood, and later on reaped
a most bountiful harvest. From that day
to this the land then broken has been
almost annually sown in wheat and pro-
duced luxuriant crops without in any woy,
as far as is apparent, losing any of Its
flower.

It will be seen, then, thatthe settlement
began on the lower or most northerly por-
tion of the Red River Valley, and It was
not until a full half century later that any
whtat was raised on the landsof Northern
Minnesota and Dakota, where, within a
few years after, the "iron horse" made Its
appearance in all directions, to take in

emigrants and their equipments, and re-
turn to the east the wealth of goldenlgrain
which grows up after their arrival.

Having followed the course of grain cul-
tivatlon'in the "new northwest let us
turn back to the days when the noise of
the flour mill was just heard in the land,
where now many a stately and substan-
tial structure, containing rollers and

OTHER MODERN MACHINERY,

supplies the wants of the settlers. There
is no reason to doubt that the Selkirk set-
tlers, on their arrivsl in the Red river
country in 1812, were the first persons in
this district who raised wheat and ground
it into fiour. With the original party of
the colonists was brought out, from the
Orkney Islands, some stone hand mills.
One of these is now in the possession of
the Manitoba Historical and Scientific
society in Winnipeg. The mill is con-
structed of two flat stones, circular In
shape, about two feet in diameter, and
each an inch and a half thick. Inserted
in the centre of one is an iron pin, while
the other has a circular hole cut through
the centre, about three and a half
inches In diameter, and crosswise,
in which is placed a narrow bar of
wood, having a hole bored through It
to admit of the iron pin in the lower
stone passing through it so that the upper
one will revolve about it as an axis. A
straight upright handle is inserted into
the upper stone near its outer edge, and
by this means the stone is turned around,
while the grain to be ground is slowly
poured into the whole in the centre, from
whence it gradually works its way out-
ward between the stones. Aitogeiiier it
Is a very primitive mill, and the settlers
soon become dissatisfied with It, as I find
In a book published In 1816 that there was,
the year before, a mill (presumably work-
ed by wind power) used by the "settlers,
which stood just about on the site where
now is the

LARGEST STEAM GRIST MILL

in northwest Canada. From this date on
windmills were erected as the settlement
spread along the banks of the Red and As-
sinibolne rivers. The ruins of several of
them still stand, as relics of the past, with-
in hearing of the sound of the steam
whistles of larger roller mills. Nearly
thirty years ago an enterprising miller
constructed a dam across one of the num
erous prairie coules that run into the Red
river in the vicinity of the present city of
Winnipeg, and by this means stored up
sufficient water to run a water power grist
mill during the spring and early summer
months.

The first steam grist mill was in opera-
tion about the year 1861, when Andrew
McDermot, an ex-employe of the Hudson's
Bay Co., and for years one of the com-
pany's most active rivals in the local fur
trade, erected in the vi1i-;e of Winnipeg
a small mill, the mocu. y of which,
bought in New York, was isported iu
carls from the then town \>i St. Paul
to Fort Garry at a cost of five dollars
per "piece" of ninety pounds weight.
Another small steam grist mill was
erected about the same time, a mile low-
er down the Bed river. It was not until
1876 that milH of any considerable capa-
city were established on the banks of the
Red river. In that years the Hudson Bay
Co. and D. H. McMilllan erected large
mills, which have been enlarged from
time to time since that date, and are no\~'
turning out Hour for export. After the
above date settlers poured into the Red
river valley in Minnesota, Dakota and
Manitoba, necessitating the erection c(
many raills at all the principal points of
settlement.

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