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Scotch Grove Pioneers
part 5

Those interested in the Scotch Grove settlers may want to contact Rose DeRocher. She has some early marriage records from the Red River Settlement and will do lookups.

Weddings Play a Part
[Picture][Space]That life in Red River was not all struggle and hardship, mixed with Gaelic prayers, as the descendants of these pioneers were sometimes led to think, is evident from the letter written by Thomas Simpson at Fort Garry to Donald Ross at Norway House in 1834.
[Space]"I will now give you a spice of Red River gossip. All the 'nobility' attended the wedding of Nancy Livingston and Donald Sutherland. We bachelors danced our legs off almost, smacking the lasses ad infinitum. Tell Mrs. Ross that her niece, John's daughter is now the prettiest girl in Red River. John Livingston may marry Sophy McDonnell, Allan's daughter. Dr. Bunn is beginning to vaccinate since hearing of your success at Norway House."
[Space]Other Red River marriages important in Scotch Grove history were those of Ebenezer Sutherland and Sarah Gunn, John Sutherland and Margaret McBeth, Catherine Sutherland and John McIntire. The wife of Alexander Sutherland was always referred to as "Aunt Jean," her maiden name not being stated.
[Space]Fort Garry was the newest and most important post, while Norway House on Lake Winnipeg and York Factory on Hudson Bay were also large trading centers. A William Sinclair was chief factor at York, and James Sinclair at Fort Garry, where his daughters Margaret and Harriet were called the belles of the Fort. Mary Sinclair danced with Sir John Franklin at Norway House on his return from an Arctic expedition.
[Space]Schools have always had a prominent place in the lives of Scottish people and the Red River settlement was no exception. What they studied, the books they read, if any besides the Bible and Westminister Catechism, were not discussed by the pioneers, but the punishments at school were often enlarged upon. But however harsh and limited the schools, the young people had some opportunity for an education
[Space]John Matheson, who came from. Kildonan in 1815, was listed as a schoolmaster; also Donald Gunn was a teacher. The Rev. David Jones came to the colony in 1828 to preach in the Anglican church and to teach. Mrs. Jones, wife of the missionary joined her husband. in 1829 and opened a school for young people, which continued until her death in 1836. Mrs. Jones was often quoted as an authority by the pioneer women in Scotch Grove. John McCollum, a student from Edinburgh came in 1883 to assist Mr. Jones in St. John's school.
[Space]Teachers and governesses who came from England married so quickly it was hardly worth while to bring them out. The story goes that a committee appointed to select some mature women approached a widow aged eighty-five, but even she would not promise to remain single on the chance of an especially advantageous marriage in Canada.
[Space]Most of these schools were for the children of the Hudson's Bay Company employees, and Alexander Ross in his "History of Manitoba" records that the schools were not satisfactory to the Scotch settlers.

Religious Matters Irk Colonists
[Space]Their worship was one of the sorest spots in the settlement for the Presbyterian adherents. Lord Selkirk had promised them their own minister, who would be to them what the Rev. Alexander Sage had been in Kildonan. At the time of the Eviction, Rev. Sage had felt he was to old to accompany them, but he did all in his power to ease their burdens and to encourage their going to the new land. He is buried in the Kildonan churchyard with his "deceased spouses" Mistresses Isabel Fraser and Jean Sutherland, as the inscription reads. The pulpit from which he preached to these Highland men and women still stands in the church.
[Picture][Space]The immediate spiritual needs of these Presbyterians was supplied by James Sutherland the catechist, until his removal to Eastern Canada. All the requests for a minister of their own were ignored by Lord Selkirk and later by his agents, and not until 1852 did the Red River Settlement have a Presbyterian minister. Then the Rev. John Black came, and the Kildonan church was built along the same lines of architecture as the mother church in Sutherlandshire. The Scotch Grove church building also shows the influence of this mother church.
[Space]While the Presbyterians did not have their own minister they found the Anglican clergyman the Rev. Jones, kind and indulgent. He laid aside certain parts of the liturgy and let them stand to pray and sit to sing. They accounted him a fine and eloquent preacher tender-hearted, kind and liberal to a fault. But about 1835, the Rev. Cochran was sent out and was much dissatisfied with the liberal policy of the Rev. Jones toward the Presbyterians, and he handled them more roughly.
[Space]He said; "I will preach to them the truth of the Gospel and they must listen to me. They have nothing to do with our forms. I will not allow them an inch of their own will."
[Space]Besides the troublesome religious situation, neither economic nor political conditions were satisfactory to many of the Selkirk settlers. In 1835 the Hudson's Bay Company attempted a legislative council, for the colony now numbered 5,000 inhabitants. The personnel of this group was not especially popular, nor was the general plan since it linked church and state. The high duty on imports from the United States was irksome and the prices charged by the company often were 75 per cent above London prices. With the uncertainty of crops, the failure of commercial enterprises, and general dissatisfaction with the government it is not surprising that many looked for new fields.
[Space]The Swiss colony of 248 had emigrated to the United States from Red River about 1830. Alexander Ross writes in 1886, "A group of 148 persons, chiefly of the Presbyterian party, left the settlement for the United States carrying along with them much valuable property." It would be interesting to know where this group settled. A number had gone into Eastern Canada, among these Catherine Sutherland and the younger members of her family. This intrepid pioneer lived to pass the nonagenarian mark in the home of her son, Donald. Her granddaughter, Mrs. Mary Braden, had vivid recollections of filling all the water buckets on Saturday night since the grandmother, hence the family, would not drink water pumped on the Sabbath.
[Space]Glowing reports of the conditions in the United States reached the settlers frequently, so Alexander McLean later spelled McClain went down to the recently opened strip of territory in Eastern Iowa known as the Blackhawk Purchase and brought back a fine report of the conditions of the land about thirty miles south and west of Dubuque.

The Emigration to the United States
[Space]It will be remembered that John Sutherland as a young man was among the first of the Kildonan group to come to the Red River, being a member of the second party, so now in 1837 as a middle-aged man he was one of the early movers in the enterprise of moving to the United States. With his wife Margaret McBeth, who had come with the Churchill party at the age of eighteen, he had his children—John, Alexander, George, David, Donald, Roderick, William, Catherine, Adam, and an infant daughter, Christina.
[Space]Alexander Sutherland, who had come with the Churchill party at the age of twenty-four, had preceded his father and mother, William and Isabella Sutherland and the younger members of his family. Now with his wife "Aunt Jean"—and those of their children William, Elspeth "Eapie", and John—who were born in Red River, he too was ready to try another new country.
[Picture][Space]Other families in the party were whose of Alexander McLean, David McCoy, (originally spelled McKay). These people seem to have settled farther west and north than the others. The McCoy spring has always been one of the landmarks of the township. The fifth member of the party was Joseph Bremmer. He evidently was a widower, for he and his son called "Willie", a cripple, lived alone many years. The McCoys and the Bremmers are not named in the ship's list of the first parties, so they had evidently joined the Selkirk settlers at a later date, as did the Donald Sinclairs and other families who later came to Scotch Grove.
[Space]The Red River or Pembina cart was the vehicle used for this thousand mile journey. This was a product of the locality, doubtless of French origin, and handed down to the Bois Brules or half-breeds, by their French ancestors. For seventy-five years it was the freight car and family carriage of the community. The only tools needed to make the cart were an axe to cut down a tree and a gun to "shoot an elk or buffalo. Two huge wooden wheels over five feet in diameter with eleven or twelve spokes set into a wooden hub seemed the most essential feature. The body was made of rough boards laid lengthwise and pegged down by one crosswise board pegged to the axle. A rude framework several feet high to be covered by a buffalo skin completed the body. The shafts were an extension of a board in the body with a hole bored about a foot from the end, to which the harness holding the ox drawing the cart was attached.
[Space]This was the Red River cart which carried these Scotch Grove pioneers and their belongings in a thousand mile journey over nightmarish roads or no roads at all In sloughs or deep mudholes the long spokes enabled the wheels to reach solid ground. 'When they had to cross deep streams, they lashed the wheels together to form a raft for the body, the men and animals swimming the current. There were no luxurious springs to tempt even the most tired travelers with promises of easy riding, and its approach was heralded for miles by the screech of the wooden axles.
[Space]With these carts loaded with from seven hundred to a thousand pounds and followed by whatever livestock they owned, these pioneers traveled southward through that summer of 1837. Burning sun, violent hailstorms, wind and rain beat upon them in turn as they plodded on; mosquitoes and flies tormented them; fear of wandering Indians harassed them. At night the carts became their fortress as hub to hub they were placed in a circle, while within this rude stockade the travelers cooked, ate, and slept, always guarded by one of their number. The story goes that their hired guide became insane, or at least very unreliable and caused them many anxious days and nights.
[Space]They came down the west side of the Mississippi River to Dubuque and then pushed on across the Maquoketa River to the edge of the native timber. Here after four months of travel they felt they had found an abiding place.
[Space]But tragedy marked their arrival rival, for Christina, the baby daughter of John and Margaret Sutherland worn out by the long journey died. The same night, frightened by a prairie fire the family fled, the mother carrying the dead baby in her arms. The next day they buried her in the land they had chosen for their home, and there she still lies, the first white person buried in Scotch Grove township.
[Space]Other families came from Red River the next year, 1838. Among these were Donald and Ebenezer Sutherland, their young families, and their mother Isabella, who died the following year; Donald Sinclair, his wife and their children Christina, Elizabeth, and Angus. Mrs. Sinclair had been a waiting maid in a noble family and her stories of court life were in great demand by her companions. John McClain and his family were members of this party.
[Space]In 1840 came Donald Livingston, David Esson, and John Livingston, making about seventy-five persons in all. On the way Grandmother Livingston broke a leg in climbing down from one of the carts. The men set the broken bone, and when the Mississippi was reached they made a raft on which they placed her with one of her sons to pole down the stream. Eventually, she joined the caravan and they all found their way into Scotch Grove. Another Scotch settlement was formed called the Upper Grove, later Hopkinson by the families of James Livingston, Alexander Ross, Angus Matheson and others.

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Last updated on Friday, 16-Apr-2021 16:54:39 MST