Comments for The Lord Selkirk Association of Rupert's Land

Comment on Sites of Interest… or Not! by Cathie Morgan

Cathie Morgan — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:55:12 +0000

Thanks for alerting members to all these errors, Elizabeth. There are just so many inaccuracies on the Internet!!

Comment on Peter Rindisbacher 5 by edithm

edithm — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:18:28 +0000

I read that Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, was originally the site of Fort MacKay. In beginning to do some research on that, I found this:
http://flintlockandtomahawk.blogspot.com/2009/09/fort-mackay-prairie-du-chien-wisconsin.html

Comment on Peter Rindisbacher 5 by Cathie Morgan

Cathie Morgan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:49:28 +0000

When I think of The Forks today, it is hard to imagine it like this almost 200 years ago.

Comment on Artist was a Young Man – Alvin M. Josephy by edithm

edithm — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:45:25 +0000

The article by Clifford Wilson is very interesting. There is one small correction: Galena is in northwestern Illinois, not Wisconsin. It is very close to being right across the Mississippi River from Dubuque, Iowa.

Comment on Peter Rindisbacher 3 by edithm

edithm — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:42:47 +0000

Thank you very much for the stories on Peter Rindisbacher. I had not seen many of his pictures before. They are very nice, and valuable.

Awhile ago when I was researching Galena, Illinois, I bumped into a story about some Swiss people who came to the Red River Settlement in 1821, and left a couple of years later. They also went to St. Louis, then back up to Illinois, and to Galena by the end of the Black Hawk Indian War in 1832. I have no idea what I was searching for when I found it, but here is the link:
http://jodaviess.ilgenweb.net/Obits/JChetlain.htm

One very small quibble with the article by Clifford Wilson you gave us a link to in the Part One – Galena is in Illinois, not Wisconsin (in the northwestern corner, very close to Wisconsin and Iowa). In the obit, the town of Grundy Center, Iowa, is probably less than a hundred miles straight west of Galena, Illinois.

Keep up the good work!

Comment on Genealogy at TLSARL 3 by Canadian Book Lady

Canadian Book Lady — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:54:04 +0000

I know Chloe and I are very interested, Edith – we just haven’t got there yet (well, Chloe has touched on Scotch Grove a bit). Another member has also given me some material on Scotch Grove settlers for our archives. I’d welcome a copy of your work, too, but I might not get working with it for a while yet.

On another note, the Minnesota Historical Society published a book entitled Red River Trails that examined the history of the network between St. Paul and the RRS (If anyone is interested in a copy, please email me through the contact us form. 20% of orders placed is donated to TLSARL).

In many ways, there was a stronger link between the settlements of the north-south corridor than with the Canadas to the east. That was one reason John A. MacDonald was so eager to push the railroad through – to enforce Canada’s claim to what is now the Canadian West.

By the way, the Red River Cart was, perhaps, Canada’s first amphibious vehicle – the wheels were removed and strapped on top and the cart could be floated or poled across deeper rivers. I’m not sure how stable it was, but…

Comment on Genealogy at TLSARL 3 by edithm

edithm — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:09:54 +0000

I’ve been meaning to ask you how many members if the Association might be interested in the people who moved to the U.S., especially the ones who moved to Iowa between 1835 and 1840. These were mostly from the 1815 party, but some from 1812 and some from 1813/14.
The history of Delaware County, Iowa, where my ancestors went, or next-door Jones County, where their friends and relatives settled, says the move from the Red River Settlement was about 1,100 miles. That alway seemed like too much to me, so this past summer I set out to figure it out. I discovered a map that shows the three main trade routes from the settlement to Ft. Snelling (and I see that on a modern map of Minnesota, they were followed almost exactly by the major highways – I guess the highway engineers found that those traders found the best ways across the country), and a nice long article in Wikipedia. Also, I have something others might not have access to, a newspaper supplement from the 1930s that has an article on the subject.
The settlers in the 1830s must have followed the southern route. That was the first trail established, and follows rivers most of the way, then later they got adventuresome and set out cross-country to cut off the distance the Minnesota (St. Peter’s) River travels far southeastward before it bends back sharply to the northeast to join the Mississippi at Ft. Snelling. The story is that one party, I think it was in 1840, got lost – or rather, their guide got them lost. This was probably in that cross-country section, where it would be easy to get lost in a fog or storm, or just because water levels in the creeks would change depending on the winter they’d had.
Anyway, my conclusion is that it could very well have been a thousand miles or more, by the time they followed a few meandering rivers for a great distance. This travel was by foot, or maybe on a raft down the Mississippi, a relatively small part of the trip, and possibly then only if they were sick or hurt. Of course, they used the Red River Carts for their belongings.
I’ve done a lot of genealogical work on the migrants, not only my relatives but the others as well. You’re right, beginning in the next generation they scattered all across the West. I think that whether or not their descendants know anything about their history depends completely on how many stories their ancestors passed down. I know in my family, we had no stories about the Livingston side.

Comment on TLSARL Annual Reunion and AGM by Cathie Morgan

Cathie Morgan — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:57:27 +0000

One of the first dinners I attended at St. John’s Presbyterian Church on Bannerman and Charles was the one when the now late Prof. Hubert Mayes made a presentation on Lord Selkirk’s grave site in France. Prof. Mayes had found the grave in disrepair, wrote an article about it in The Beaver, and then worked to have it repaired. Prof. Mayes was one of my French profs at the UW.

Elizabeth, your presentation in 2006 was great! I had no idea you were nervous.

Comment on Today in History – 2 September 1816 by Canadian Book Lady

Canadian Book Lady — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:57:43 +0000

Looking at this post I realise that I should have given a bit more background information…

The Canadian Expedition Robertson refers to was a group of de Meuron retirees Selkirk led to Red River to provide the colony with some military support. The Swiss soldiers remained at the RRS for about ten years, then most of them moved south of the border to settle in Minnesota. Some of the soldiers went in advance of Selkirk, who spent the winter of 1816/17 at Fort William, which he took in a surprise attack in 1816 in retaliation for the Massacre of Seven Oaks and other NWCo. atrocities against Red River and in the Hudson’s Bay Charter territory.

Comment on 2 May 1816 by Cathie Morgan

Cathie Morgan — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:55:13 +0000

Well, Simpson certainly though highly of himself and his own abilities! Must have something to do with being Scottish, short, and having red hair…..like me! ha ha