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Catherine A. Abington - Wilson 3538

'Ship Bride'

Born England. Catherine arrived in British Columbia in September 17, 1862 on the Bride Ship S.S. Tynemouth. Also listed as a passenger was Emily Brit Abington, perhaps her sister. The long arduous voyage from England saw the women treated like cargo confined to the bottom level of the ship with no windows, no fresh water, no fresh food, no sanitation. The Tynemouth, it turns out, was the biggest of four bride ships. It was part of a scheme to ship the urban poor of London to what was considered one of the remotest parts of the British Empire. This trip was sponsored by the Columbia Mission Society through the Anglican Church. August 26, 1863, in Victoria, she married Edward Wilson.

Abigail Adair 4558

Born 1736, New Jersey, U.S.A. . Died 1821 Beamsville, Upper Canada (now Ontario). Abigail married David Adair (1734-1811) in 1758 in the American colonies and they had seven children. The couple had lived in the upper part of the State of Deleware, U.S.A. prior to the American Revolution. As loyalists their property was confiscated by the Americans.  They relocated to New Jersey to wait out the Revolution before deciding to travel north to Upper Canada where they received land from the Crown as settlers. The family settled in 1788 in Clinton Township, Lincoln County, Upper Canada near modern day Beamsville. The Niagara Escarpment ran through their property and the Mountainview Conservation Area is now where the family farm was located. Source: The Niagara Settlers, online (accessed 2024); Wikitree, online Accessed 2024)

 Elizabeth Jane  Adams

née Bulloch Born January 8,1886, Lanark, Ontario. Died September 1, 1993, Sinclair, Manitoba. In March 1904, Elizabeth's family traveled to Sinclair, Manitoba, in order to farm near their extended family. They brought five carloads of livestock, furniture, and lumber with them from Ontario. In 1906 Elizabeth married Robert Adams (1878-1957) in Sinclair, and the pair moved to their own homestead. They had hired help for the maintenance of the house as Adams worked alongside her husband farming. She also assisted the doctor in Sinclair with maternity cases and farm accidents. Her story was recorded in Voices of Yesteryear, part of the Westman Oral History Collection of Audiocassettes. (2024)

Emma Helen Alexander

'Ship Bride'     
3522

née Tammadge. Born July 29, 1840, London, England. Died June 3, 1916, Victoria, British Columbia. Emma arrived with 70 other eligible women on September 17, 1862 as a ship bride on the S. S. Tynemouth. On January 30, 1867 (sometimes reported as February 1, 1867) Richard Henry Alexander (1844-1915). Richard had come from Scotland and was educated in Toronto, Ontario. He was lured to the Canadian west coast with stories of gold. He worked at various labouring and clerk positions and eventually worked his to management of a successful saw mill. The couple had four children. According to the Vancouver Province, Emma had administered to the sick and needy in her early days on Burrand Inlet. With her husband deeply involved in the island community perhaps it can be assumed that she also was involved with her community which she watched grow from a small settlement to a modern urban centre. Source: Tynemouth Bride ship passengers Online (accessed 2021)

Nancy Alexander

Black Pioneer

Born May 25, 1824, St Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. Died March 23 1912, Lake Hill District, British Columbia. Nancy was a free black who married a free Black carpenter, Charles Alexander (1824-1913) in Springfield Illinois, U.S.A. on December 25, 1849. The couple originally settled in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. In 1855 the family, now including two children, travelled four months to reach the gold fields of California. Charles did not have much success as a prospector and the family was on the move again by 1858. Sir James Douglas, of the Hudson Bay Company, had put out the call for settlers to come to Vancouver Island. The Alexander family were one of some 700 Black families to answer the call to settle in Canada. In the fall of 1861, the family settled in South Saanich, British Columbia to raise their family of twelve children. Charles would build the first school in the area and the first Shady Creek Methodist Church. The Church was then, and is now, racially integrated. He also assisted in establishing the first Temperance Society. In 1894 the family moved to Lake Hill District of British Columbia. Nancy was one of the first members of the local Women’s Institute. As of 1992 the couple had 400 descendants. Source: British Columbia Black History Learning Centre online (accessed January 2014) (2022)

Sarah Ashbridge

Died 1801, Toronto, Ontario. As a widow with five children Sarah left Chester County near Philadelphia and moved to Upper Canada. She was fleeing after the American Revolution escaping persecution against Quakers. As a United Empire Loyalist she was granted 600 acres of land on Lake Ontario. Settling in an area outside of York (now Toronto) she began clearing land in 1794. She built her home near the mouth of the Don River. In the 1920's the family land was parceled off with the house being left on two acres of land. The city of Toronto honoured this early pioneer settler by naming a street in her honour. The family house build in the 1850's is now an historic site.

Sarah Ballenden

Métis Pioneer

Born 1818, Rupert's Land, Western Canada. Died 1853, Edinburgh, Scotland. Sarah was one of eight children of a North West Company Trader and an aboriginal mother. In the 1830's  she married John Ballenden and the couple would have four children. She died in Edinburgh, Scotland supposedly of a broken heart. She had been the victim of strong racism that occurred in the early Red River Settlement. She had been accused of having an affair with a white man and even though her name was legally cleared  the stigma remained and she was snubbed and an outcast in Red River society. Source D C B Vol. lll pg. 573-74.Recommended reading: The Reputation of a Lady: Sarah Ballenden and the Foss-Pelly Scandal by Sylvia Van Kirk Manitoba History, No. 11 Spring 1986. (2020)

Frances Hornby Barkley

Pioneer Adventurer

née Trevor. Born 1767, Bridgewater Somersetshire, England. Died 1845. At 17 she married Captain Charles William Barkley, a fur trader. The couple arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia in June1789. She was the 1st European woman in British Columbia. In 1788  she gave birth to her first child, William, in Mauritius and the family headed back to England thus having circumnavigating the globe. She was the 1st women  to have circumnavigated the globe without having hidden the fact that she was a woman. In 1791 a daughter was born in India as the family headed back around the globe. In 2009 the University of Auckland, New Zealand established the Barkley Scholarship in her honour. The M. V. Frances Barkley, a vessel carrying passengers on the west coast was named in her honour. She managed to keep a detailed diary of her trip to Canada and her additional globetrotting adventures which provides a rich record of this adventuresome woman. Source: 100 more Canadian Heroines by Merna Forster, Dundurn Press, 2011. (2020)

Elizabeth Barrett

Died 1888, Morleyville, Alberta. Like many young women of her era Elizabeth attended Normal school to become a teacher. In 1874 she was teaching at Orone, Ontario when she decided to head the call for teachers and missionaries to go to the Canadian Northwest. Her 1st post was at Whitefish Lake Mission100 miles northeast of Fort Edmonton with the Rev. Henry Bird Steinhauer ‘Shawahnekezhik, an Ontario Ojibwa she was the 1st First Nation Christian Missionary in the Northwest. Elizabeth taught there two years and made sure that Henry’s son, Egerton Steinhauer could continue with the Whitefish Lake school. While at Whitefish Lake Elizabeth had learned the Cree language. In 1877 she was one of six white women to sign Treaty No. 7 with the local tribes. Her second assignment was with Reverend George McDougall and his family at the Morley Mission. Here she studied the language and customs of the Stoney. She was soon relocated to Fort Macleod where she opened a public School, the 1st in southern Alberta. She also held the 1st Methodist Services at Fort Macleod. Suffering from ill health she returned to Morleyville. Cochrane, Alberta is proud to be home to the Elizabeth Barrett Elementary School, named for the 1st professional teacher in Alberta. Source: 200 remarkable Alberta women. Online (accessed October 2014)

Azilda Belanger

Pioneer, Healer, & Teacher

 

née Brisebois. Born 1863, St Andre-Avellin. Died 1942,, Northern Ontario. In 1886 Azilda and her husband Joseph Belanger, a Canadian Pacific Railroad worker, moved to Rayside, Ontario just outside of Sudbury. The couple would have t3 children. Azilda was one of the first white women in the area. Joseph would become Mayor from 1890 to 1900. A relative of the family, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, enjoyed Azilda’s hospitality when he visited the area in 1911. Azilda was a teacher not only educating her own children but also local Aboriginal children. She was also held in high regard for her knowledge of local herbs and medicinal plants. She often provided local health car and even helped prepare the bodies of the dearly departed for funerals. The area where the family lived is known as Azilda and is part of Greater Sudbury. In 1991 a historical plaque was erected at the family homestead. Sources: Les femmes de la route ll. Les elles du nord. (accessed June 2015)

Jeanne Charlotte Allamand Berczy

Pioneer, Painter, Teacher, & Founder of Early Toronto Society.

Born April 16, 1760, Lausanne, Switzerland . Died September 18, 1839. On Novembe1, 1785 young Charlotte married Wilhelm Albrecht Ulrich Moll AKA Guillaume (William) Berczy. The young couple were bonded together by their love of art and their painting. They would move around Europe and settle in London, England for a short time in 1790 when William became involved with the Genoese Company which was interested in settlements in New York State. They sailed for the USA in 1792 and by 1794 William was working with the German Company with plans for settlements in Upper Canada. William and Charlotte are considered early founders of Toronto, with William responsible for settlers in the Markham area to the north. Business meant that her husband traveled extensively and for long periods of time. She often found herself in charge of the settlers. She also supported her two sons by establishing a textile shop. In 1798 the family settled in Montreal where she supported herself by opening an academy to teach painting, music and languages (French, Italian and German) She was one of the first women on record to teach art in Montreal. The Royal Ontario Museum holds some of her portrait paintings. Source : Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol.  Vll  pg 13 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press)

Lucie 'Ruthie' Blackburn

National Historic Person

Born 1804, West Indies. Died February 6, 1895 Toronto, Ontario. 'Ruthie/Ruthy', as she was originally named, was sold as a slave for the Backus family in New Orleans. She became a house slave and cared for the daughter of the house.  She eventually ended up in Louisville, Kentucky where she met and married Thornton Blackburn (died 1890), a fellow slave. In June 1831 she was sold when their daughter suddenly died. That year the young couple posed as freed blacks and escaped with forged papers they managed to escape to Cincinnati and on to Detroit Michigan which was a free state.  The couple lived there for two years until Thornton was recognized as a runaway slave. The couple were imprisoned but with help they escaped to Upper Canada where they were free according to the law. The next year she was reunited with her husband and the couple settled in Toronto where 'Ruthie /Ruthy' took a non slave name of Lucie. Thornton worked as a waiter and then they began in 1837 the 1st cab company in Upper Canada. They were successful in business and were able to purchase a small home. Sometime in the 1830's he  defied chance and returned to Kentucky to bring his mother back to Toronto. The couple were active in anti slavery activities and in their community. They helped to build the Little Trinity Church the oldest surviving church in Toronto.  In 1985 an archaeological dig uncovered the foundations of the Thornton home and instigated the book I've Got a Home in Glory Land; A lost Tale of the Underground Railroad  published in 2007 sinning the Governor Generals Literary Award for Nonfiction. In 2002 an historic plaque was placed at the site of their Toronto home and the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada recognized the couple as persons of national historic significance. In 2015 a mural was installed in the area of their home depicting the history of the area and included the Thornton's' cab. In 2016 George Brown College, Toronto named their conference Centre for Thornton and Lucie Blackburn.  (2020)

Mary Bradley

née Coy. Born September 1, 1771, Grimross (Gagetown) New Brunswick. Died March 12, 1859. Mary and her first husband, David Morris took up farming in the Saint John New Brunswick area in 1801. Widowed in 1817 she remarried in 1819 to Levitt Bradley. Unable to speak out at church meetings simply because she was a woman gave her a cause. She spoke out whenever she could and sought out a church that accepted women as speakers. In 1803 she joined the Wesleyan Methodists. In 1849, although a relatively uneducated person, she published A Narrative of the life and Christian experience of Mrs. Mary Bradley of Saint John. Her life was dedicated to the expansion of the Christian word. In her will she left a large portion of her substantial estate for continuance of the teaching of the Christian gospel.

Esther Brandeau

Born 1718?. She was the first person of the Jewish faith to set foot in New France. Disguised as a boy and using the name of Jacques La Farque she sailed to Quebec in 1738. Once her disguise was discovered she told a tale of having been the only family member to have survived a shipwreck and having survived as a cabin boy and baker’s boy in a Christian community. She was unwilling to accept the Catholic teachings of the Nuns of Quebec and after being deported back to France she disappears from written history.

Catherine Brant

Indigenous Leader

née Croghan. Born 1759?. Died November 23 / 24, 1837. Her aboriginal name is Ohtowa kéhson and she was the head woman of the Turtle Clan of the Mohawk. In 1779 she married and became the third wife of Chief Joseph Brant (1743-1807). The couple would have seven children. The family moved to the Grand River in 1785 where Joseph founded the City of Burlington where he build for his family a fine new house that today houses a museum. While she knew and understood English she much preferred to speak her own native language. As Clan Mother of the Mohawk she wielded much influence among the Six Nations. Both she and Joseph are buried at Her Majesty’s Chapel of the Mohawks which they had built in 1785. It is the oldest protestant church in Ontario. Source: D C B Vol. Vll.

Molly / Mary  Brant

Indigenous Leader

 

(Native name Konwatsi'tsiaienni = someone lends her a flower) Born circa 1736, Died April 16, 1796. She was one of the powerful Six Nations Indian matrons who were chose the chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy. She was also the life partner of William Johnson, the British Superintendent of Northern Indians. She was the chatelaine of Johnson Hall in New York state, where she entertained and took over total management when Johnson was absent. She encouraged the Iroquois to support the British during the American Revolution. Her lands in New York were ravaged by the Americans for her stand with the British and she was forced to flee to Canada. The Governor of the area had a house build for her and she received a pension of 100 pounds a year, the largest pension ever paid to a native person during this era.

Jemima Bray

née McKay. Born January 1, 1858. Died March 31, 1926, Medicine Hat, Alberta. Jemima lived with her family in Fort Walsh, Alberta. On November 16, 1876 she married John Henry Grisham Bray (1840-1923) who was a member of the North West Mounted Police. Jemima was one of the first police wives in the Canadian North West Territories. After their marriage the couple transferred to Fort MacLeod. The couple would have 13 children. From 1881 through 1892 they lived at Pincer Creek, Alberta. In 1883 Sergeant Bray retired from policing. The family resettled in Medicine Hat in 1992. Source: Kay Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation, 1999)

Sarah 'Allie' Brock Brick

née Lendrum. Born December 1, 1877, Vanleeck Hill, Ontario. Died May 23, 1947, Victoria, British Columbia. Allie married and independent fur trader Alfred ‘Fred’ Lambly Brick and the couple took a 700 mile journey to their home in Fort Vermillion. The voyage included 300 miles don river on a 100 foot raft on which supplies possessions and animals where housed. Fred had to teach his wife the basics of keeping a house on the Canadian frontier as she could not even make bread. The couple had four children three of who were born in Fort Vermillion.

Louisa Ann Brown - Bailey -Tillman 4202

Black Pioneer Businesswoman in Halifax

née Johnson / Johnston. Born 1830's or 1840's, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Died December 29, 1911, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Louisa married the first time to John F. Brown (died before 1871). As a widow she lived with her shoemaker brother and and her widowed mother. who owned a variety store in Halifax. Louisa worked as a dress maker until she remarried January 9, 1877 to Alexander C. Bailey (died 1886), a truckman and Baptist pastor in Beech Hill. After the death of her mother , Louisa took over the mother's property and store developing a business in second hand clothes and branching out into herbs, roots and groceries. She became active in the African Baptist Association promoting temperance and teaching Sunday school. She helped establish the Pastor's Aid Society where she served as president. She also contributed to a projected vocational school for Black children.  She would marry a third time to a Baptist clergyman from Boston, George Tillman but it appears they never lived together. Source: D C B  Vol XIV (1911-1920) (accessed 2023) .

Amelia Lemon Burritt

Pioneer & Suffragist

Born August 1, 1822, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River Died January 29, 1929, Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. She came to Winnipeg with her husband in 1880. During the work of the Political Equality League to gain the vote for women, at the age of 93 years, she got 4,000 names on a petition to Premier T. C. Norris. Interviewed on the occasion of her 103rd birthday in 1925, making her the province’s oldest women at that point. Source: Pioneers and Prominent People of Manitoba Online version 2007, Manitoba Historical Society; Memorable Manitobans Online (accessed December 2011).

Sarah Foulds Camsell

Born 1849, Red River Settlement, Manitoba. Died January 9, 1939, Penticton, British Columbia. In1868, she was invited by the wife of fur trader William Lucas Hardisty to accompany her on her return to Fort Simpson, North West Territories. There, she met and married Julian. Stewart Camsell on 28 January 1869. The couple lived much of their lives in the North West Territories raising a family of eleven children, nine of whom lived to adulthood.  Sarah returned to Winnipeg in 1900. In 1923, her reminiscences about her life were included in the book Women of Red River, published by the Women’s Canadian Club of Winnipeg. She moved to Penticton, British Columbia in 1931, where she died. Source: Memorable Manitobans. Biography by Gordon Goldsborough. (accessed March 2012)

Zina Young Williams Card

'Aunt Zina'

née Young. Born April 3, 1850, Salt Lake City, Utah. Died January 31, 1931, Salt Lake City, Utah. Zina was the daughter of Mormon leader Brigham Young (1877) . As a member of Jesus Christ of.  Latter Day Saints religion , Zina was in favour of plural marriages. On October 12, 1868 she became the second wife of Thomas Williams (died 1874).  The couple had two sons. After the death of her husband, Zina, to support her small children, learned how to produce silk, raised silkworms and turned the silk into fabric. In January 1879, Zina and Emmeline B. Wells travelled  to Washington, D.C., as delegates to the 1st women’s Congress. There, Zina met powerful women including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others. Returning home, Zina attended school at Brigham Young Academy where she became Matron of young ladies. Her son Thomas died in 1881 and she turned her efforts to working harder at the Academy. On June 17, 1884 she became the second wife of Charles Ora Card (1839-1906). Charles’ 1st wife had divorced him so in fact Zina was his third marriage. June 3, 1887 Zina moved with ten other families to join her husband at Lee’s Creek in southern Alberta. Charles other wife and children remained in Utah. Zina used some of her own monies to fund a school and local businesses in the settlement. Her 1st home was a log cabin nick named the ‘Cotton Flannel Palace” because she lined the walls with bright cotton flannel. Charles was often absent from the community as he visited his other wives and families in Utah and Iowa. Perhaps the wide distribution of his families was his way of avoiding the law against plural marriages. Zina meanwhile welcomed visitors and new settlers as guests in her home. In 1900 Charles gave Zina some land and she funded the building of a large brick home to accommodate the family and numerous visitors. Zina's many responsibilities were establishing a drama society, leading the Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association, raising her own children and sometimes the children of other wives, entertaining literally hundreds of visiting dignitaries, and acting as a surrogate mother to much of the western Canadian province. She also served as a midwife. Throughout the area she was known as Aunt Zina. When Charles became ill she moved back to Utah with him. Her only daughter, Zina, married and remained in Alberta. The church work that Charles did to lay the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) in Canada has earned him the title of ‘Canada’s Brigham Young’. Lee’s Creek was renamed Cardston in honour of this pioneer family.  Sources: Sanderson, Kay. 200 Remarkable Women of Alberta. (s.l., s.d.) online (Accessed September 2014)  ; Aunt Zina; the life of Zina Young Williams Card. Church History.  (accessed September 2014)

Eliza Ann Chipman

Born July 3, 1807, Nova Scotia. Died October 23, 1853.  She would marry the Reverend  William Chipman May 24, 1827 and become stepmother to 8 children at 19 years of age! She and William would also have 12 children of their own. From 1823 until her death she kept a personal and secret journal. Two years after her death her husband, published the diary his wife had left behind. The importance of such a work lies in the insight provided into the daily life of the pioneers themselves. Eliza Ann was a strong individual with close connections to her Baptist belief. Her writings show her support and encouragement for education for education. After all she did have a household with 20 children! The Memoirs of the life of  Mrs. Eliza Ann Chipman… left a literary legacy providing a portrait of women’s lives in early 19th century Nova Scotia.  Source: D C B  V. 111 pg 148-149.

Jeanne Chartier
Fille du Roi

Born 1646? St Jean Nermours, France. Died December 31, 1708, Montmagny, New France (now Quebec) Jeanne was one of the brave young French women who answered the French Royal Call for women to go to the colony of New France. She arrived in Quebec June 30, 1669. She married Pierre Rousset dit Beaucourt and after his death she married Francois Lavergne  (2018)

Suzanne Connolly

Born 1788. Died August 14, 1862. She was also known as La Sauvagess or as Suzanne Pas de nom. She was partnered/married as was the custom of the fur trade era with William Connolly in 1801. Usually when traders returned to the urban centers of Canada they made a choice of either leaving their partner/wife and children or taking them with them. Most traders simply left. Suzanne moved to Lower Canada with William where he married Julia Woolrich in the Catholic Church. In 1841 Suzanne and her 6 children moved back to the Red River Country where she took residence in the Grey Nuns Convent and was supported by William and later  by Julia.  Her daughter Amelia would marry Sir James Douglas (Governor of the Hudson Bay Company). Her son John sued and a case for part of his father’s estate. The case was pursued through various levels of the British court system before a settlement was accepted. Suzanne was the only Canadian woman who’s “legal” marriage question came before Privy Council. She had lived as wife to William Connolly for 28 years. Source: D C B vol.  IX pg 150-151.

Elizabeth Isabelle Couc - Montour

Died 1667, Quebec. Died circa 1750, Harris Ferry, Pennsylvania. U.S.A. (now Harrisburg)    Information of the life of tis woman is contradictory and she has been written into history in various accounts. She was captured by the Iroquois about 1695 at an uncertain location. She was ransomed by her brother-in-law Maurice Menard and she accompanied him to Michilmackinac to serve as an interpreter. Tales of her being sent to Quebec and from there to France abound. However she was supposedly rescued by her future husband a chief of the Ottawas, Outoutagan, also known as Jean LeBlanc (1698-1712) By 1704 she was living in Detroit as Mme La Chenette or Mme Techenet. Here she reportedly led a scandalous life with Etienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bougmont (1679-1734). By 1709 she called herself Mme Montour and was working once again as an interpreter as the wife of an Oneida Chief. In 1727 she and her husband attended an Indian gathering in Philadelphia where she was regarded as a French woman. She remained in this area, eventually blending in and living with one of her sons near Harris Ferry. Source: D C B

Guillemette Couillard de Lespinay  4239

née Hébert. Born 1606?, Paris or Dieppe, France. Died October 20, 1684, Quebec, New France (now Quebec). Guillemette was the daughter of Canada's first farmers, Louis Hébert & Marie Rollet . August 26, 1621 she married at  to Guillaume Couillard de Lespinay. After the death of her father in 1627 the couple inherited the family estate on the brow of the cliff. The house was the only private swelling in Quebec. She was often godmother to baptized Indigenous babies. She also too in Montagnais girls who were protégées of Samuel Champlain. The household also included Olivier Le Jeune, an enslave Malagasy boy sold by the English. By 1648 the household had servants and then children. In the early 166's two of her sons and a nephew were killed by the Iroquois. In the spring of 1663 she became a widow.  She disposed of some of the family properties and litigation begun by the disapproving children would continue over generations even into the 20th century. She would withdraw into the convent of the Hôtel-Dieu living as a boarder for her las years. At the time of her death her descendants were over 250 people. Many of her descendants opted to use the surname Hébert.  Source: D C B (2023)

Regina Mary 'Polly' Rowell Craig

Born December 13, 1882 Regina, Saskatchewan . Died 1965. She was the firs settler child born is what is now Regina, Saskatchewan. Thomas Rowell brought his wife from Durham County, England to take up free Canadian Land. They named their daughter in honour of their new hometown. Regina was presented with Deed no. 1, Regina on April 11, 1883, a deed to lot 23 in block 282. Unfortunately the land was not tax free for the baby and the land was seized by the town for non-payment of taxes and sold. The deed itself was eventually useful to Regina when she went to claim her old-age pension, she used the deed as proof of age. Regina married Henry Craig and the couple had two sons. Regina Rowell Craig was honoured by the City of Regina by having a street, Rowell Crescent in northwest Regina, named after her. Source: City of Regina. Heritage. Online (accessed January 2012.)

Annie Davidson

 

Born 1836?, New Brunswick. Annie was married when she was young and was the mother of 10 children. In her late 60's, as a widow, she relocated from her native New Brunswick to Calgary, Alberta to be closer to four of her remaining children. In 1906 she started the Calgary Women's Literary Club in this untamed western Canadian settlement. The members read and discussed the classics. The club soon thought the town of 12,000 needed a library. Annie contacted the American Philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie who was a known library supporter and she was guaranteed $80,000.00 towards the library project. The Calgary municipal council said they would lend support to the library project only if a petition of 10% of the voting population was procured. Since women could not vote at the time this meant the signatures had to be gentlemen of the community. In 1912 the new Calgary Public Library was opened.  Today it is the Memorial Park Library and in 2018 it was declared a National Historic Site as the 1st public library in the province. Annie never saw the finished library building as she relocated before it was completed. There is an opera. The Annie Davidson Opera that tells the story of this former book reading citizen of Calgary.

Catherine A Delany 4466

née Richards. Born October 10, 1822, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Died July 11, 1894, Wilberforce, Ohio, U.S.A. In 1843 Catherine Married  Martin Robinson Delany (1812-1885) who in 1850 was one of the first African-American men admitted to Harvard Medical School. The couple had 11 children. The family moved to Chatham, Canada West (now Ontario0 in 1856 where the last of their children were born. In May 1858 Martin attended a convention organized by John Brown held at the First Baptist Church in Chatham. In 1959 Martin had published a novel  published in installments in the Anglo African Magazine. Catherine would remain home to care for the large family while Martin travelled to Liberia and Niger. In the spring of 1860 Martin was on a speaking tour in England. He returned to Catherine in Chatham in December of that year. By 1864 the family relocated to Wilberforce, Ohio, U.S.A. and Marin had enlisted in the Union army.  After the war they lived in South Carolina where Martin ran unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor of the state. Catherine would work to aid the family income by being a seamstress. Catherine and three of her children were buried in an unmarked grave next to Martin who had a simple tombstone. In 2006 the National Afro -American Museum installed a black granite monument to the family at the grave site. Source: Chatham-Kent Physician Tribute online (accessed 2024)

Marie Rose Delorme -Smith

National Historic Person

Born 1861, Manitoba. Died April 4, 1960, Lethbridge, Alberta. She was the daughter of Métis fur traders. She had two years of convent education and was fluent in English, French and Cree.  In 1877 at 16 she married Charlie Smith who paid her parents $50.00 for his bride The couple had 17 children. Marie out lived Charlie and 12 of her children. In 1881 they started the Jughandle Ranch near Pincer Creek, Alberta. Marie not only cared for her family but she also sewed buckskin cloths by hand while acting as nurse and midwife. When Charlie bought her a sewing machine she was to trade hew sewn goods for food and clothing. She. She and two other women sewed 36 tents for Canadian Pacific Railway workers to use. The ranch was sold and a house was purchased in Pincer Creek where after Charlie’s death in 1914 Marie took in boarders and expectant mothers. Marie wrote an account of her life leaving a legacy of a firsthand account of western Canadian pioneer life. In 2023 she was declared a National Historic Person. Sources: Herstory, the Canadian Women’s Calendar 2006 Coteau Books, 2005 : Métis Culture and Heritage Resource Centre. (accessed April 2013). (2023)

Catherine Jérémie de Lamontagne

Baptized September 22, 1664. Died July1, 1744. In her era, this mother of some 11 children, would become a well known midwife and amateur botanist. She collected plants and sent them back to France for study. Her shipments were made more valuable by the descriptive notes she  included  with explanations of the properties and effects of the medical herbs. 

Francoise Marie Jacqueline de la Tour
 

Born July 28, 1621, France. Died 1645 Saint John, Canada. She sailed to Port Royal in New France to marry in June 1640, Charles de Saint-Etienne de la Tour (1593-1666).The couple settled at Fort la Tour at the mouth of the Saint John River (modern day Nova Scotia) .  She soon became involved in the Acadian Civil War. In 1643 gave birth to her only child. She escaped a blockade of the Fort and headed to France to plead her case before the King. The decision came down against her husband and she escaped to England where she hired a ship to get her back to her husband. The ship was stopped by LaTour's rival Charles de Menou d'Aulnay de Charnizay (1604-1650) and Francoise was forced to go to Boston. Eventually she and her husband were reunited in Fort la Tour. In  spring 1645 la Tour was in Boston in the American colonies when the fort was attached. Assuming command of the Fort Francoise refused to surrender and fought three days to defend the Fort only to be forced to surrender on the forth day of battle. Charles de Menou d'Aulnay de Charnizay (1604-1650) slaughtered the remaining defence forces forcing Francoise to watch the executions. She died three weeks later. She earned the nickname of Lioness of la Tour. She was the 1st European woman to make a home in the colony that would grow to become Acadia.

Hélène Desportes - Hébert - Morin 4267

Born 1620?, New France. Died June 24, 1675, New France (now Quebec). It is often cited that Hélène was the first white child born in New France. Her father Pierre Desportes (1580-1629?) was in charge of the warehouse in Quebec and hew was also the village baker.  Her Mother was Françoise Langlois (1595?-1629?).After the fall of Quebec City in 1629 the family was transported to London, England and then to France. After the peace of 1632 Hélène returned to Quebec landing on May 16, 1633. October 1, 1634  she married Joseph Guillaume Hébert (died  died 1639), son of the first farmer in New France, Louis Hébert (1575-1627), and his wife, Marie Rollet (1580-1629). The couple had three children, one of whom died in infancy.  January 9, 1640 she married a second time to wheelwright Noel Morin (1616-1680). The couple had 12 children. Hélène became a midwife in the communities of Château-Richer, Cap-St-Ignace, and Montmagny, New France. Source D C B (2023)

Elizabeth Doane

née Osborne. Born 1715, Massachusetts . Died May 24, 1798. As a young woman she married Captain William Myrich who was lost at sea. The widow then married William Pain who dies within a year of the marriage. Her third marriage was to Edmund Doane in 1749 and the amalgamated family was a total of 7 children. The new family settled in Nova Scotia. Since there was no doctor in the area her skills in roots and herbs as remedies were welcome in the province. She was well known for her doctoring, nursing and midwife skills well into her 80's.

Madeleine Dumont 3716

née Wilkie. Born 1840 Pembina, Dakota. Died October 1886, Lewiston, Dakota Territory, (now Montana) U.S.A. Madeleine was a Métis, daughter of Isabella Azure and Jean-Baptiste Wilkie, a buffalo hunter. She grew up with her family moving about the Canadian prairies and the Dakota area of the U.S.A. She would marry in 1858 to Gabriel Dumont (1837-1906) and the couple had two adopted children. She worked closely with her husband many times traveling to sell his furs. By 1872 the Dumont family settled in the Batoche-St. Laurant are where they ran  Gabriel's Crossing, a ferry service across the North Saskatchewan River. With the resistance  and 'rebellion' of 1885 Madeleine and other women of the area left Batoche and camped in tents where they nursed the sick and wounded, cared for the youth and elders, and distributed what supplies and food they could share to the fighting men. After the uprising Madeleine lived with her father-in-law Isadore Dumont until his death when she joined her husband who had sought refuge in the United States. In May of 1886 she was injured in a buggy accident. Source: Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan online (accessed 2022)

Adrienne DuVivier -Lecavelier  4026

Pioneer of New France

Born 1626, Corbeny, France. Died October 20, 1706.  In 1646 she married Augustin Hébert (1623-1653), a soldier, in Paris, France.  After the birth of her first child in 1647 the young family arrived at Montreal Island, New France in 1648. Adrienne was one of the first white women in the colony. In 1649 her daughter Pauline was the first white child baptised in Montreal. Jeanne Mance (1606-1673) the first nurse in Canada stood as the child's God mother. Sadly the child died within a few weeks. Adrienne had four children in total, three lived to adulthood. After the death of her husband she became one of the biggest landowners in Montreal with her inheritance. She married a second time on November 19, 1654 to a gunsmith Robert Lecavelier (died 1699) and the couple had four children. Her name appears on the Pioneers Obelisk in Montreal's Place d'Youville. Among her many descendants are two  Canadian Prime Ministers. (2022)

Anna Eleniak 

Ukrainian Pioneer of Alberta

née Roszko. Born November 6, 1863, Nebiliv, Ukraine. Died September 26, 1935, Chipman, Alberta. In 1883 she married Vasyl Eleniak (1859-1956). Vasyl was one of the early Ukrainian settlers to come to western Canada in 1891. He later returned to the Ukraine to reunite and bring his wife and three children to Canada. The couple had an additional five children born in Alberta. The family settled in 1898 in Chipman , Alberta. Anna would have dug, fertilized, planted , carried water and weeded her garden. She used hemp and flax made oil based clothing. (2023)

Margaret 'Maggie' Jane Elms - Gero

Black Pioneer in Nova Scotia

née Elms. Born 1894, Nova Scotia. Maggie's family had arrived in Nova Scotia in 1783 as loyalists. Her father would buy his freedom By the age of ten Maggie was helping to deliver babies and by eleven was working as a domestic servant to help family finances. She cleaned toilets for families but was never permitted to use the toilet. After having a child she moved to Upper Big Tracadie and married a neighbour. A drinker and abusive he died young. Maggie married a second time to Joe Gero, a coal miner. In 1933 the family moved to Thorburn where they were the only black family. After an assault and the death of their daughter Mary the family moved back to New Glasgow in 1944. Fifty years of Maggie's life is covered in the book Gooseberries Have Thorns by her granddaughter Margaret States. (2022)

Marie-Françoise Hébert

Born January 27, 1638, New France, Died March 16, 1716, Montmagny, New France. Marie-Francoise was the granddaughter of Louis Ganton Hebert (1575-1627) and Marie Rollet (1580-1649) the first farming family in New France. On November 20, 1651 the 13 year old Marie-Francoise married Guillaume Fournier (1619-1699), a settler in New France who was a baker by trade. The couple had 13 children. Four of whom died as infants.  Like her Grandmother Marie Rollet, she was a n active participant in community life in New France. She would serve for many years as midwife for her community.  She and Guillaume would be grandparents to 107 grandchildren.

Mary Evans - Coady -Johnson      3547

'Ship Bride'

Born July 4, 1831, London, England. Died February 10, 1920, Victoria, British Columbia. Mary Evans arrived in British Columbia in September 17, 1862 on the Bride Ship S.S. Tynemouth. The long arduous voyage from England saw the women treated like cargo confined to the bottom level of the ship with no windows, no fresh water, no fresh food, no sanitation. The S S Tynemouth, it turns out, was the biggest of four bride ships. It was part of a scheme to ship the urban poor of London to what was considered one of the remotest parts of the British Empire. This trip was sponsored by the Columbia Mission Society through the Anglican Church. Mary, like some of the other 'Ship Brides', soon found a position teaching in Victoria. A year after arriving in 1863 she married Edward Coady-Johnson (1829-1909) and the couple raised three children. Sources: Find a grave Canada (accessed 2021)

Margaret Faussett-Jessop      3546

'Ship Bride'

Margaret arrived in British Columbia in September 17, 1862 on the Bride Ship S.S. Tynemouth. The long arduous voyage from England saw the women treated like cargo confined to the bottom level of the ship with no windows, no fresh water, no fresh food, no sanitation. The S S Tynemouth, it turns out, was the biggest of four bride ships. It was part of a scheme to ship the urban poor of London to what was considered one of the remotest parts of the British Empire. This trip was sponsored by the Columbia Mission Society through the Anglican Church. Margaret, like some of the other 'Ship Brides' soon found a position teaching in Victoria. On March 30, 1868 she married a fellow teacher John Jessop (1829-1901). The couple did not have any children. (2021)

Mary Barbara Fisher

née Till Born 1749. Died February 15, 1841, Fredericton, New Brunswick. Mary married Lewis Fisher who fought for the Crown with the New Jersey volunteers during the American Revolution. In 1783, along with 34,000 other Loyalists, the family fled to Nova Scotia and then on to New Brunswick by November of that year. They left their comfortable living conditions to suffer some of the most frightening winter weather conditions of the British Colonies without having had time to construct solid living shelters, surviving in tents their first winter in their new homeland.  One of Mary’s sons, Peter (1782-1848), is regarded at New Brunswick’s first English language historians and based his work Sketches of New Brunswick, published in 1852 on his mother’s memories. Her granddaughter, Georgiana, no doubt named from the families Loyalist cause, left a manuscript recalling stories her grandmother told her. These stories were published by Natural Heritage Books in 2012 providing a new generation of Canadian with a apt description of what early hardships the loyalists survived in support of the King. Source: Early Voices: Portraits of Canada by women writer’s 1639-1914. Natural Heritage Books, 2010.

Mary Margaret Florence née Bouskill. Born Manitoba. Died 1956, Saskatchewan. She and her family relocated to homestead in Manitoba. Margaret married George Alexander McRobbie Florence and they farmed in Richardson, Saskatchewan.
Arthamise Fortin

Northern Ontario Pioneer

née Courturier. Born August 9, 1879. Died November 1953, Chapleau, Ontario. As a youth Arthamise left her home in Quebec to work in a cotton factory in Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Her sweetheart Philias (Felix) soon followed and the young couple married on April 28, 1898. They would raise a family of 15 children. With nor steady work in Quebec, the family decided to try living in Ontario and in May 1909 Felix landed a job with the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in  Chapleau in Northern Ontario. When the family 1st arrived there were few houses and they lived in a railway box car. The depression years of the 1930’s were difficult years but the family survived. Laid off from the CPR, father and older sons worked providing cord wood for sale. Felix also left his family in late summer , hoped on train cars heading west to work harvesting in the grain fields. Arthamise kept the family clean, healthy and made sure they were all bilingual. Some of her sons went on to work on the trains when Chapleau was a central train hub. Source: Michael J. Morris,  Philias (Felix) Fortin. Michael J. Morris Report. Online (accessed June 2015)

Sydna Edmonia Robella Francis

Black Pioneer     3516

née Dandridge. Born 1815, Virginia, U.S.A. Died May 11, 1889, Victoria, British Columbia. Sydna moved with her family to New York where  met and married Abner Hunt Francis (1812-1872), an abolitionist and entrepreneur in 1840. The couple had one daughter. Sydna was involved in her community working with the Dorcas Society providing clothing to the Poor. During their life in Buffalo, New York she served as president of the Ladies Literary and Progressive Improvement Society which supported education for African American Women and Votes for Women while Abner was a member of the Buffalo City Anti-Slavery Society. In 1843 the couple both attended the National Coloured Convention: Prosperity and Politics: Taking Stock of Black Wealth held in Buffalo.  Relocating to the west coast around 1850, the family was running a successful clothing business in Portland, Oregon Territory, U.S.A. They somehow managed to stay in Oregon Territory even after the 1849 Expulsion Law which prevented Black people from settling in the state.  In 1862 they were one of 700 Black families that settled in Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Here the family joined Sydna's parents who had settled in Victoria two years earlier and became prominent members in the Black community. Abner was elected as a town the first Black councilor in Victoria in 1865 but soon resigned in an election controversy. There the family clothing store got off to a rocky start and was destroyed by fire in 1870. They were rebuilding when Abner died in 1872. Sydna tried to carry on with the business but had also inherited her husband's debts and found herself even working as a housekeeper in order to help pay of the debt. She continued to be an active member of her community working with the British Columbia Protestant Orphan's home. Sources: Suffragist, abolitionist, devoted daughter, and wife, mother. BC Black History Awareness Society. Online (accessed 2021); Find a Grave Canada (accessed 2021) 

Catherine Fraser    

née MacDonnell. Born March 17, 1790, Matilda Township, Canada (now Ontario) Died August 19, 1862, St Andrew's, Upper Canada (now Ontario) On June 7, 1820 she married Simon Fraser (1776-1862) adventurer and explorer of Western Canada with the North West Company. The couple had nine children, eight of whom lived to adulthood. Catherine married Simon upon his return from his adventured in the far west of Canada. Simon served in the Rebellion of 1837 and sustained an injury which severely hampered him for the rest of his life. He tried farming and various business ventures including a saw mill but was basically unsuccessful and never became financially comfortable. Catherine would have had to work hard to keep the family together. The couple died within a day of each other and were buried in a single grave in St. Andrew's West, Canada West. In 1921 the Hudson Bay Company erected a marker with inscription which mentions Simon's explorations 1805-1808 and Catherine's name is included on the stone. A small rusty sign at the graveyard indicates to highway drivers that Simon Fraser is buried there. Source: D C B; personal knowledge.

Caroline Blowers Gaetz

née Hamilton.  Born April 12, 1845, Nova Scotia. Died December 20, 1906, Red Deer, Alberta. In 1865 Caroline married Methodist minister, Leonard Gaetz. (1841-1907). The couple would have 11 children. Ill heath forced Leonard to resign from his ministry in 1883 and he took his family to the North West territories near Red Deer Alberta. It must have been quite a shock for Caroline to move from a comfortable home that she would have had with a church for which her husband worked to living in a log cabin in the far west. In 1890 the family had relocated to a large house in Red Deer itself. In 1897 Leonard once again returned to the pulpit and served at churches in Brandon and Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 1901 the family returned to Red Deer to retire. In 1909 the newly built Methodist church in Red Deer was named to honour Rev. Leonard Gaetz and in 1925 with church union it became the Gaetz Memorial United Church. Sources: Sanderson, Kay. 200 Remarkable Women of Alberta. (s.l., s.d.) online (accessed September 2014)  ; Cemetery Project, Red Deer Cemetery, Red Deer Alberta. Online (accessed September 14, 2014)

Mary Gage 4557

née Davis. Born October 22, 1777, North Carolina, U.S.A. Died October 18, 1852, Hamilton, Ontario. Mary's family were loyalists who settled on the north shore of Lake Ontario.  In 1796 Mary married James Gage (1774-1854) and the couple had 10 children. James' family had moved to the area from New York after his father had been killed fighting the British about 1777. His family came to live with an uncle. The family home, with Mary as hostess, was a hub of the community welcoming many notables of the day. During the war of 1812 between the British and the Americans the Gage farm at Stoney Creek occupied by the British who had been able to stop the Americans in the Battle of Stoney Creek. After the war the family purchased land from the estate of Chief Joseph Brant (1743-1807) and they became pioneers of what is now the City of Burlington. In 1835 the family relocated to Hamilton where the family prospered in commerce. The Gage family home in Stoney Creek is now the Battlefield House part of an historic and National Historic Park.  Source: James Gage, D C B (accessed 2024)

Ann 'Annie' Lowden Gordon     3877

née McQueen. Born 1865, Pictou, Nova Scotia. Died 1941, Victoria, British Columbia. Annie attended Normal School (teachers' college) in Truro, Nova scotia and then headed west with her sister, Jessie to teach in the Nicola Valley of British Columbia. She met and married Jim Gordon and the couple had three children.  The newly married couple settled in Kamloops in 1994 relocated to Salmon Arm to homestead. A creek which ran through their property still bears the family name.  By 1907 there were living in Victoria. After the death of her husband in 1911, Jessie, became involved in the right Sikh women to immigrate to British Columbia. She became known as a lecturer of note throughout the province. (2022)

Elizabeth Goudie See - Writers - Authors
Theresa Mary Gowanlock.

née Johnson. Born July 23, 1863, Tintern, Upper Canada (Ontario) . Died September 12 1899. She was married in her home of Tintern, Lincoln County, Ontario on October 1, 1884. The newlyweds headed for western Canada to begin  life where she one of two white women at their settlement.  Her husband, John was massacred by the Cree Indians at Frog Lake, North West Territories (now Alberta) during the Northwest Rebellion on April 2, 1885.  Theresa was taken captive into the camp of Chief Big Bear, and held captive for two months before being rescued by the Northwest Mounted Police. Theresa and the other white women captive Theresa Delaney wrote of there experience. Theresa returned home to Ontario but never overcame the terrors of the ordeal which broke her spirit.

Gudrid

Born Iceland. Died 1980. As a youth she and her family followed Erik the Red to Greenland. She was a seasoned traveler by the time she found herself at a settlement in North America (Vineland) and gave birth to a son, Snorri in 1007. He was the first European child to be born in North America. The young family remained in Vineland for some three years before they abandoned the settlement and returned to Greenland. Her story was put into writing by great grandson, Thorlak who became Bishop of Skalholt.

Isobel/Isabella Gunn

AKA John Fubbister; Mary Fubbister

Born August 10, 1780/81, Tankerness, Scotland. Died November 7, 1861, Stromness, Scotland. Disguised as a man she travelled to North America to work for the famous Hudson's Bay fur trading company (HBC). Was she an adventurer? Was she following her lover? The stories are not clear. The truth is she had to disguise as a man as women were not hired by HBC and women were not allowed to sail on HBC ships. In 1806, using the name, John Fubbister, she signed a three year contract to work with the HBC sailing for Canada on June 29 of that year and arriving at Moose Factory (in modern northern Ontario) in August. Traveling up the Albany River the work journal reports she performed servants' tasks. In 1807 she travelled 2,900 km to Martin Falls to take supplies to HBC outposts and that fall she travelled up the Red River to Pembina (in what is now North Dakota, U.S.A.).  She is believed to have been one of the 1st European women to travel in western Canada then called Rupert's Land. At the end of December 1807 she was not feeling well and gave birth to a son. A HBC employee, John Scarth was the father of the child but had kept Isobel's true identity to himself. From this point she was known as Mary Fubbister. She took work as a washerwoman and a nurse, appropriate work for a women at the time. September 20, 1809 she sailed for Scotland. Little is known of her life after she returned to Orkney, Scotland. Having a child out of wedlock would have brought same to her family and she may have had to find her own way in life. It is said she became a stocking knitter and lived in Stromness. In the 1820 a satirical skit written by fur traders mentioned a washerwoman which may have been a reference to Isobel. In 199 author Audrey Thomas published an historical fiction work called, Isobel Gunn. In 2001 a documentary film was produced called: The Orkney Lad: The Story of Isabel Gunn.

Mary Ann Gyves   3790

née Tuwa'hwiye Tusium Gosselim. Born 1854, Burgoyne Bay, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.  Died December 11, 1941, Fulford Harbor, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. July 11, 1886 Mary Ann married Michael Gyves (1833-1920). The couple had three children. The couple were homesteaders clearing the land together and lived in a windowless shack  until a more comfortable home was built. Mary Ann also served as a midwife have learned healing from her Cowichan family. Her family was close knit and Mary Ann made sure her grandchildren could attend high school The great granddaughters went on to nursing careers. (2022)

Eliza Victoria Hardisty

née McDougall. Born 1849. Died 1929. Her parents were Wesleyan-Methodist Missionaries in the Canadian North West territories. Her mother, Elizabeth Chandler McDougall (1818-1903) believed in equal education for all her children and sent them all to Canada East for their education. After attending the Wesleyan Female College , Hamilton, Canada West, Eliza joined her family at their Victoria Mission on the North Saskatchewan River. It was here she met Richard Charles Hardisty (1831-1888) an employee of the Hudson Bay Company. The two were married on September 21, 1866. The couple had 4 children, three of whom lived to adulthood. In 1877 Richard became Chief Factor for the Hudson Bay Company in Edmonton. He built his family home on what is now the site of the Alberta Legislature. As 1st Lady at Fort Edmonton, Eliza welcomed visitors and her home became the social centre for the fort. In 1877 Eliza was one of only 6 women who signed Treaty No. 7 between the government and the Aboriginal people. In 1883 the family spent two years in Calgary where Eliza one more was a main force in the social life of the town. In 1885 the couple returned to Edmonton and Richard was appointed as Alberta’s 1st senator. Source: Sanderson, Kay. 200 Remarkable Women of Alberta. (s.l., s.d.) online (accessed September 2014) ; Simonson, Gayle. Eliza McDougall Hardisty; Prairie pioneer (2005) online (accessed September 2014)

Alexandra 'Lexie' Helen Hargrave

née Sissons. Boren June 23, 1853, Kent, Ontario. Died June 5, 1932, Medicine Hat, Alberta. Lexie came to the Canadian Northwest as a young woman. On February 17, 1875 she married James Hargrave (1846-1935) an employee of the Hudson Bay Company to who she had been engaged for 2 years. James was ill when they were married but her good nursing brought him back to health. Lexie followed James as he was posted to Norway House, Fort Frances and Cumberland House, all HBC posts. In 1882 James resigned from HBC and became an independent trader and rancher. In 1884 Lexie and their younger of 5 children joined James on his property. Lexie had become fluent in Cree and she made sure all her children learned the language as well. Knowledge of the language and respect for the Aboriginals was a great help to making friends wherever they settled. In 1888 after suffering some setbacks with fire and poor crops, James, his 11 year old son Thomas and an aboriginal friend, Corn Man, searched for natural pasture land. They established a home that was fueled by gas from a one of the 1st wells drilled in the area. Source: 200 Remarkable Alberta Women. Online (accessed October, 2014); Butler, Lorna Michael. The Hargrave Ranch 1888-2013. (2013) ; Hargrave: Our family tree. Online (accessed October 2014)

Letitia Hargrave

née McTavish. Born Rupert's Land, Canada. Died September 18,1854. In 1840 she married and accompanied her husband James Hargrave to his job as Chief Trader of the Hudson Bay Company at York Factory. She was one of the earliest pioneer women of the fur trade in Western Canada. She enjoyed corresponding with her family back in Scotland and her letters have been saved over the generations providing written accounts of her  insight as to the daily life in the Canadian “wilderness”  of the Hudson Bay Company and the fur trade. She realized early that the morals and norms of British society had to be “relaxed” for the lifestyle of the HBC outposts. She wrote of adapting her wardrobe to include the warmer native clothing. Can you imagine the beautiful fur s that might have been her winter clothing? Sources: D C B vol. lll pg. 589-90

Zenora 'Nora' Rose Hendrix

Black Pioneer Entertainer

née Moore. Born November 19, 1883, Georgia, U.S.A  Died July 24,1984, Vancouver, British Columbia. The family soon relocated to Tennessee where Nora would grow up. In her early 20's and her sister, who's stage stage name was Belle Lamar, joined a traveling vaudeville group as chorus girls touring the country. It was while she was on the road that she met a stagehand, Bertram Philander Ross Hendrix (1886-1934). The couple were married in Seattle after the touring show closed in 1912. They moved to the long established black settlement in Vancouver, British Columbia. She and her husband Ross would have a family of four children, including James also known as Al. Al would raise his family back to the U.S.A., but would send his son, Jimi, to visit Grandma during summers and young Jimi’s would live with his musical and talented grandma Nora. She was one of black Vancouver’s pioneers. A well know church choir singer she also was involved with a theatrical performance troop that accessorized in colourful and rich long fitted gloves, giant hats and feather boas. What fun for a grandson, who no doubt became influenced by what he saw. Jimi later played at one of Vancouver’s’ east end night clubs the Smillin’ Buddha Cabaret and went on to perform around the world creating a musical legend. In the 1980's Nora went to live with Al and his family in Seattle, Washington but later returned to Vancouver. Nora is buried in the Hendrix family plot in Seattle Washington, U.S.A. Source: Find a Grave Canada online (accessed 2022)

Theresa Hirsch/Hersch-Miller       3548
'Ship Bride'

Born England. Died British Columbia? Theresa arrived in British Columbia in September 17, 1862 on the Bride Ship S.S. Tynemouth. The long arduous voyage from England saw the women treated like cargo confined to the bottom level of the ship with no windows, no fresh water, no fresh food, no sanitation. The S S Tynemouth, it turns out, was the biggest of four bride ships. It was part of a scheme to ship the urban poor of London to what was considered one of the remotest parts of the British Empire. This trip was sponsored by the Columbia Mission Society through the Anglican Church. On June 30, 1863, Theresa married Jacob Miller. (2021)

Alma Isobell Sebastapol Belaclave Forbes Hodder
3572

Born November 30, 1859, Scotland. Died 1942, Lethbridge, Alberta. Alma was named to signify the important role that women had played in the Crimean War. Alma immigrated to Canada where she worked as a Governess for the H. F. Greenwood family in Toronto. When the family relocated in 1883 to Fort Macleod, Alberta Alma moved with them. The following year the Greenwood family along with Alma had settled in Lethbridge. While in Fort Macleod Alma became reacquainted with Eli Hodder whom she had met in Toronto. On March 9, 1886 they became the firs couple to be married in Lethbridge. The couple had one daughter who sadly died in infancy.  Alma was a member of the First Ladies Aid Society and was an active member in the Presbyterian church. The city of Lethbridge had named a street in her honour. Source: Legacy of Lethbridge Women, Lethbridge Historical Society 2005; Find a Grave Canada online (accessed 2021)

Catherine 'Ketty' Holmes 3848

née Timlin. Born December 12, 1926, County Mayo, Ireland. Died July 2, 1911, Outaouais, Quebec. During the Irish Potato Famine in 1847 Catherine saw her husband, Frances O'Boyle, and their two children die. Deciding to emigrate to the Canadian colonies with her brother and his family, she buried them all at sea. In Canada she first made her way to Kingston, Canada West (now Ontario) where she was quarantined. She joined a group of settlers who walked nearly 200 kilometres to Bytown (now Ottawa) where she worked as a maid. She met and married William Holmes (18251885), another Irish Immigrant, in 1848 and the couple raised a family of nine children on a farm in Wilson's Corners in the Gatineau area. At one point she took a bush trail and ferried across the Gatineau River to have an infant daughter baptized. The original family farm remains in the family. Source: Notable Women of Gatineau. online (accessed 2022); Find a Grave Canada (accessed 2022)

Mary Hoople

"Granny Hoople"

née Whitmore. She married and settled with her husband to raise a family in the Saint Lawrence River area near modern day Cornwall, Ontario. During an uprising, she was captured by Indians and forced to live 7 years with her captors. Her infant daughter was killed by the attackers and her daughter Sally was taken from her and she never saw her again.  Returned to her own people she became the local woman to seek out during illness. In the famine of 1788  she was able to locate  berries and roots to eat. This knowledge, which she had gleaned from her aboriginal captors, allowed her to help save people, many of whom were United Empire Loyalists settling along the St. Lawrence River, from starvation. The area of settlement around her family home is still called Hoople’s Creek. Her story is almost legend in the area where she is sometimes called the witch of Hoople’s Creek or simply Granny Hoople. She is also sometimes credited as being Ontario’s first woman doctor. Source: Local History Collection, Cornwall Public Library. Cornwall, Ontario.

Florence Roseltha Howey  3867

Pioneer of Northern Ontario

née Ward. Born October 4,1856, Delhi, Ontario. Died December 10, 1936, Sudbury, Ontario. A young William H. Howey (1856-1929) was in his first year of medical school at McGill University, Montreal when he returned to Delhi to marry his sweetheart, Florence, in 1878. After his graduation the couple settled in Norfolk County for a few years before William answered a call from the Canadian Pacific Railway for a doctor to practice in Northeastern Ontario. The job even provided a house! In March 1883 he sent for Florence to come and join him in the north and by July 1883 they arrived in Sudbury as the first permanent settlers of the settlement. The adventuresome couple became early pioneer settlers in Sudbury, which at this time was no more than a camp. A small hospital was built near their home and was soon called 'Pill Hill'. Although not a trained nurse, Florence often assisted her husband. William would be Sudbury's firs medical officer of health and served on the Town Council. Florence grew to love the outdoor life fishing and canoeing, picking blueberries, and relaxing at the family camp 'Idlewilde'. In 1933 Florence would write of their life together in her book Pioneering on the CPR which was published posthumously in 1938. The city of Sudbury boasts of Howey Drive, named for this pioneer couple. Source: The Pioneering Howey's online (accessed 2022)

Lucille Hunter

Black Prospector

née Hall. Born 1878/9, Michigan, U.S.A. Died June 10, 1972. At 16 Lucille married Charles Hunter (d1939) and the couple followed the call of the Klondike gold rush. It was shortly after they arrived in the Yukon that Lucille gave birth to their daughter at Teslin Lake. Lucille worked their mining claim on Bonanza Creek along side of her husband. Their daughter, Teslin, died shortly after her son, Buster, was born and the couple took to raising their grandson. After the death of her husband Lucille and Buster kept on mining. Lucille did not drive and each year she would walk the 140 miles to register work on her claims and walk 140 miles back home. With the advance of the Alaska Highway in 1942 Lucille and Buster relocated to Whitehorse where she opened a laundry business. Lucille, in later life, was almost blind. She lived in a small house that was piled with newspapers. She heated with a wood stove and then the inevitable happened and she lost her home to fire. She was forced to live in a small basement apartment where she was content listening to her radio. Source: A Guide to Who Lies Beneath Whitehorse Cemeteries. Online (accessed 2019) (2020).

Julia Louise Hurst-Mitchell   3549

'Ship Bride'

Born 1837, London, England. Died Marcxh1, 1921, New Westminster, British Columbia. Julia arrived in British Columbia in September 17, 1862 on the Bride Ship S.S. Tynemouth. The long arduous voyage from England saw the women treated like cargo confined to the bottom level of the ship with no windows, no fresh water, no fresh food, no sanitation. The S S Tynemouth, it turns out, was the biggest of four bride ships. It was part of a scheme to ship the urban poor of London to what was considered one of the remotest parts of the British Empire. This trip was sponsored by the Columbia Mission Society through the Anglican Church. Julia married Thomas Robert Mitchell (1840-1903) on September 26, 1863 in Victoria. Thomas would go on to become a prominent figure in Victoria serving as a city councilor. The couple had four children. Sadly Julia died in the Public Hospital for the Insane, New Westminster, British Columbia. She had previously been a patient in 1901 and again in 1911. Source: Find a grave Canada (accessed 2021)

Hannah Jarvis

née Peters. Born January 2, 1763, Hebron, Connecticut, U.S.A. Died September 9,1845, Toronto, Upper Canada. . During the American revolution the family to Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. and left Hannah with family while he fled in exile to England and France. Joining her father they lived in poverty in London, England and then in France. At 20 years of age Hannah married William Jarvis a Loyalist military officer who was appointed provincial secretary and Registrar of Upper Canada (now Ontario). The family including their three children settled in the area of Niagara-on-the-Lake in 1792. The couple would have four more children born in Canada. Hannah was not only a prolific letter writer but she also kept a diary where she wrote of items she was kept from talking about in the political era of early colonial Canada. Her family life, struggles, hardship of providing daily necessities, her anger and other emotions which society required that a lady should not voice. Hannah was left bankrupt with the death of her husband in 1817 since all the estate had been transferred to her son Samuel. She received a modest pension of $100.00 a year from the government but all other finances had to come from her son. Her journals and letters are in the Archives at the University of Guelph.

Clarissa Bristow Johnson  4201

Black Ontario Pioneer

Born Louisiana, U.S.A. Died Buxton, Ontario. Born a slave Clarissa was the personal maid to her mistress. Clarissa even travelled to Detroit with her mistress. Returning home with her mistress she told her mother about the trip and about seeing the shores of freedom across from Detroit. She promised her mother that if she ever travelled to Detroit again that she would try to escape to freedom. At 12 she was once again in Detroit and escaped to freedom in Canada. She settled in the Buxton Settlement also called the Elgin Settlement, and loved with a local family. She would marry Abraham Johnston and the couple had 11 or 12 children. Sadly only four of their children lived to be adult She was a young widow who managed as a single parent to provide for her family and to keep the family farm. (2023)

Anna Koivu

Born 1889, Finland. Died April 29, 1979. Anna was a Finnish immigrant woman who was a conventional wife, mother, and grandmother who also showed an independent side by writing columns for the Finish Canadian Newspaper. She was a pioneer in the bush of Northern Ontario being among the 1st women to work in the Lumber camps. She was a widowed homesteader described as having ‘sisu’, a work that is most closely understood as ‘having guts’. Taking an interest in Canadian politics she became a dominant for in the 1930’s Liberal Party of Canada. Often when she wrote she used the name Mokin Muori meaning ‘Log Cabin Granny’. Her writings helped members of the Finnish community to assimilated to the community She often wrote to advance women’s issues. Source: Great Dames, University of Toronto Press, 1997. (2018)

Marie-Anne Lagemodiére.

née Gaboury. Born August 2, 1780, Maskinongé, Quebec. Died December 14, 1875, Saint Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba. She Married Jean-Baptiste Lagemodiére ( 1778-1855) on April 21, 1806 and traveled with her fur trading husband and in 1806 she was one of the 1st white women to visit such outposts as Red River ( later Winnipeg) and Fort Edmonton in the Canadian west.. Her daughter, Reine, was the 1st legitimate white child to be born in the Canadian west in 1807. Marie-Anne led an adventuresome life and was the mother of eight children.  Marie-Anne has sometimes been called the Grandmother of the Red River and she is also the grandmother of Louis David Riel (1844-1865) the political leader of the Métis peoples who led rebellions against the Canadian government.. In 1978 a fictionalized story about Marie Anne became a Canadian feature film. (2019)

Catherine Bouvier Lamoureaux

née Beaulieu. Born 1836, Salt River Region, North West Territories. Died 1918, Fort Providence, Northwest Territories. Catherine was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church at Portage La Loche, Saskatchewan. Between 1848 and 1852 she attended the Grey Nuns’ school in St. Boniface, Red River. At 16 in 1852 she married Joseph Bouvier (d1877) and the couple had five children. She was known for driving her dog team 150 miles along her own trail to old Fort Rae to visit family members and deliver mail. The Mackenzie Highway now follows her travel route. She also snowshoes out in spring to gather birch sap to make her Birch syrup. In 1879 she married Jean-Baptiste Lamoureaux (d 1918) While they lived in Fort Providence, Northwest Territories she help established the Sacred Heart Hospital and worked with the Grey Nuns to establish a school. She was a strong believer of preserving her Métis culture and language. She was known as Kukum Baie which meant grandmother of us all, one who gives and sustains life. In 2011 the Canadian Sites and Monuments Board declared her a Historical Person, the 1st Métis woman of the Northwest Territories to receive this distinction.

Hannah Land r4493

née Horning. Born April 24, 1777, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Died June 9, 1870, Hamilton, Ontario. Hannah moved up to Canada as a Loyalist family. In 1797 she married Robert Land Jr. or ll (1772-1867) who was also of Loyalist stock. The couple settled in Wentworth County near Hamilton in Upper Canada.  The couple would have nine children. While more is written about her husband's family and her husband one only has to imagine the difficulties of early Loyalist life in a new settlement. Robert fought in several of the battles of the War of 1812 which must have been harrowing for Hannah. He would become a Lieutenant Colonel with the 3rd Gore Militia after the War. He commanded a post in the rebellion of 1837 but this would not have carried as much worry for Hannah and the 'Rebellion' did not last long. Source: Find a grave online (accessed 2024)

Anne Langton  4140

Born June 24, 1804, Yorkshire Dales, England. Died May 10, 1893, Toronto, Ontario. As a child she was raised in a mansion near Ormskirk, Lancashire, called Blythe Hall. After the As many affluent young women of her day she studied fine arts in Italy and other European countries. She became a skilled miniaturist painter and sketch artist. After the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) the family faced financial downturn and the family relocated to Liverpool where Anne took light housekeeping for the family. In the mid 1830's she came to Canada with her mother and her aunt to join her brother John. The three ladies arrived in New York city, U.S.A. and traveled by horse drawn railway to Niagara Falls and crossed to Canada in a row boat! They continued their journey by ferry to Port Hope  and then went by stage coach to Rice Lake and met John in Peterborough who then took them to Sturgeon Lake to his cabin on what was called Blythe Farm.  Anne would write and create high quality drawings of everyday life and hardships in early Upper Canada. A contemporary of Susanna Moodie (1803-1895) and Catharine Parr Trail (1902-1899) her works were not discovered until the mid 1970's in a cardboard box on the back dusty shelves of the Fenelon Falls Public Library. Anne started the first school in Fenelon Falls in her house and advocated to get a schoolhouse build for the area. She was also and advocate to have an Anglican church build in Fenelon Falls. Anne's early years in Upper Canada were told in the book a Gentlewoman in Upper Canada. (2022)

Jeanne LeMarchant / LeMarchand de La Celloniere et La rocque Le Neuf
 

Born 1575? Normandy, France. Died 1647, New France. Jeanne married in France on December 5, 1599  to Mathieu Le Neuf du Herrisson. Jeanne arrived with her sons Michel and Jacques and daughter Marie in New France June 11,1636. The family settled near Trois Riviéres.  Jeanne also had a daughter. They were the 1st noble family to settle in New France. The family immigrated to New France in the hopes of re-establishing the family fortunes. Her children would become well established in Trois Riviéres becoming Governors of the area. (2018)

Sarah L'esperance

née Allyn.  Born May 3,1692. A daughter of a Massachusetts Puritan family, Sarah was kidnapped from Deerfield by the Indian allies of the French and taken to live in Quebec. She was 12 years old. She trekked through the harsh wilderness of New England and New France and grew strong in her survival of the ordeal. She was baptized as a Catholic in 1705 in Bellevue, Quebec.  At 18 she married Guillaume LaLonde dit L'esperance and they had ten children. 

Nancy Lester       3553

Black Pioneer

née Davis. Born Haddensfield, 1810, New Jersey, U.S.A. Died February 1892, Victoria, British Columbia. Nancy was married to Peter Lester (1814-18??) an avid abolitionist. The couple and their five children relocated from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. to San Francisco, California, U.S.A. where they built up a flourishing shoe store in 1850.  After their teen aged daughter had problems  as the only Black student at an otherwise all white school the family moved to Victoria, British Columbia. In Victoria the family established themselves with a grocery store and became prominent citizens of the Black community. By late December 1859 their daughter Sara was giving piano lessons in Vancouver. In February 1860 Peter became the first Black person to sit on a jury in British Columbia.

Jane Mary Livingston 4199

née Howse. Born 1848, Saskatchewan. Died October 5, 1919, Calgary, Alberta. Jane met Samuel 'Sam' Henry Harkwood Livingston (1831-1897) Livingston, a trapper and prospector, in Fort Victoria, Northern Alberta and the couple married in 1865 at the Hudson's Bay Company post. Together they had 14 children as they pioneered a farm in Calgary, Alberta. When the North West Mounted Police came to the area Sam Livingston gave them land for their barracks. They imported fruit trees from the U.S.A. and as the land at the junction of the Bow and Elbow rivers,  allowed them to prosper on the farm they bought Calgary's first binder, rake, mower, and threshing machine. When Jane could find time she wrote books on the Cree language honouring her Cree grandmother and her grandfather who also wrote. 

Sarah Ann Lovegrove - Jackman       3551

'Ship Bride'

Born December 16, Middlesex, England. Died February 26, 1917, Victoria, British Columbia.  Sarah while living in England worked at the Pancras Workhouse and then worked as a servant. Unhappy with thoughts of a future life in England, this adventurous woman set off for the Canadian Colonies as a Ship Bride. Sarah arrived in British Columbia in September 17, 1862 on the Bride Ship S.S. Tynemouth. The long arduous 99 day voyage from England saw the women treated like cargo confined to the bottom level of the ship with no windows, no fresh water, no fresh food, no sanitation. The S S Tynemouth, it turns out, was the biggest of four bride ships. The settlement of 'Ship Brides" was part of a scheme to ship the urban poor of London to what was considered one of the remotest parts of the British Empire. This trip was sponsored by the Columbia Mission Society through the Anglican Church. Philip Jackman (1835-1927) had been working on the Cariboo Wagon Road in British Columbia when he was discharged in October 1863. He received 150 acres of land as a benefit for working as a Royal Engineer. Philip and Sarah were married and their first son arrived in January 1864. The family which grew with four more children and moved around British Columbia where Philip held various jobs. By 1881 the family owned the Beehive Saloon in Victoria for a year. They relocated to the Alder Grove area where they had a general store and ran the local post office and newspaper and Philip became immersed in local politics. (2021)

Elizabeth Lount

née Soules. Elizabeth married Samuel Lount in 1815 and had a family of seven children. Her husband was a well respected blacksmith and surveyor. He was reported to b a generous man. However, he had what was considered at the time by the powers of the community to have questionable political beliefs. He sided with the rebel William Lyn Mackenzie and participated in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. Unfortunately for him and his family he was caught attempting to flee to the United States the same as other rebels had done. He was arrested and sent to trial where he was sentenced to hang on April 12, 1838. Elizabeth Lount stepped up in defense of her husband. She spoke out on his behalf and gathered 35,000 signatures on a petition to grant clemency to her husband. Governor John Beverly Robinson would not listen to her efforts. Several years later, the rebels who had escaped were granted amnesty and many like William Lyon Mackenzie returned to the serve the colony. In a letter addressed to Mackenzie in 1850, Elizabeth Lount provided a written description of her husband which gives historians insight to this historical figure.

Margaret Lucas

née Morrison. Born August 29, 1860, Trilick, Ireland. Died October 20, 1922, Wetaskiwin, Alberta. In 1875, at 15, Margaret arrived in Aylmer, Quebec with her family. On December 12, 1883 she married Frances “Frank’ Arnold Lucas. She and her husband traveled by train to Calgary, Alberta and loaded their worldly goods on a wagon and headed for the Peace Hills Agency Farm where Frank was to work as a government farm Inspector. Margaret was the 1st white woman to settle in the Wetaskiwin District. Their home was a stagecoach stop on the route from Edmonton to Calgary and Margaret was host to stage drivers, mail carriers, North West Mounted Police Officers, missionaries and all other travelers. During the Riel Rebellion of 1885 Margaret was sent to the Hudson Bay Company site in Edmonton for two months for safety. When she returned home she found that Fort Ether had been built by the N W M P (the block house of the fort still remains on the site) Frank and Margaret would raise 9 children in 1897 the top floor of their home was the school until the children were able to attend a school in Wetaskiwin. Margaret would serve on the Wetaskiwin School Board. In February 1898 the family survived a house fire and were forced to spend the chilling winter in makeshift accommodations. Margaret and Frank were the first farmers to grow grain in the area and to have the first cattle site. They had the 1st white baby in the district, 1st baptism and funeral. Their youngest son, Cortez and the 1st car (1915 McLaughlin), 1st tractor and helped build many roads in the region. In 1915 Margaret and her daughter Maude founded the Wetaskiwin Women’s Institute. Her descendants still live on the family farm.  Sources: Kay Sanderson, 200 remarkable Alberta Women. Online (accessed July 2015; (accessed January 2016. )

Sara Mary Lynch -Staunton

née Blake. Born 1864, Galway, Ireland. Died 1953. As a young girl Sara attended  a convent at St. Leonards-on-the-Sea in Sussex, United Kingdom.  She followed her brother Frank to Pincher Creek, Alberta, where he started the Deer Horn Ranch. In 1890 she married Alfred H. Lynch-Staunton of the North- West Mounted Police at Pincher Creek. The couple would have 8 children. Even though raising children and working a ranch Sara also worked at a tea house of the Pincher Creek Polo Club that had been established by her husband. Sara even found time to paint the world around her. She producing small sketches and party invitations and for larger canvases she painted the doors in her home with landscapes. Source: CHIN website (accessed September 2015); Kay Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation, 1999).

Martha 'Mattie' Jane Mayes

Born 1850, Georgia, U.S.A. Died 1953. Saskatchewan. Mattie was born a slave and was sold at the age of four and taken from her mother. She was renamed Martha Jane Warner her her new mater's wife. By the time she was a teen slavery was outlawed and Mattie called herself a 'Freed Slave'  She married another free slave Joseph Mayers and in 1865 they couple moved through Texas and Oklahoma before they became a part of a group of 12 families that sought cheap land from the government on the Canadian prairies. The settled in Eldon, Saskatchewan also known as Shiloh. The couple would raise 13 children. Blacks were not necessarily welcomed in the province. The government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841-1919) set up an Order in Council in 1911 stating that Saskatchewan was not suitable for Black People.  While some of the Original Black families did not remain the  the Mayer family persevered. Mattie became the matriarch of the small settlement and was a well known and respected midwife.  The church in Shiloh, the first and only Black settlement in Saskatchewan, became in 2019 a provincial historic site. (2020)

Helen 'Nelly' MacDonald 4257

Born 1750?, Scotland. Died 1803, Prince Edward Island. In 1772 , helen and he family landed and settled on St. John Island (now Prince Edward Island).  Her brothers went to war and Nelly ran the family affairs. The family were landowners and farmers. Her brother had the responsibilities of a Scots Highland Laird with a considerable number of dependant tenants. When her brother retuned after a 16 year absence he often relied on Nelly  for advice on running the family affairs. Source: D C B Vol 5 (2023)

Janet Ann Macdonald - Lawson  3550
'Ship Bride'

Born February 3, 1848, England. Died October 1934, Victoria, British Columbia. Janet arrived in British Columbia in September 17, 1862 on the Bride Ship S.S. Tynemouth. The long arduous voyage from England saw the women treated like cargo confined to the bottom level of the ship with no windows, no fresh water, no fresh food, and no sanitation. The S S Tynemouth, it turns out, was the biggest of four bride ships. It was part of a scheme to ship the urban poor of London to what was considered one of the remotest parts of the British Empire. This trip was sponsored by the Columbia Mission Society through the Anglican Church. She married James Hill Lawson (1840-1915) an employee of the Hudson Bay Company and the couple had two children. Source: Find a Grave Canada (accessed 2021)

Maura Macnaghden 3807
'Billy'
Pioneer Cowgirl

Born 1883, Tipperary, Ireland. Maura seems to have always been somewhat adventuresome. She answered an advertisement for a housekeeper by a rancher, Charles Saunders,  in Maple Creek, Alberta, and set off for Canada. She proved to be better as working with horses than at cleaning house however. She took the name 'Billy' and in 1905 wearing mean's overalls she rode horses astride rather than side saddle as was expected of a lady she became a pioneer cowgirl. (2022)

Susanna Maxwell

Black Pioneer    

Born 1805, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Died February 11 1922, Toronto, Ontario. Susanna was born to free black parents. She was orphaned when very young and was placed with a white family as an indentured servant until she became an adult. She was treated fairly by the family who made sure that she could read and write.  Just prior to the civil war in the United States she and her husband narrowly escaped being kidnapped and being sold into slavery. The couple who would have 5 children decided to escape to the safety of Canada. The took the underground railroad settling near Richmond Hill, Ontario.  Later in life Susanna ran a laundry with her youngest daughter Charlotte Matilda, Known as Tilly in Toronto. At the time of her death at 116/117 she may have been the oldest woman in Canada. Source: D C B (2019)

Elizabeth McLean
replacement 02

née Blyth. Born 1838? Ancinnate, Ohio, U.S.A. The Blythe family moved to Canada to first settle in Toronto and when Elizabeth was 8 in 1846 she settled in Owen Sound, Cnada West (now Ontario). Elizabeth decades later, would tell her early family life with detailed accounts of the settlement in Owen Sound. She wrote about the corduroy road that was 10th street. It was built over a swamp and the 'quaking logs' were the main road. Often people walked on fence rails rather than on the log road.  Source: Pioneer Story of a Child in 1846 Parts l and 2 online (accessed 2024); Not on find a grave 2024

Elizabeth McDougall

née Boyd. Born 1853, Grey County, Canada West (Ontario). 1853. Died March 31, 1941, Calgary, Alberta. As the wife of a Methodist missionary Elizabeth accompanied her husband to his postings. She took the trek across the early plains to become the first white woman in the Alberta foothills. For some 25 years she and her husband worked to share their faith at the Stoney reserve. She managed to travel with her husband by all of the traditional conveyance of the time including canoe, wagon and dog sled. She would raise her six children in the foothills. In 1898 she retired to Calgary where she became president of the Southern Alberta Pioneer Women and Old Timer’s Association. She held the strong belief that it was the presence of the frontier women who allowed the frontier families to survive. She pointed out the large number of bachelors who found it necessary to leave prairie life when they did not have the emotional and physical support in their work from a loving, energetic and sympathetic woman. Source: Canadian Encyclopedia

Elizabeth Chantler McDougall

Born 1818, England. Died 1903, Morley Alberta. Elizabeth married the Reverend George McDougall, a Wesleyan Methodist minister and missionary. The couple had nine children. She believed in education equally for boys and girls and all the children were sent back to eastern Ontario to be educated. The family settled at Morley Mission, Alberta, where Elizabeth not only cared for her family but she also administered to the sick of the Mission. While her husband was away, often for long periods visiting various points of his large geographical charge, she also took over the running of the entire business of the Mission. Upon the death of her husband she remained at Morley Mission in order to carry on business. Source: Sanderson, Kay. 200 Remarkable Women of Alberta. (s.l., s.d.) online (accessed September 2014) 

Lovisa McDougall

née Amey. Born 1855, Cannington, Canada West (now Ontario). Died 1943, Edmonton, Alberta. In 1878 Lovisa married her high school sweetheart John Alexander McDougall (1854-1928). John had headed west in 1873 to trade for furs. By 1877 he had settled in Edmonton to trade. Lovisa moved west with John but returned home to Cannington in 1880 to give birth to her 1st child, Alice. She then took the long trip, much of it by wagon train, back to Edmonton. The couple would have a family of 6 children. John was very successful and soon built a general store which thrived. He soon built a mansion for his family and Lovisa made the home a social centre in Edmonton. John became a politician and served as a councilor and mayor in Edmonton and became a member of the provincial legislature. In their later years the couple enjoyed world travel. His company McDougall and Secord exists in Edmonton as one of the oldest surviving companies in the area. In 1978 the Historic Resources Department of Alberta Culture published the Letters of Lovisa McDougall 1878-1887. Source: Kay Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation, 1999)

Marcella McFarland 3574

née Sheran. Born 1844, New York, U.S.A. Died October 27, 1896, Fort Macleod, Alberta. Marcella came to Alberta by wagon train up the Whoop-Up Trial search for her brother Nicholas.  She settled in Coalbanks working as a housekeeper for her brother. In 1878 she married Joseph McFarland (died 1919) who was the  first farmer in the Fort Macleod area. She had a sold reputation as a good hostess for Aboriginal and white travelers alike. The couple had no children. The city of Lethbridge Alberta had named a street in her honour. Source: Legacy of Lethbridge Women, Lethbridge Historical Society, 2005; Find a Grave Canada online (accessed 2021) .

Jane Flett Mckay

Born December 1857, La Pierre’s House, Canadian Northwest. Died 1947. She was the daughter of an aboriginal parent and a French Canadian Parent which meant she was a Métis. The family lived at a Hudson Bay Company site north of the Arctic Circle and she was brought up in the cultures of both parents. In 1874 she married Dr William Morrison McKay who is considered Alberta’s 1st resident doctor. Jane became a medical assistant to her husband. The couple had a family of 13 children. In 1898 they retired to Edmonton, Alberta where Jane proved to be a keen bridge player and an avid reader. Source: Kay Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation, 1999)

Elizabeth Ferguson McKellop

née Fisher. Born 1858, White Lake, Renfrew County, Ontario. Died 1938, Lethbridge, Alberta. In 1881 Elizabeth married Presbyterian minister Charles McKellop. In 1887 traveling with 2 of her young children she followed her husband to Lethbridge, Alberta. Charles had traveled west a year earlier as the 1st clergyman to arrive in the area. When Elizabeth moved west she brought with her some comforts for their new home, comforts such as her piano and a washing machine. The couple would have 8 children in total but two sons died as infants and a daughter died of appendicitis at 17. In her later years Elizabeth often lectured on pioneer life in the area. In 1954 the new church in Lethbridge was named in honour of the couple McKellop Church. Source: Kay Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation, 1999)

Anne Nancy 'Matooskie' McKenzie4475

Born 1790?, Athabasca Country (Canadian North West). Died July 24, 1851, Victoria, British Columbia. Matooskie was abandoned as a young girl by her fur trading father Roderick McKenzie and left in the care of a fellow fur trader John Stewart. In 1813 she married George McTavish with whom she had seven daughters. McTavish abandoned his family for another woman and although higly condemed for his actions Matooskie became dependant on the Hudson Bay Company for support. She lived in various settlements across Hudson Bay territories in the Canadian west before she married Pierre LeBlanc on February 7, 1831. Sadly Pierre drowned in the Columbia Rives along with some of the children when crossing the Rockies to the Canadian West coast. By 1851 Matooskie was living with her youngest Daughter at Fort Victoria. Source; Histropedia on Facebook. (accessed 2024) 

Mary McKenzie

née Mckay ? Born 1796. Died October 4, 1886. Her mother was probably descended from a voyageur and her father was a Nor’Wester who abandoned his family to return to Scotland. Mary became the wife of another Nor’Wester, Charles McKenzie. Together they traveled and lived in the undeveloped Canadian north west. She was an accomplished hunter and kept her family and at time other non hunting families of her community in wild game, including bear meat. She was also a competent business woman of her era, for her husband left her in charge of his fur trading post while he took care of company business in the south. Her story is told through the pages of her husbands journals. She did not keep a journal of her own. She outlived her husband by three decades living with her son and his family in St James, west of the Red River along the Assiniboine. Source:  The Beaver, February/March 2005.

Margaret McLaughlin

née Waddens. Born 1775 ?  Canada. Died 1860, Oregon City, Oregon, U.S.A. Margaret was the young “country bride of Alexander McKay a fur trader of the North West Company. The would have been married by mutual contract as was the custom of the day for “country wives” . The couple had 4 children. By 1811 she was a widow of a murdered husband and she became the “Country wife” of a medical doctor John McLaughlin (1784-1857), in Sault Ste Marie. John brought Margaret a step son and the couple would have four children of their own. The family first settled in Fort William (Thunder Bay, Ontario) with Dr McLaughlin working in the fur trade which meant he travelled the north. In 1824 the great fur companies amalgamated and the doctor was chief factor for the Hudson Bay Company in the area of Oregon. Margaret and the family soon followed to the west where the doctor helped found Fort Vancouver. Margaret was  hostess to other wives, many of who were like herself aboriginal  “Country wives” She was also known to have travelled on shorter trips with her husband for his work. A true pioneer her family became spread across North America, some following their aboriginal roots and others following their father’s people. Dr. McLaughlin is considered by some to be the father of Oregon. There were formally married November 1842 when the church became established in their area. Sources:  Pioneers every one by E. Blanche Norcross (Burns and MacEachern Ltd. 1979) : Di C B under “John McLaughlin” by W .K. Lamb Vol. viii.

Catherine McPherson

Born 1789?, Scotland. Died 1867. In 1813 she courageously left her homeland as on one the settlers of Lord Selkirk’s Red River project. The party landed in Fort Churchill where they spent the long, cold winter. On June 21, 1814 the settlers finally reached the Red River Settlement. Catherine married Alexander McPherson and they began a pioneering adventure that would see their home burned in a raid, their crops destroyed in raids and in naturally bad weather. The family survived floods and droughts and plagues of grasshoppers as well as epidemics of small pox. These early prairie pioneers were true heroines of Canadian life. Source: Catherine 'Kate' Mcpherson Nellie McClung Foundation online.

 

Nancy McTavish Leblanc

Métis Pioneer

Indigenous  name Matooskie. Born 1790, Hudson Bay Lands, Canada. Died July 24, 1851. Her Father was a North West Company Trader and her mother an aboriginal woman. She herself was abandoned by her first husband, McTavish, a fur trader. It was the custom held by man fur traders to cohabit with aboriginal women and when they decided to leave the fur trade and the area they would abandon their fur trade territory wives and children and perhaps legally marry a white women and start a “legal” family. The Hudson Bay Company arranged a marriage for Nancy with another trader Pierre LeBlanc in 1831. Nancy was just one of many victims to the whim of the HBC. The practice of abandoning aboriginal partners and their children and then the HBC custom of partnering the women with other traders fostered racial discrimination that lasted for many decades in the Canadian northwester regions. Source: D C B, Toronto, online vol. lll pg 560-561.

Martha Merrifield

née Stafford. Born 1781, Stillwater, New York, U.S.A.  Died July 25, 1851. Eardley, Canada East (now Quebec) Martha married Nathan Merrifield (1775-1826) in Montague, Lanark, Ontario around 1803 and the couple settled Eardley, Quebec to raise their nine children. They are considered as probably the first European Settlers  arriving in 1806. Source: Find a Grave Canada online (accessed 2023); History of Eardley, Luskville & Breckenridge online (accessed 2023) 

Annie Midlige

Fur Trader & Businesswoman

Born Fusheeyea Mitre Tabashrant. 1864, Beirut, Lebanon. Died February 12, 1947, Parent, Quebec. At 18 she was working in a silk factory in Beirut. She married Nadar Midlige, the factory manager and the couple had 4 children. 11 years later she was a widow leaving her children with family members and sailing for America. She worked as a cook in a Lebanese restaurant in New York City, U.S.A. prior to relocating to Ottawa, Ontario where she worked as a housekeeper for a Lebanese family and a peddler. She traveled by canoe up the Gatineau River peddling goods to the Aboriginals in the Abitibi region. She would trade for furs each summer becoming a rival in the area with the famous Hudson Bay Company. She spoke only Arabic and some of the native language but never learned English or French. Eventually she earned enough money to send for her family and made sure they were educated in Ottawa. She bought a 400 acre farm in Baskatong and opened a hotel and a store. She encourage son John to return from the gold fields of the Yukon to return and become her fur trading farmer. The whole family would become involved with her businesses with multiple stores open for trade. She settled in Parent, Quebec in the 1920's.

Mikak

Born 1740?, Labrador.  Died 1795, A daughter of an Inuit Chief, Mikak lived with her husband and son in a small British fishing station when the settlement was raided and her husband was killed. The young widow learned to speak English from a British solder, Francis Lucas. She and her son went to England with Lucas. Here she  was treated like the Inuit Princess that she was. She and her son had their portrait painted by the famous artist John Russell. In London she met Jens Haver, a Moravarian Missionary. She helped the missionary raise funds for a mission and in the summer of 1768 she returned to Labrador with Francis Lucas. When Jans Haven arrived in 1769 she helped establish the mission for which she had helped to raise funds from the British. She remarried an Inuit hunter, Tugavina, and settled with her family in her homeland.  

Dorothy Elizabeth Miller 4255

née Chambers. Born September 19, 1854, South Sherbrooke, Ontario. Died June 13, 1929, Barrie, Ontario. In 1876 Dorothy married a farmer, William Miller (1837-1911). The couple built a log cabin as their first home (the building stood until 1940). They later built a brick home and raised four children. They lived on the farm until 1920 when the property was sold. In 1970 the City of Barrie annexed the land and Formosa Sprin Brewery was built on the site. The Brewery was purchased within four years by the Molson Breweries Company who build a new brewery and turned some of the are as Molson Park to hose community events. In 2000 the brewery closed and the land was sold to be turned into a commercial development called Park Place. The original Miller brick farmhouse was demolished. Source: Find a Grave Canada. (accessed 2023)

Priscilla Miller  4206

Black Pioneer Grey County, Ontario

Born 1789?, Maryland, U.S.A. Died 1865? Sullivan Township, Grey County, Canada West (now Ontario) The family folklore has it that Priscilla was a free Black but she and her husband Henry Miller (1792?-1869) still felt the need to flee to the safety of Canada. By 1836 the family that included three children and a young grandson had settled in Toronto. By the fall of 1842 they became one of the earliest settlers  on the west side of Garafraxa on what is known a Negro creek in Sullivan Township, Grey County. Henry built a log cabin on the family farm for Priscilla, their daughter Catherine and her family and the grandson Thomas Henry Jr. The miller family would also hold land in the Owen Sound area and descendants still live in the area. Source: Negro Cree Ancestors of 1851...Henry Miller by Nancy Lee. online (accessed 2023)

Sally Ainse Montour

Born 1728?. Died 1822. She grew up on Susquehanna River (now New York State, U.S.A.) and learned English at the colonial school. She married at 17 to Andrew Montour. She left her drunken husband circa 1750 and her 2 children were placed with a family in Philadelphia. She had her 3rd child shortly after the break up while living with her Oneida relatives. She became a fur trader with the British, eventually trading in the Great Lakes area. By 1774 she settled in Detroit as a prosperous businesswoman with slaves. She purchased properties on the Thames River near Chatham Ontario and married an English trader, John Wilson. After the American Revolution she had a legal battle for her Detroit properties. Her husband’s claims in Canada were reduced substantially and fire destroyed her harvest in Canada where she was forced to exist on charity. She continued to submit land claim through to 1815 when the Claims Council insisted she was dead. An historical plaque in Chatham, Ontario commemorates the life of this fiery aboriginal Woman:  Sources: Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, accessed 2011 : 100 More Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces by Merna Forster (Dundurn Press, 2011)

Elizabeth Bond Morris

née Leggett. Born 1734, Massachusetts Bay, U.S.A. Died April 25, 1812, Halifax, Nova Scotia. September 5, 1756 she married Charles Morris (1731-1802)  in Massachusetts Bay Colony. The couple had two children while living in Massachusetts. About 1760 the family settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia where Charles served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly and Surveyor General. The family grew to include 11 children. Their son Charles Jr succeeded his father as Surveyor General.

Ruth Morton

née Mount. Born March 17, 1848, Yorkshire, England. Died December. 14, 1939, Vancouver, British Columbia. Ruth arrived in British Columbia in 1884 to marry John Morton,(1834-1912)  She was the first white woman to settle in the area of New Westminster, British Columbia. The couple would make their first home on English Bay. John Morton and his partners Samuel Brighouse and William Hailstone, are known in local history lore as The Three Greenhorns. After their first business failed he and his partners bought 550 acres in what is now the West End, at $1 an acre. When the Canadian Pacific Railroad arrived, "the Morton Ranch" proved a bonanza. Upon his death in 1912, John Morton left funds to build a church, The Ruth Morton Memorial Baptist Church, to be named in honour of his wife. Source: The Vancouver Hall of Fame online ; “Romance…” by Bruce Woods, Newsletter, Vancouver Historical Society Vol. 51 no. 7. 

Mary Newton

Born 1860, England. Mary and her husband arrived from England in 1886. Mary had her nursing training through St John’s House which was affiliated with the Anglican Church of England. Her training predated the formal education that was established by Florence Nightingale. In fact St John’s House provided 6 nursing sisters for Nightingale when she left to serve in the Crimean War. Mary had been a professor at Queen Charlotte’s Maternity hospital in London, prior to immigrating. She arrived at Hermitage, near Edmonton in the summer of 1886, is considered the 1st lay nurse in Edmonton. She had suffered ill health in England and she came to Hermitage to recuperate at her brother's mission. There was already a small log hospital there and Mary recovered her health and went quickly to work. In 1891, she put an advertisement in the paper saying that she would do nursing and midwifery in private homes--for ten dollars a week. She is also credited with introducing lilacs to Alberta. Source; Kay Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation, 1999);

Amanda Matilda Nilsson

née Johnson. Born July 14, Fairview, Utah, U.S.A. Died August 17, 1940 Raymond, Alberta.  At 17 Amanda married Christopher Nilsson (1857-1943). The couple would have 13 children and also opened their hearts to 5 foster children. In 1901 the family immigrated to Raymond, Alberta. Here Amanda settled in to being nurse and doctor to her community. She founded the literary club and also helped organize a womens club that promoted education and literature, a part of the Alberta Women's Institute. She also supported the basketball team in Raymond, a team that brought honour to the town. She allowed the 1st press in town to be set up in her living room and the Raymond Chronical was born with herself as reporter and a regular literary contributor of poems. Amanda sold homemade donuts to raise monies for her various charities. The family also provided free coffins for the community which Amanda carefully lined. She also helped established the Raymond Brass Band which was well known in its day throughout the area. She was a true community spirit. Sources: ‘Christopher Nilsson and Amanda Matilda Johnson’, Mary’s Genealogy Treasures Online (accessed October 2015) ; Kay Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation, 1999);

Thirza Jane Nolan  3755

Western Pioneer Rancher

née Little. Born  July 15, 1867, Somerset, England. Died March 31, 1948, Alberta. After immigrating to Canada, in 1884 Thirza married Thomas Patrick Noland (1862-1951). By 1870 Thomas had a job with the Alberta Railway and Irrigation Company and he brought his family to live in Lethbridge the next year. In 1901 Thirza was not so certain about buying a ranch but by April 1902 the Nolan Ranch was established on the Oldman River near Coaldale. She used her household saving to purchase the first cattle for the ranch. The family with four children, Thirza's father and a cat with four kittens settled into ranch life. Four more children born on the ranch would round out the family.  The original family home , The Nolan House' was moved to Coyote Flats Pioneer Village in the 1990's. Both husband and wife were active members in the Pemmican Oldtimers' Association. Source: Lethbridge Historical Society, on Facebook. (accessed 2022); Find a Grave Canada. online (accessed 2022)

Harriet Oliver
 

Pioneer & Political Wife

née Dunlop. Born 1863, Ontario. Died 1943. She arrived in the Canadian was as a youngster when her family relocated to Prairie Grove, Manitoba. In 1881 she married Frank Oliver (1853 -1933) and the newlyweds set out by oxcart on the three month trip to Edmonton where she helped her husband publish the 1st newspaper in Alberta, the Edmonton Bulletin. The couple had 7 children. In 1885 the family refusing to take refuge in a nearby Hudson Bay Company post survived a month long Indian uprising. Harriet was also a prime instigator in the founding of the 1st Presbyterian church in Edmonton. Harriet enjoyed exploring the land by taking annual trips and she even reached the Yukon and went down the Mackenzie River. In 1896 Frank left provincial politics and was elected to the House of Commons in Ottawa as the 1st member from Alberta.  In 1906 Frank was appointed as a federal cabinet minister and Harriet became a popular hostess in Ottawa. Two of her sons were killed during World War l and she would travel to England and France to visit their resting places. Sources: Kay Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation, 1999).

Yoko Oya

née Shishido. Born 1864 or 5 Kanagawa, Japan. Died 1914 Vancouver, British Columbia. At the age  of 23 she married Washiji Oya and the couple headed for Canada. Landing in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1887, Yoko was the 1st Japanese woman to immigrate to Canada. The couple settled in an area called Little Tokyo and opened the 1st general store in the community. In 1889 Yoko gave birth to the 1st Canadian Japanese child, a son. The couple would have two sons both of whom were educated in Japan before returning home to take over the family business. The business was vandalized in September 7, 1907 during the racist riots.

Catherine-Angelique Quevillon-Papineau

née Quevillon. Born March 14, 1686, Montreal, New France. Died March 30, 1781. As a youth in 1693 she was carried off by the Iroquois and was ransomed only after several years in captivity. During her full lifetime she would marry four times. She had on child with Van Tekakwitha (d 1703) a young Aboriginal brave who had protected her during her captivity and returned her and his daughter to New France.  July 30 1703 she married Guillaume Lacombe dit Saint-Amand (1673ca-1703).  In 1704 she married Samuel Papineau de Montigny (1668 or 1670-1737), a soldier, in Rivière-des-Prairies, Montreal, Quebec. They would had nine children together and founded a Canadian family dynasty. In 1742 at 56 years old she married Jacques Daniel and February 18, 1754 she married Jean Baptiste Nicolas DeVerac/Devarac/Verac/Verrat also called Parisian, an upholsterer from Paris, France.

Kate 'Fanny' Partridge

née Pridham. Born 1854, Bristol, England. Died January 10, 1931, Yukon Territory. Kate married Otto Partridge (1857-1930). She joined her husband in Millhaven Bay near Carcross where he ran a saw mill. The couple lived in a houseboat. After trying his hand as a mine owner the couple built a homestead called Ben-My-Chree. The name came from the Manx language of the Isle of Man and means 'girl of my heart'. Here Kate grew two acres of flower gardens on the rich glacial silt. In 1912 seamwheelers began stopping at Ben-My-Chree not only to drop off supplies but to also stock up on fresh garden vegetables. By 1916 tourists were arriving to view the spectacular gardens which were framed by towering snow caped mountains. Some 9,000 visitors came annually and Kate, always dressed in long formal gowns, greeted visitors at the garden gate. In the evenings she entertained visitors with organ music. Visitors included the Prince of Wales, President Roosevelt, Governor General and Lady Bing as well as silent picture movie stars. Source: A Guide to Who Lies Beneath Whitehorse Cemeteries. Online (accessed 2019.)

Arabelle "Belle" Frances Patchen

Born August 10, 1874, St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.  Died 1952. As a child she had moved with her family to the American northwest coast. In 1898 in Spokane, Washington she married an older gentleman of local society named Allen and became a trophy wife. She was the talk of the town after a popular scandal when, for charity, she road a horse bareback sporting only pink tights with a short knee length skirt! She married a second time to Thomas Noyes and the couple headed north to Nome , Alaska in 1900. Here the couple adopted a half Inuit girl, Bonnie, in 1905. After the death of Tom, Belle married a 3rd time in 1919 to surveyor, Bill Muncaster and the family took a honeymoon across two northern glaciers. The couple spent years searching for gold along the Canadian U.S.A. boarder finally staking a claim. Fighting off wolves, wolverines and severe winter weathers the scraped by with a meager earning that barely paid for expensive supplies. It is a common story of life in the north. In her 60’s she was teaching young men how to pack supplies and seek their fortune in the North. A true pioneer who embraced Northern life to the fullest.  Source: “Pioneer woman of Squaw Creek”  by Michael Gates in Yukon News November 23, 2007 (accessed online June 2011).

Lettice Perry  3723

née Wall. Born April 19, 1849, Burntwood, England. Died February 27, 1939, Lethbridge, Alberta. Lettice married in England were six of her 17 children were born. Some sources record that there were14 children  and records of 12 names have been found. One child was born and died on the ship coming to Canada.  In 1883 her husband, James,  was in Albert mining. Lettice soon joined him with their children. The other miners felt it was necessary for the family to have a home so they built one for the family. Soon the family was living on a 40 acre  farm. A second home was built, a three room cottage, which is now considered the oldest surviving home in Lethbridge. It was called the Perry Ranch. The City of Lethbridge has names a street in her honour. Source: Legacy of Lethbridge Women, Lethbridge Historical Society, 2005; Find a grave Canada (accessed 2022)

Myrtle Philip

née Tapley. Born March 19, 1891, Maine, U.S.A. Died August 1986.  As a young teacher Myrtle met and married Alex Philip in 1908. This adventuresome couple eventually settled in Vancouver, British Columbia but could not resist the call of the mountains. In 1914 they established Rainbow Lodge at Alta Lake, which is now the modern famous Whistler ski area. Myrtle became a well known horsewoman, fisherman, hiker, organizer, and community builder. In 1915 she petitioned the government for a post office and became the areas first post mistress. She established the first school even though the government offered no help. The Rainbow Lodge, under the Philip’s expert management, grew and prospered and in the 1940’s was expended to accommodate 100 guests. The couple sold the Loge in 1948 and it continued operation through to 1977 when the main building was destroyed by fire. Toda the area is preserved as Rainbow Park with some of the original cabins on site. In 1976 the Myrtle Philip Elementary School was established and in 1992 the Myrtle Philip Community School  became a centre of  activities. There is also the Myrtle Philip Community Centre. Each year Whistler celebrates Myrtle Philip Day on March 19th.  Sources: Herstory: the Canadian Women’s Calendar 2007 Coteau Books, 2006 page 78.; Myrtle Philip Community School. On line (accessed June 2011

Christine Pilon

née Dumas. Born 1862. Died 1959, Batoche, Manitoba. Christine Married Barthelemi Pilon and the couple, along with Christine’s widowed mother settled in Batoche in 1882. The couple would have 8 children. She often helped her neighbours by writing their letters either personal or for business. Their home was burned in 1885 during the North-West Rebellion and the family was forced to flee. Christine and her children win in the woods with the ill Mme Louis Riel. Eventually Christine and her children walked 18 miles back to Batoche. A new home was build and the couple started over again making a home for their family. The couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1932. Source: Diane Payment. Christine Dumas Pilon. Métis Resource Centre. (accessed April 2013).

Ada Annie Rae-Arthur

'Cougar Annie'

Born June 19, 1888, Sacramento, California, U.S.A. Died Port Alberni, British Columbia April 28, 1985. In 1915 after having lived in England, South Africa and the Canadian Parries, Annie with her husband and 3 children came from Vancouver to settle on a 5 acre tract of forest wilderness at Boat on the west coast of Vancouver Island. With great hardship, they cleared the land and made a large unique botanical garden, a mail order nursery business, post office and general store. Defending her land against prowling animals, Annie used her shotgun skills as well that she earned the nickname “Cougar Annie”. After four husbands ( the last one was a drunkard and was run off with a shotgun in 1967) and eleven children, she finally left her home and beloved garden when she was over ninety. Cougar Annie’s garden became derelict but was lovingly returned by Businessman Peter Buckland and run as a tourist attraction with botanical study centre opening in 2007 by the Boat Basin Foundation. However in 2010 the property was up for sale because of high debt. Source:  Cougar Annie Further fabulous Canadians hysterically historical Rhymes by Gordon Snell and Aislin. Toronto: McArthur & co. 2004. Pages 59-63: Ecotrust Canada (accessed August 2011).

Mary Rawn

In 1899 Mary and her husband, Tom, arrived by canoe to be the first white settlers in Atikokan, Ontario. The following year they she up the Pioneer Hotel which would become a magnificent two story, 18 room hotel. Tome went prospecting while Mary ran the hotel. A devout Roman Catholic she made sure that church services were held each month in the largest place in town, her hotel. Rawn Road bears the family name.

Delphine Rivard 4518

Midwife

née Dupre. Born June 9, 1871, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Died February 14, 1966, St. Elizabeth, Manitoba. The family had moved to the U.S.A. from Quebec and would relocated again to homestead in the Dakotas Territory in the American prairies. Her youth living the hardship of pioneer life meant that her formal education was limited to learning to read and write. On April 5, 1888 she married Jean Baptiste 'JB' Rivard Along with their first two children the little family relocated to St, Elizabeth a rural French-Canadian settlement in southeastern Manitoba. Their home , now with 11 children, often took in local teachers  and children from the local Children's Aid Society. As well as being an excellent homemaker and seamstress Delphine became known for helping the sick and wounded. She also gained a reputation as a midwife helping an estimated 200 children into the world and looking after mother and baby and the rest of the family for a week or more after the birth. Delphine and JB retired in 1940 to the local village of St. Elizabeth. Source: Delphine Rivard, Nellie McClung Foundation online (accessed 2024)

Marie Rollet

First Farmer's Wife

Born circa 1580, France.  Died May 27, 1649, New France. In 1617 she arrived in New France with her husband and young children. Her husband would be known as Canada’s first farmer. He was also an apothecary and Marie befriended the local natives to whom her husband administered. She is Canada’s first farmer’s wife. Their farm was on Cape Diamond which is located in the heart of the modern city of Quebec. She may also be considered Canada’s first teacher as records show she enjoyed teaching the local native population. After the death of her husband in 1627 she remained in her new homeland. She would marry a second time to a settler by the name of Hubot and they would raise an adopted native daughter A Québec, La première de la colonie, veuve de l'apothicaire Louis Hébert, pratique " l"interculturalisme" avant l'heure: elle instruit les "sauvagessess" et les forme ...à l'éuropéenne.

Marie-Henriette LeJeune Ross

"Granny Ross"

Baptized August 13 1762, Rochefort, France. Her family would emigrate and settle in Acadia only to be deported back to France twice as the area transferred back and forth from the France to England. As a young girl in France she married Joseph Comeau and in 1784 the young couple headed back to Cape Breton where Comeau drowned leaving a young widow. Marie- Henriette married Bernard Lejeun dit Briard and after being a widow again in 1792 she married James Ross. She not only raised her family of 11 children but she became a known healer herbalist and midwife who traveled hundreds of miles tending to the care of the people of Nova Scotia for over 60 years. Her name and stories of her life deed have been passed down through the family from generation to generation merging fact and fiction. She is said to have killed two bears one with a musket and one with a fire shovel! She is known to have spent hours in the forest studying plant life and learning the medical properties of the flora and fauna making her a knowledgeable scientist of her day. Sources : Canadian women in Science, Library and Archives Canada, accessed March 2006; D C B vol. lll p. 498-499

Olive Blewett Ross

Born 1850, United Kingdom. Olive immigrated to Canada with her family when she was a child. By 1878 she had moved to Edmonton, Alberta. She married a miner, Donald Ross, and the couple had 3 children. Eventually the couple opened the Edmonton Hotel which may have been the 1st such establishment west of Brandon, Manitoba. It is said that during the Gold Rush that people even competed to rent sleeping spaces on the billiard tables. Olive as an avid and active gardener and was well known for her produce. She is said to also have been very active in her local church. Source: Kay Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation, 1999);

Elizabeth Russell

Born December 26, 1754. Died 1822.  After the death of her father she moved to the Canada's with her older half brother, Peter. Peter was an administrator in the colony. She became an able entertainer on behalf of her brother and his position in York (Toronto), socializing with the elite society of the day. In her letters and diary she has left a detailed picture of one woman's life in early Upper Canada. 

Mrs. Sargeant

Wife of the Governor of the Hudson Bay Company, her companion, Mrs. Maurice, and a maidservant are the first English women to come to James Bay in 1683.

Jane Anne Saunders - Nesbitt   3524

Ship Bride & Businesswoman

nee Saunders. Born 1844, England. Died June 17, 1897, Victoria, British Columbia. Jane was one of 70 women who sailed from England on the S S Tynemouth as a 'ship bride' to marry and settle in British Columbia. She arrived on September 17, 1862. The Columbia Emigration Society, working with the Anglican Church, had arranged for single women from England to travel to British Columbia to become brides of gold rush miners. She soon found service with a family. It was her she met a young baker delivering his bread and bake goods each day. Samuel Nesbitt ( 1829-1881) married Jane in April 16,1863. The young couple worked the bakery business together and prospered. When she became a widow she worked the family bakery into a business empire to care for her seven children. (2021)

Alice Mary Schnieder

née Baylie. Born 1875, England. Died 1962. Although she was engaged and her fiancé was away serving in the Boer War in South Africa, Mary fell in lover with another man. Against her family wishes she followed Frances 'Frank' Joseph Schneider (b 1876) to Canada and the couple married in what is now Thunder Bay, Ontario on August 13, 1902. They followed the gold trail  to northern Ontario were there were almost 100 men at the mine and Alice the only woman. When the Elizabeth mine panned out the couple settled in Atikokan, Ontario in 1902 and soon they became proprietors of the General Store and Frank became Post Master for almost 25 years. The couple raised four children.

Amy Florence Scott  r 10

Black Settler

née Aldridge. Born 1864, U.S.A. Died 1934, British Columbia. Amy met and married her husband Henry Houston Scott (1854-1934) in Mississippi in 1880. By 1905 the couple and they ten children homesteaded inn Oklahoma Territory. By 1912, the family, with only three children in tow, settled on a family farm. They were among the earliest Black families to settle in Surrey. They grew hay and farmed dairy cattle. The farm lad was divided in 1971 with the death of their last living child. In 2019 the town established The Henry Houston Scott Park which marks the family homestead and boasts of having some original fruit trees planted by the family, still in the park. There is a heritage sign that shares the Scott Family story. In 2018 a family grave stone was installed in the Surrey Centre Cemetery. (2023)

Mary Scovil 

née Barber. Born September 25, 1803. As a young woman she was a teacher. She worked in Sutton Township ( Lower Canada) in 1834 for her room and board and a salary of $1.00 a week! She married a farmer, Stephen Scovil. At 44 she was pregnant, a widow and already a mother of three older children. She worked harder than ever with her farm. Against the sentiment of her own era she worked herself into the position of a prosperous farmer. A strong minded individual she left her estate to her family assuring that her daughters inheritance could not become part of the estate of their husbands!

Eudoxia Sorochan Shewchuk

Born Ukraine. Died 1967, Manitoba. She immigrated to Canada at 16 with her widowed mother and three siblings. Landing in Montreal with only $4.00 to their name, Eudoxia took simple jobs to earn enough money to send her mother and siblings on the train to Winnipeg. She remained behind to earn money for the family as a live in house keeper until she could afford to join the family. In 1908 she married Peter Shewchuk and the couple settled in Saskatchewan in 1909. Here they would raise their 11 children. She often took their farm produce to market. In winter she had to break a path for the horse and wagon to reach the market with goods. She was a well known midwife in Saskatchewan. She was also a natural negotiator and helped people solve many conflicts peacefully. In 1944 the couple sold their farm and relocated to Manitoba. Source: Herstory: The Canadian Women's calendar. 2008  (Saskatoon Women's Calendar Collective / Coteau Books, 2007)

Susan Sibbald

née Mein. Born November 29, 1783, Fowey, Cornwall England. Died July 9, 1866, Toronto, Ontario. In 1807 she married Col. William Sibbald and the couple had two daughters and nine sons.. Susan visited Canada with one of her sons to see what two of her other sons were doing. After the death of her husband in 1835 she emigrated to Canada to investigate her sons' activities and to find a suitable farm for the family. She took a day tour on Lake Simcoe and decided to settle on what is now called Sibbald Point. Mrs. Sibbald and John Coomer donated land for a cemetery and church near the entrance to her estate which she name Eildon Hall after the family's Scottish estate. She was a close friend with the daughter of Governor General Simcoe and later with members of what was known as the "Family Compact' leaders in Ontario. A great grandson published her memoirs that included letters covering her early years in Canada from 1783-1812 in 1926. In later life in Toronto she lamented the decline of the old British values. In 1951 part of the Susan Sibbald estate was sold to the county of York to be used as a park. In 1957 this became Sibbald Provincial Park. Eildon Hall is now the Sibbald Memorial Museum with an Ontario Historical Plaque to commemorate it as an important part of Ontario's heritage. (2022)

Frances Ramsay Simpson

Lady Simpson

Born March 28, 1812, London, England. Died March 21 1853, London, England. Frances married her cousin, George Simpson (1792-1860) on February 24 1830. His career as Governor with the Hudson Bay Company would bring her to Canada. She and her companion, Catherine Turner, wife of another H B C employee, were the first white women to travel to remote Hudson Bay Company areas. After a visit to Rainey Lake (in modern Ontario) the settlement was named Fort Frances in her honour. Living in Red River she became homesick and lonely and remained semi invalided after the birth and death of her first child. Eventually the family settled permanently in Lachine Quebec in 1845 were their five Canadian born children could be raised. The diaries she wrote during the time she spend on her adventures in the Canadian west left a vivid written record of the times.

Rhoda Skinner

Born 1775. Died 1834, Scarborough, Upper Canada (now Ontario). She married Parshall Terry, becoming mother to his seven children. The couple had 12 children together. After the death of Parshall she married William Cornell (1773-18??) and adding 12 more step - children to her family. In all she was mother to 37 children. Source: Toronto’s Historical Plaques (accessed May 2012)

Charlotte Small

Born 1786, Canadian North West. Died 1857. Charlotte was the daughter of fur trader Patrick Small and a Cree wife. Her father left the business and abandoned his fur trade family when Charlotte was just five. As a young woman of 13 she married the 29 year old explorer and well known map maker David Thompson on June 10, 1799 at Ile-à-la Crosse in the Canadian North West . They remained together for 58 years and would have 13 children. Charlotte and children often traveled with David Thompson on his exploits. She was possible the best traveled Canadian woman of her time! Thompson mapped the largest expanse of North American than anyone else. He retired from the North West in 1812 and relocated his family to an area near Montreal. On October 30, 1812 the couple were remarried according to his tradition and Charlotte and the children remaining at home were also baptized. Charlotte signed the church registry in a clear and confidant had leading historians to believe that she could both read and write. The couple never returned to the Canadian North West but lived their lives out together in the Montreal area Charlotte died only three months after her 87 year old husband died. Source: Travels with Charlotte by Aretha Ven Herk, Canadian Geographic Vol. 127. No. 5 July/August 2007 Pages 54-64.

Catherine Smith  4261

née May. Born June 21, 1772. Died 1840?, Upper Canada (now Ontario). On August 26, 1788 she married Nicholas Smith (1758-?), a neighbour. Catherine and Nicholas were United Empire Loyalist who in 1797 settled in Upper Canada (now Ontario) with their five children. Nine more children were born in the Canadas. They owned and operated a pioneer family farm. (2023)

Maiden Rice-Stacy 4559

Born Virginia?,  American Colony (U.S.A.)  Died 1810?, Upper Canada (now Ontario). Maiden and her husband lived  farm in Virginia. Her husband was killed during and Indian raid while Maiden and two children, one perhaps just a baby0 were taken prisoner. One child was killed on the journey north to Fort Detroit and a daughter may have been sold or traded on the journey north. Maiden evidently escaped from imprisonment in Fort Detroit and made her way to Chatham in Upper Canada. Supposedly she met, at a British Army Camp, one Col. Stacey and the couple were married. Maiden's daughter who had been sold by the Indians to a Silas Secord is listed in the 1783 census of Niagara as Mrs. Secord 23. A second history has Maiden Rice is listed as a Prisoner of War on a Provisioning List at the British Fort Detroit along with four children. The British at the Fort were concerned that the original India raid had been conducted after the Treaty of Paris had been signed in 1783. The problem was solved when in 1784 Maiden married John Stacy. The family stayed in Detroit until 1785 when the Fort was turned over to the Americans. The family moved to Niagara where Maiden was reunited with daugher Mary Secord. May 2, 1792 John Stacey/Stacy was granted 200 acres of land in Welland County. John Stacey/Stacy went to England to settle his father's estate and his ship was lost at sea. Maiden Stacy, their daughter, Elizabeth and the step son Moses inherited the family land in 1799. There is nothing like tales handed down through families to muddy the true story of an early pioneer. It  is known that Elizabeth Stacey married twice and lived in Port Rowan and Stacey Street in the twon is named in her honour. Source: The Niagara Settlers, online (accessed 2024).

Jane Stafford

née Gibb. Born March 7, 1842, Auchinleok, Ayrshire, Scotland. Died April 3, 1925, Lethbridge, Alberta. On December 13, 1863 Jane married William Stafford (1842-1907) who would become a Galt Mine superintendent in Canada. The couple resided in Scotland for the 1st portion of their married life where they became parents of 7 children. In 1871 the family settled in Wolfville, Nova Scotia where 4 more children were born. In 1882 William and his son Henry left for the coal mines of Alberta. Jane took the arduous journey west a year later with her other children. The family settled in the rough mining area of Coal Banks, Alberta where Jane was the 1st white woman I the area. Here she gave birth to Henrietta, the 1st white child born in the area and two more children. Jane made the Stafford house a welcome place for all visitors and it was in her home that the 1st church services in the area were held. Jane took a great interest in the lives and welfare of all the peoples of the community from the miners, settlers and Aboriginals alike. She had left the relative comfort of a life with all community conveniences in Nova Scotia to be participant and witness to the rough and tumble coal mine town into the settlement that would become the town/city of Lethbridge. The City of Lethbridge has named a street in her honour.  Source: Sanderson, Kay. 200 Remarkable Women of Alberta. (s.l., s.d.) online (accessed September 2014) 

Sylvia Stark

née Estes. Born 1839,  Clay Co. Missouri, U.S.A. Died November 7, 1944, Fruitvale, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Sylvia taught herself how to read and write by learning from the lessons of the white children she cared for as a slave. Her father, owned by a different person, wanted to gain freedom for himself and his family. He earned money working the gold fields in California with his slave owners and had to seek legal help in order to purchase his freedom and that of his family. The freed family originally settled in Missouri but fear of the Klu Klux Klan forced them to move to California. Sylvia married Louis Stark in 1855. California law changed in the late 1850’s and it was not favourable to freed slaves. The Stark and Estes families moved to British Columbia in search of full freedom. Sylvia and Louis and their children settled as pioneer farmers on Salt Spring Island, a fertile gulf island between the mainland and Vancouver Island. In 1875 she and her husband left the farm to the oldest son, Willis, and resettled in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. In 1895 Louis was murdered and Sylvia returned to Salt Spring Island to farm with her son. Sources; Sylvia Estes – women in BC.  Sylvia Stark . March 4, 1997 Section15.ca (accessed December 2011):Ten Female trailblazers of Western Canada, The Canadian Encyclopedia online (accessed 2024)

Frances Anne Stewart

née Browne. Born 1794, Dublin, Ireland. Died October 24, 1872. She married Thomas Alexander Stewart on December 16, 1816. When Thomas lost his job with a bankrupt company the young couple decided to emigrate to Canada with other family members. They left Ireland on June 1, 1822 spending seven weeks aboard ship for the crossing to Canada! A true pioneer  to Upper Canada, she was a diarist and letter writer.  Her letters to home have left us with a rich insight into early Canadian life of such of her friends as the Strickland family. Her family published her writings after her death. Many of her personal writings are stored in the Archives at Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario.

Charlotte Taylor

Born between 1752-1755, London, England between . Died April 25, 1841, Tabusintac, New Brunswick. In the 1775 she reportedly ran off to the West Indies to escape the disapproval of her family. Here she would experience the death of her partner and would find herself along and heavy with child. In that same year she married Captain John Blake and gave birth to her first child Elisabeth Williams. The Blake’s found their way to Canada’s east coast and became pre-loyalists. Charlotte was a true pioneer of the Canadian Maritimes, being among the first to settle in wilderness areas. A son Robert Blake Jr. (1782-1853) was born in the Canadian wilderness. After the death of Robert Blake Sr. in 1785 she partnered with William Wishart (perhaps a neighbor) and a son William Wishart (1785-1851) was born. Within the next two years Charlotte married Philip Hierlihy (  - 1804). In all Charlotte would have 10 children. In 1785 she would snowshoe to Fredericton, the centre of New Brunswick government, to ensure the title of land from the estate of her first husband. The land ownership battles would be a major part of the families’ life struggle. Charlotte survived and ensured the survival of her family . She was a land owner and a desirable widow who married, as was the style of the era, several times to ensure survival. She outlived her husbands and some of her children, but was comforted by a family members who made up a true dynasty.  She is considered the Mother of Tabusintac. Sources: Charlotte Taylor: Her life and Times by Mary Lynn Smith.  .

Nancy Lee Tegart

née Lee. Born October 28, 1912, England. Died February 10, 2012, British Columbia. In 1927 Nancy Lee moved to British Columbia with her mother and her sisters. She took to the rugged life on a ranch and began a life long love of horses. In Edgewater British Columbia she became a rebellious tomboy. A cousin funded her to attend Agricultural College at the University of British Columbia. Returning home she worked on various ranches and particularly liked working with horses. In 1936 her mother sold the family B Arrow Ranch and Nancy headed to Vancouver working at whatever job she could find. Late in 1942 she enlisted in the Women’s Division of the Royal Canadian Air Force. She trained in Toronto but declined officer training preferring to drive trucks. By December that year she was posted to Canadian Bomber Group no. 6, Yorkshire, England. After the war she took time to visit France before sailing home to British Columbia. She married Lloyd Tegart in May 1958 and with the aid of the Veterans Land Act they purchased Hidden Valley Ranch outside of Invermere, British Columbia. Lloyd died in 1967 and while she ranched on her own for a few years she before she sold her land and worked for other ranchers doing whatever job need doing. She planted Christmas trees and she even bred horses. In 1975 she set up an animal ‘baby sitting’ business. Everywhere she lived she became involved in community life through groups such as the Ladies Auxiliary or the Saddle Club. At 88 she wrote short stories about the horses she had known. In 2004 she published her autobiography with the help of her friend Susan Wass. She had also been active in the East Kootenay Agricultural Society and was pleased when this group established the Nancy Lee Tegart Award for youth who were considering a life in agriculture. Nancy had her photo taken on her 90th birthday riding a horse and she drove her own truck until she was 92. Sources: Elinor Florence, Nancy Lee Tegart. Eleanor Florence blog (accessed July 2015); Ian Cobb, ‘Nancy Lee Tegart was a true British Columbia Pioneer’ (accessed July 2015)  

Adelaide Morin-Thomas

Born 1847, Ile à la Crosse, Manitoba. Died 1957, Manitoba.  In 1864 she married George 'Geordie' Thomas (1840-1927) at Brochet, Manitoba.  The couple lived off the land and she trapped muskrats to sell for provisions up to 1952! She was also known for her Maple syrup. She sewed long leather Métis coats with intricate beadwork and fringes to sell at the Hudson Bay Company store. In her later years she lived with her daughter. Source: Adelaide Morin-Thomas. Métis Resource Centre of Manitoba. Online. (accessed April 2013)

Charlotte Townsend

Ship Bride   3512
 

née Townsend. Born December 6, 1833, London, England. Died January 7, 1929, Victoria, British Columbia. Charlotte was raised in a middleclass family learning French and taking music lessons. In 1862 she and her sister Louisa arrived in British Columbia on September 17 on the 'Bride Ship" Tynemouth. The voyage had taken three months and and Louisa suffered severe seasickness. The Columbia Emigration Society, working with the Anglican Church, had arranged for single women from England to travel to British Columbia to become brides of gold rush miners. Louisa was not in love with this new country when she first arrived in the muddy town of New Westminster. Host/employers had been arranges for the women but Louisa found herself doing choirs she had never known about in her live. In addition the living conditions was akin to being cloistered as the women were not allowed out on their own. Charlotte worked to support herself as a music teacher. She married Alfred Allatt Townsend(1816-1884) in 1873 and the couple had two children. Sources: Tynemouth Bride ship passengers. Online (accessed 2021); Find a Grave Canada online (accessed 2021)

Louisa Townsend -Mallandaine

Ship Bride  
3510

née Townsend. Born September 24, 1831, London, England. Died September 28,  1925, Victoria, British Columbia. Louisa was raised in a middleclass family learning French and taking music lessons. In 1862 she and her sister Charlotte arrived in British Columbia on September 17 on the 'Bride Ship" Tynemouth. The voyage had taken three months and and Louisa suffered severe seasickness. The Columbia Emigration Society, working with the Anglican Church, had arranged for single women from England to travel to British Columbia to become brides of gold rush miners. Louisa was not in love with this new country when she first arrived in the muddy town of New Westminster. Host/employers had been arranges for the women but Louisa found herself doing choirs she had never known about in her live. In addition the living conditions was akin to being cloistered as the women were not allowed out on their own. Louisa soon found employment as a governess in Victoria where she could play cricket and join a choir. She had brought her piano and sewing machine with her from England and these were said to be the first in the settlement of Victoria. On September 1, 1866 she married Edward Mallandaine (1827-1905) who had arrived during the gold rush and who would attempt to seek success with various careers including surveying and being an architect. The couple would have five children. In 1880 when the couple wished to build an new house Louise raffled a diamond necklace for $350.00 to help pay for the construction. In 1919 the widowed Louisa suffered an accident that left her confined to a wheelchair. In 1940 her son Charles died and the family home, for which Louisa had sold her diamond necklace, was sold. The new owner cleaned the attic and burning all the Mallandaine family papers. The house was demolished in the late 1960's replaced by a three story apartment block. Stories of the Bride Ship women is told in the book: Voyages of Hope: The Saga of the Bride Ships, by Peter Johnson published in 2002. Source: Mallandaine Family History. Online accessed  2021.

Emilie Tremblay

née Fortin. Born January 4, 1872, Saint-Joseph-d’Alma, Quebec. Died April 22, 1949, Victoria, British Columbia. Emilie moved with her family as a teen to Cohoes, New York, U.S.A. On December 11, 1893 she married a miner from the Canadian Yukon, Pierre-Nolasque Tremblay. He would take his bride across country to access trails to the north. In 1894 she was one of the first white woman to climb the famous and traitorous Chilkoot trail of the Klondike gold rush era. She learned to cook on the trail and also learned English to converse with the miners they met. The couple lived in a small log cabin and opened their doors that first Christmas with Emilie cooking a full course Christmas meal for one and all. During a trip home to New York, gold was discovered in the Klondike and the northern live changed with a flood of hopeful fortune seekers. The Tremblays returned home to the north laden with supplies to sell to the miners at Bonanza Creek located close to the new Dawson City. In 1906 the couple travelled to Europe in style and visited relatives in Quebec on the way home. The couple adopted one of Emilie’s nieces to return home with them. In the family settled in Dawson City where Emilie opened a dry goods business known simply as Mrs. Tremblay’s Store. Emilie was active in charity work with her church. She knit 263 pairs of socks for soldiers in World War l (1914-1918). She founded the Society of the Ladies of the Golden North in 1922 and in 1927 she was president of the Yukon Order of Pioneers. In 1937 she received the King George IV Medal. In 1940, now a widow, she married Louis Langlois and once again, of their own choice, the couple lived in a small northern cabin. In 1946 she attended the annual Convention of Alaska and Yukon Pioneers in San Francisco, California, U.S.A. The following year the aging couple sought comfort living in Victoria, British Columbia. Sources: Pioneers every one by E. Blanche Norcross (Burns and MacEachern Ltd, 1979) : Emilie Tremblay The great names of the French Canadian Community Online (accessed November 2012) (2021)

Mary Morris Vaux Walcott    4784

Born July 31, 1860, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Died August 22, 1940, Saint Andrews, New Brunswick. Mary was from a prosperous Quaker family. She graduated from Friends Select School in Philadelphia in 1879. After the death of her mother in 1880 she cared for her father and younger brothers.  and for over 40 years she would be in the Canadian Rockies where she and her brothers conducted some of the first studies on glaciers in Canada. She helped document their studies with drawings, maps surveys, and photographs. As a mountaineer she became a founding member of the Alpine Club of Canada and May was the first woman in Canada to summit a peak over 3,000 metres when she ascended Mount Stephen. In 1914 she married Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850-1927) she was Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.  She would publish in 1940, North American Wild Flowers which contained over 400 watercolours in five volumes. Mary was on the American federal Board of Indian Commissioners from 1927 through 1932. In 1933 she was president of the Society of Women Geographers. In 1935 15 of her drawings were included in Illustrations of North American Pitcher Plants. Jasper National Park in Alberta has Mount Mary Vaux.   In 2016 Marjorie Jones published The Life and Times of Mary Vaux Walcott. Source: Ten Female Trailblazers of Western Canada, The Canadian Encyclopedia, online (accessed 2024); Canadian Women Artists Database online (accessed 2024)

Marie Albertina Wallace
Black pioneer   3515

née Stark. Born August 15, 1867, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Died June 19, 1867, Victoria, British Columbia. Marie married Joseph Benjamin Wallace (1869-1953) in 1897 and the couple raised five children. In her late 90's Marie wrote her family history showing that her father bought the family's freedom from slavery in Missouri, U.S.A. The family history was published posthumously in an eleven part series in the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper from November 1979 through February 1980. Sources: the Gulf Islands Driftwood. online; Find a Grave Canada Online (accessed 2021)

Mildred Ware

Pioneer Rancher

née Lewis. Born 1871, Toronto, Ontario. Died 1905, Brooks, Alberta. Leaving Toronto as a youth, Mildred headed for the Canadian West and settled in Calgary. Alberta. Here Mildred met a former American slave who had moved to Alberta after the American Civil War and had prospered as a rancher. Mildred married John Ware (1854-1905) at the First Baptist Church in Calgary on March 2, 1892 and the couple settled on the Ware ranch. In 1902 the family, now including 6 children, moved to Red Deer Alberta building a ranch house near what would become known as Wear Creek. They were flooded out in their first year and John rebuild a home on higher ground. Mildred did all the bookkeeping for their cattle business and also home schooled the children for their primary education. The children would move to Blairmore to live with their grandmother to attend school. Source:  Slavery in Canada. Online (accessed February 2015)

Catherine 'Kate' Weldon

Pioneer Telegraph Operator

née Liggett. Born February 4, 1850, Ireland. Died 1903. Kate and her brother sailed to settle in the U.S.A in 1871. It was there that she met and married another Irish immigrant, George Weldon in 1876. Emigrating to Hamilton, Ontario George was approached by the representative of the Canadian Pacific Telegraph line who enticed the couple to build establish and maintain a telegraph station in the Canadian northwest site of Humboldt. Kate was an expert telegraph operator and soon taught George. On August 25, 1878 Kate sent the first commercial telegraph message from the earthen floor, rough wood station they had built. Known for being a good hostess her hospitality even welcomed the Marquis of Lorne, Governor General, on his visit in 1881. In 1882, despite the attempt to receive instructions of help for their sick child over the telegraph, the Weldon daughter died. In 1883 the Weldon’s left for Grenfell where George worked as a CPR agent and Kate would give birth to their son. Source: Saskatoon Women’s Calendar Collective. Herstory 2007: the Canadian Women’s Calendar (Regina: Couteau Books, 2006)  pg. 6..

Eunice Williams

 

Born September 17, 1694, Deerfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Died November 26, 1785. Eunice was the daughter of a Puritan minister and his wife is Deerfield, Massachusetts.   At the age of seven, she and her family were captured by Indians during a raid on their home in Deerfield in February 1704. She was taken with 100 other prisoners to Canada. Many of the captives died or were killed during the long winter journey including Eunice's mother who was unable to keep up with the group. After six weeks of travel  the party of captives arrived Fort Chambly, Quebec and were settled in Kahnawake, a Catholic Mohawk settlement south of Montreal.  Eunice became known by the names Marie, Maria, Margueritte, Marguarett, Gannenstenhawt (meaning she who brings in the corn), Ouangote, Aongote (meaning they took her and placed her as a member of the tribe). The tribe she lived with became very fond of the child and she learned their ways. Eventually she married a Mohawk man, Francois-Xavier Arosen. The couple had several children and she remained with the Mohawk for the rest of her life. Her father was ransomed from the Mohawks and freed. He managed to retrieve his other children and returned to live in Massachusetts. Eunice would keep in touch with her birth family and often visited her brothers with her own husband and children. Her children took their mother's name as is the native tradition. One of her grandsons became a chief of Sault-Saint-Louis. Her descendants may be found living in this same area today. 

Florence M. B. Wilson

'Ship Bride'

Born England. Died Victoria, British Columbia. In 1862 she and 60 other women arrived in British Columbia on September 17 on the 'Bride Ship" S. S. Tynemouth. The voyage had taken three months and there were many who suffered severe seasickness. The Columbia Emigration Society, working with the Anglican Church, had arranged for single women from England to travel to British Columbia to become brides of gold rush miners. Florence spent tow years in Fort Victoria where she was a seamstress and opened a fancy goods and stationery shop on Government St. Florence then followed the gold rush to Barkerville which was a two week trip with the last part of the trip spent walking with a Aboriginal packer. In Barkerville she invested in a gold clam which was known as the ;'Florence Claim'. She also opened a fancy saloon which even boasted of a doorman. While Florence knew that if she married her wealth would become the property of her husband and she choose not to marry but rather settled for a relationship. he became a founding member of the literary institute, hte dramatic association and had started a local library. She is considered the first librarian in British Columbia. In 1868 the town was completely destroyed by fire but stout hearted citizens soon rebuilt their own. The Theatre Royal in Barkerville is said to be haunted by Florence. Source: An Interview with Florence Wilson. Okanaganwomen. online (accessed 2021)

Julia Smith Winder

née Stimson. Born 1846, Quebec. Died 1926, Lennoxville, Quebec. Julia (Some sources call her Jane) married William Winder (1844-1885) and the couple first lived in California before returning to Quebec in 1872. The following year William joined the new North West Mounted Police and was assigned as superintendent to Fort Macleod in Alberta. Julia moved west with her two children and would give birth to her third child at the fort. Life in the early north west Canadian frontier was not easy but Julia was able to share the hardships with other North West Mounted Police (N W M P) wives at the fort. Hardships and separation from their husbands was a part of N W M P family fife. In 1881 William retired from the N W M P force and with the financial aid of supporters like his brother-in Law, Frederick Stimson, entered into pioneering cattle ranching in the area. Julia returned to Quebec in 1884 for the birth of their forth child.  Source: Sanderson, Kay. 200 Remarkable Women of Alberta. (s.l., s.d.) online (accessed September 2014) 

Marie-Madeleine Winniett

née Maisonnat. Born 1695, Port Royal 9now Annapolis Royal), Nova Scotia. Died after 1670, Nova Scotia. When she was just 15 in 1710 Marie-Madeleine lived in Port Royal when it was captured by British forces.  In 1711 she married Lieutenant William Winniett (died 1741). The couple had 13 children. As a widow in 1741 she was left impoverished.  Three of he daughters were married and the families may have been influential in the province of Nova Scotia. Marie -Madeleine herself would gain a position of prominence at the Port Royal garrison. Peggy Armstron wrote a full-length stage play called Forever Marie based on the life story of Marie-Madeleine. Source: Writers Federation of Nova Scotia. Peggy Armstrong. online (accessed 2008); D C B

Josette Work

née  Legacé. Born 1809? Kettle Falls, Washington, U.S.A.  Josette’s father, like many early settlers of the era took an Spokane Indian woman as his wife. When she was in her mid-teens she married in the traditional manner to as Hudson Bay Company employee, John Work. The couple would have 10 children. Josette traveled with her husband throughout the Washington area and into British Columbia. Some of her children were born during their travels in the wilderness. In 1836 she joined her husband to settle in Fort Simpson, British Colombia. The children were educated at home and in 1849 they relocated to Victoria, British Columbia to afford better education for the family. On November 6, 1849 she and her husband formalized their wedding in an Anglican Church ceremony. Josette became the wife on one of the most prominent land owners in Victoria. Her home was well known for its hospitality. Josette would out live her husband by 35 years becoming the matriarch of a large clan. Upon her death the British Columbia gave special tribute to her for her ‘usefulness in pioneer work and many good deeds”.

Elizabeth 'Libbie' McDougall Young  

Born 1852. Died 1945. Libbie moved to Alberta with her family in 1863. She returned to Ontario to attend the Wesleyan Female College in Hamilton. By 1870 she was back in Alberta at the family Wesleyan/Methodist Mission at Morley. In 1873 she married Harrison Stevens Young, an employee of the Hudson Bay Company (HBC). The young couple settled at the HBC post at Lesser Slave Lake. Libbie spoke fluent Cree and was readily accepted by the aboriginal community at the HBC outpost. During the Northwest Rebellions the family lived at Lac La Biche where they were forced into hiding in the woods to ensure their safety. The couple had nine children, 6 of whom lived to adulthood. Between 1887 through 1909 the family lived in Edmonton where Libby was known as the last chatelaine of Fort Edmonton. Source: 200 Remarkable Alberta Women. Online (accessed October, 2014)

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