Extracted from B.G. Hunter-Eastwood, “Report on the William Brown Heritage House,” Prepared for the Historical Museum of St. James-Assiniboia, Winnipeg, 1988, p. 56-60.

It is difficult to provide more than glimpses, hints perhaps, of William Brown’s early life in the NorthWest and later on in the Red River Settlement. The intervening distance of more than one hundred and fifty years reduces the overall sharpness of focus and makes it difficult to relate the historical record to aspects of an individual’s life. Quite often it is necessary to generalize from what we know about the ‘average person’ to what we think was likely in the specific instance of William Brown. The following discussion will attempt to draw a sketch of life in the Red River Settlement, drawing on a variety of sources. The hardships of the early settlers in Red River have been well-documented elsewhere and it is simply necessary here to establish some common themes which may prove useful in later interpretation.

On his retirement to Red River, William Brown would have been part of a small settlement at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. William’s first contract with the Hudson’s Bay Company was dated only 9 years after the North-West Company and the HBC terminated their rivalry in the NorthWest in 1821. The construction of Lower Fort Garry began one year after William first took ship at Stromness, and Upper Fort Garry was started in 1835, the same year in which the HBC Accounts ledger tells us that he ‘retired to Red River.’ The Upper Fort had begun to flourish by the time William retired from Company service in 1841. As one retrospective sketch has stated:

This was the centre of business, government, education, and public affairs for more than thirty years, and was the nucleus of the city of Winnipeg. The fort was sold in 1882 and the front gate is all that remains of this historic group of buildings.¹

The non-native population tended to be heavily Protestant, reflecting the preference of the HBC for Scots and Orkneymen as employees. A heavily pastoral account from the early 1850’s describes the Settlement as follows:

The neat little white frame and log cottages with their well-cultivated garden spots and field enclosures, have an air of charming and quite repose, while in the distance, the grazing troops of cattle and horses dot the plains with gentle animation. Here and there a windmill, or a pointed church spire, lends an additional and suggestive beauty to the landscape. Here they live in peaceful simplicity, and in all the rural quiet of their ancestral village hamlets among the highlands of Scotland.²

The population of the entire Settlement, which one observer estimated at “ten to twelve thousand” by 1868, also contained a substantial proportion of “mixed breeds of French and Indian lineage, descendants of the courriers-du-bois, who, after the expiration of their service in the companies, have settled here and married Indian wives.”³

William Brown is not likely to have had the kind of pastoral existence attributed by the un-named author of the early 1850’s. Further, William had by 1850 married a woman of Indigenous descent, and there is strong evidence in the historical record that other men of Scottish or Orcadian origin commonly married Indigenous women. They did not hold themselves aloof in the manner in which Marcy elsewhere describes as those “who have maintained their nationality intact, without any commingling with the aboriginal race.”⁴

Early settlers had first to prepare land to which they had access, either as owners or as tenants, and the difficulties of doing so were several. The land had first to be cleared of trees and brush; then it had to be broken with plows drawn by oxen or horses. Oats, rye, barley, and wheat could then by sown by hand. As a consequence, the area which each farmer cultivated tended to be small, and the chances of economic success poor. In the first real estate census in 1832, for example, a Mr. Kauffman had 7 acres under cultivation. In the Census of 1849, the population of Red River was 5,391. There were “754 houses…[and] Cultivated land amounted to 6,329 acres.”⁵ A reasonable estimate would therefore place the average size of cultivated land worked by a single farmer at something less than 10 acres. This argument is supported by the fact that thirty-odd years later, in 1881, Magnus Brown had one the largest areas under cultivation in Headingly: 50 acres. This is likely to have been substantially larger than the area cultivated by his father in earlier years.

In terms of the latter point, crop failures were common, despite the fertile soil of the region. Locusts, drought, early frosts, and late flooding were common. For example, during the years 1813-1856, there were 21 full or partial crop failures in the Red River Settlement.⁶ Inasmuch as the chances of failure were roughly 50/50, many farmers supplemented their farming activities with the buffalo hunt, trapping, or freighting goods. In the two latter activities, the economic influence of the Hudson’s Bay Company would have been considerable, since it dominated the trade in goods of the region, provided some of the necessities of life such as salt and clothing, and was a source of currency for value received. It was also the owner of the milling equipment which farmers required to produce flour, crushed grain and “shorts.”

There is some evidence that William Brown fit this general pattern. He was a farmer in St. John’s parish; he possessed carts which could have been used to carry goods for the Hudson’s Bay Company or for other settlers; and he may well have continued to employ some of his fur-trade skills in trapping during the first winters of his retirement. He had an account for ‘Sundries’ with the Hudson’s Bay Company, with a balance of L 10/ 2/6 in June of 1858.⁷ It is also possible that William Brown engaged in the production or procurement of pemmican for the Company or in market gardening for the Company store or its personnel.⁸

¹ E.K. Paul, “H.B.C. and Manitoba”, The Beaver, Volume IV, October, 1923, p. 5.

² No author, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, June 1851, p. 174.

³ R.B. Marcy, Op. Cit., p. 287.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ W.F. Green, Red River Revelations, (Winnipeg: Red River Valley International Centennial, 1974-1976), pg. 154. The reference to Mr. Kauffman is to be found on p. 148.

⁶ G.H. Sprenger, “The Metis Nation: Buffalo Hunting vs. Agriculture in the Red River Settlement (Circa 1810-1870)”, Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology, Volume 3, No. 1, 1972. pp. 168-169.

⁷ HBCA E. 7/52 (b), Colonists Accounts with HBC, Outfit 1858, Red River Account Book, p. 2, under Dr. (Debit) Stock.

⁸ K.D. McLeod, editor, The Garden Site, DkLg-16: A Historical and Archaeological Study of a Nineteenth Century Metis Farmstead (Manitoba: Historic Resources Branch, Department of Cultural Affairs and Historic Resources, 1983). McLeod notes that a major aspect of the bison hunt was its dependence on the credit/debit system maintained by the HBC. Many families were indebted to the Company as a result and, as we saw earlier, William Brown did not emerge from his HBC employment untouched by this system.

“Fall brought with it the harvest and the danger of frost or an early snow. Grain was cut and stooked in the fields by hand; later it was built in large stacks ready for the threshing crews, who went from farm to farm. In a good year, the grain was cut, stacked, and threshed dry. In a poor year, the grain could be frozen, with little to be saved from the crop. Taylor records at least 10 years in the period 1878-1900 in which the crop is below normal in yield or quality. In the event that the crop could be gotten off the land in good order, the farmers’ next tasks were to plow and to burn stubble. Taylor wrote that, on several occasions, prairie fire started as a result of stubble burning and that there were considerable losses in some instances. Most often, the losses were higher in the hay fields than in the grain stacks. Finally, in the late Fall and early Winter, the grain would be transported by wagon to the Mill….

In the Fall of the year, the Browns frequently went hunting for rabbit, geese, ducks, prairie chickens, and wild turkey. Taylor recorded hunts in which he participated with Brown brothers (John, James, Magnus, and William Jr.). He wrote of several such hunts in which each hunter took home more than a dozen ducks or geese and often 15-20 rabbits.

During the Fall of the year, the farmers of Headingley also gathered the garden vegetables and most of these were stored in the root cellar for later use. Potatoes, onions, turnips and parsnips were cleaned and dried in the open air and then bagged for storage; some of the crop might have been sold, but this appears to have been relatively uncommon, if the Taylor Journals represent farming practices accurately.

Some of the livestock such as chickens, turkeys, and pigs were also killed at this time of year – the fowl plucked and dressed and then sold, while the pigs were scraped and cleaned with boiling water and then butchered. Most of the pork was salted or smoked for later use…”¹

John Taylor of Headingley recorded the following in his journal during the fall months:

• “Mr Mills came down in the morning and butchered two suckling calves for me. Johnnie took these down to Winnipeg and sold at 5 ½ cts per lbs.” (August 5, 1890)
• “George ran the reaper all the afternoon cutting oats and Morese went out to cut hay. Alice started down to town yesterday afternoon to attend school. She rode down with Willie Tait and is to board at Mr Hall’s.” (September 7, 1891)
• “We finished cutting the last of the oats and stooking too & old man Stevenson came up and gave us a hand cutting the oats in the garden. George & Rupert went out for 2 loads of hay and George shot 8 chickens.” (September 19, 1891)

¹ B.G. Hunter-Eastwood, “Report on the William Brown Heritage House,” Prepared for the Historical Museum of St. James-Assiniboia, Winnipeg, 1988, p. 67-68.

“In early spring, farmers were on the land with the first disappearance of the snow cover. Prior to planting, they cleaned the grain, soaked it and loaded it in wagons for transport to the fields. They cleared the land and plowed it and their main enemies were a late winter with a lasting ground cover, or water on the fields resulting from heavy rains or floods. In some years, crops were in the ground in the middle of March; in others, planting was not finished until late May or early June. The work was done with teams of horses or oxen and it was labour-intensive. Men such as William Brown, with several sons, used family labour extensively and they hired other men at time of peak load such as the harvest. Spring was also a time for cleaning up around the byres, cleaning the chicken coop and the root-cellar, and preparing the planting of vegetables. Generally, they planted the kinds of grains noted earlier plus potatoes, cauliflower, mangle, peas, turnip, squash, onion, tomatoes, fruit trees and berry bushes.

They also attended to the stock, including putting the newly-delivered mares to studs owned by themselves or by their neighbours. William Brown Jr., for example, owned a bull. His neighbours would pay a fee ($1.00) to service one of their cows. The service of a stallion was more dear, ranging in price from $5.00 to $10.00 and, as a consequence, many of these men would offer up to $500.00 for a good stallion.”¹

John Taylor of Headingley recorded the following spring activities in his journals:

• “The men commenced sowing and harrowing in the wheat. Willie ran the seeder & Thom and Alixis the harness. Alixis commenced work today. I sowed and plowed the two sack of peas.” (April 19, 1887)
• “Willie sent a cow to the bull and paid #3.00 for those put to the bull. We had our big cow to the bull.” (July 6, 1888)
• “Still snowing and storming and continued so all night. We have more snow lying on the ground than we had all winter. It cleared up in the afternoon.” (May 3, 1878)
• “The ice appears to have all passed down. The weather cloudy. I went to town with John Brown and Sandy Murray each had a team for lumber for a ferry boat. It was sundown at Gowler’s on our way back. Ploughing today.” (April 2, 1878)
• “Commenced building the ferry boat today….Sandy Cameron went to town for the tar and pitch for the boat.” (April 4, 1878)
• Calving cows; “Two cows calved. One the white cow we had to take the calf from her, it was dead and came the hind part first. I had to send for old Stevenson to assist me taking the calf from the cow.” (April 17, 1883)

¹ B.G. Hunter-Eastwood, “Report on the William Brown Heritage House,” Prepared for the Historical Museum of St. James-Assiniboia, Winnipeg, 1988, p. 64.

“The summer months normally involved construction work: painting, mixing and applying mortar, putting up fencing, and preparing storage for the harvest. According to John Taylor’s Journals, many of his summer days were spent digging and weeding in the garden, cutting wood, or doing statute labour on the public roads. He also spent time driving back and forth to town, and hauling goods, largely for his own use. The summer was also a time for picnics, horse-racing, sports, and exhibitions. The Orangemen’s Parade on July 12 was a big event to which many turned out. The same was also true of the annual school picnic. In the 1890’s rail cars from Winnipeg brought sightseers and church picnickers to the Headingley area, often to conduct festivities on a farmer’s land.”¹

John Taylor of Headingley recorded the following in his journal during the summer months:

• “I was out and laid the culvert in front of the new hotel.” (June 20, 1888)
• “Jim hired for two months at $20.00 per month.” (July 25, 1883)
• “There was a picnic over at Farmer’s seven coaches of people came up from Winnipeg composed chiefly of the Sunday Scholars of the Presbyterian Church.” (July 26, 1883)
• “A fine day very hot. There was a great Pic-nic held over at James Tait’s ground adjoining the track. Two trains were up of seven coaches & a couple of open cars. The party were made of the Sunday Scholars of the Congregational and Baptists. There must have been something like a thousand people up. They had good Jim’s singing, footracing and baseball.” (August 16, 1883)
• “At the exhibition today Tuck won the farmers grain took $30.00 and Joe won the race in harness $20.00. I came up home at night and Rupert for the running race tomorrow.” (July 17, 1895)
• “D Williamson commenced laying the foundation of the byre Rupert helped him. Ben & William were out with two teams doing statute labor.” (June 30, 1898)

¹ B.G. Hunter-Eastwood, “Report on the William Brown Heritage House,” Prepared for the Historical Museum of St. James-Assiniboia, Winnipeg, 1988, p. 65.

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