Muirhead House

Muirhead House

The Muirhead family resided in the Carberry district and built the house in the 1880s. It is constructed of squared poplar logs in a style similar to those made on the western coast of Canada. A “lean to” kitchen was added in later years making the house more spacious.

Muirhead House

The kitchen contains such household items as an icebox, stocking stretchers, and ironing board (circa 1918), a dash churn, yarn winder, and a hand-carved rolling pin. The cookstove is of interest – the oven is on top of the stove allowing a more even distribution of heat. It also features a side warming oven and holds a heartshaped waffle iron, sad irons and a copper kettle.

The parlour houses a pump organ, which is in excellent condition. Mrs. Muirhead, whose portrait hangs above the organ, played it in the Sommerville Church near Carberry for fifty-five years. Since this room was used for entertaining guests, the lamps are very fancy with intricate decorations. A phonograph, a crystal set of vinegar cruet, salt and pepper shakers, etc. are displayed on the buffet.

A sideboard in the dining room shows off the family’s best dishes. The sideboard was constructed in Ontario with three hundred made of this design.

The master bedroom contains a dresser and washstand circa 1875. The brush of the dresser set is made of ebony while the comb is made of bone. A powder music box plays “Tea for Two” when wound. An 1899 calendar hangs on the wall.

The upstairs of the house contains three bedrooms: a guest room, hired man’s room and a child’s room.

The brass bed in the guest room has a nightgown draped over it, suggesting company. A chain purse, button-up boots, button hook, and curling iron in the room further complete this suggestion.

The stark bareness of the hired man’s room shows that he was given only the necessities: a rough, plaid woolen blanket and a crude wooden chest for his personal belongings.

Naturally, toys are the prominent feature of the children’s room. The teddy bear was made in 1912. The rocking horse, miniature ironing board and sad iron are also featured. The baby shoes were first worn in 1893.

A gas lamp, donated by the Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg stands beside the house.

Centreville School

Centreville school
Centreville school

Centreville School represents the single room schools that closed out the era of the single room schools in Manitoba in the mid-1960s. It is of balloon frame construction and consists of a single room and an entrance foyer to keep the cold out in the winter. It was also constructed with a basement which aided in heating the building compared to a building just sitting on the ground. The basement in many one room schools also housed a coal furnace for heating and indoor toilet facilities for use in the winter. Outhouses were provided for use in the other three seasons.

It is called Centreville because it was originally located between Holland and Treherne. It was a typical one-room school house with grades 1 to 8. It is equipped as it was when in use. The teacher’s desk was used from 1893 to 1962. The teacher’s strap resides in one of the drawers.

interior

The desks in front of the teacher are a mix of the designs that were used, a three-seater design, the double seat design and the more progressive single units of later years. Many of the older desks are scarred with generations of initials – sometimes entwined in hearts, a tribute to the carver’s current heart throb.

The desks are covered with antique text books donated from throughout the Province by interested Manitobans. The Centreville School has one of the largest collections of text books, used throughout the history of education in Manitoba. Most prized and kept under glass are the Sweet Pea readers used to teach First Graders how to read in 1910-1912.

The myriads of stove pipes extending across the ceiling from the old pot bellied stove, the school room brings back memories of those winter days in the rural schools. Beside the stove pupils fried and, away from it, they froze.

There are some modern innovations in the restored Centreville School. The “modern” water fountain replaced the bucket and dipper. When the Edison record player with cylindrical records was introduced into Manitoba schools, it must have been considered “magical” by the students of the day. The large bell outside rung to start school and to signal the end of recess.

Print Shop

print shop
print shop
Print Shop

The vintage newspaper presses from the Oak Lake News are now displayed in a replica printing office along the street of the Homesteader’s Village.

The printing equipment was brought to Austin in 1975 from Oak Lake, but the building housing the equipment was in a deteriorating condition and it was felt could not be moved without disintegrating. The replica news office was built in the Homesteader’s Village in the winter of 1978.

In 1890, John Miller Bender started a printing and newspaper business which he named the “Oak Lake News”. Over the next twenty years, the business changed hands many times. Finally, in 1910, Thomas Rutherford Hogg of Walkerton, Ontario became the owner of the newspaper.

Mr. Hogg was the editor of the newspaper, his son Russell and Harry Freemantle were his assistants. Richard Tillett was the errand boy or “Printer’s Devil” as they were sometimes called. In 1916, Tony Ducharme joined the staff and learned the printing trade.

The paper was the source of national and international news because there were no radios or televisions. The editor held a very strong position in the community. Through his pen, he could alter civic policy and help to elect politicians. Most editors, however, attempted to promote the community as best they could for the life-blood of their paper was local advertising.

In 1941, the paper suffered its first blow. After 25 years, Tony Ducharme resigned. Lloyd Harrison came to learn the trade and then in 1947, John A. Ready of Boissevain joined the staff and he too learned the printing trade from Mr. Hogg.

In 1952, John Ready purchased the paper from Russell Hogg, but by 1954 he had left Oak Lake for employment with the Virden weekly “The Empire Advance” and ownership once again returned to Mr. Hogg.

Finally in 1961, after being associated with the Oak Lake News for 40 years, Russell Hogg had to sell out forced to give up his profession because of ill health.

John Hresavich of Neepawa bought the office and George Matheson edited the paper for 2 years. The last editor of the paper, Allen Marcombe, had trained with Russell Hogg and he kept it going through renting it from John Hresavich until February 1974.

The press had become antiquated and parts for the linotype became increasingly difficult to find. The office was closed and a chapter in Manitoba newspaper history concluded. Mr. Hresavich died in 1976 leaving the paper to Mr. Joe Morland of Churchill. Mr. Morland was responsible for donating the pioneer press to the Manitoba Agricultural Museum.

Shoe and Harness Repair Shop

Shoe and harness repair
Shoe and harness repair

Shoe and Harness repair shops were very common in Manitoba towns up until the 1950s because horses were used on the farms until the 1950s. As tractors became common on the prairies, particularly the smaller, more nimble tractors that began appearing in the 1920s and 1930s, horses began to lose their dominant roles in prairie agriculture. However it was not until the late 1950s that horse traction on the farm became relatively rare. However there were, and still are, farmers who maintain there is a role for horse traction on the farm.

As a result of horses being used on the farm, industry and for domestic purposes such as pulling buggies, buckboards and carriages, there was always a demand for harness making and repair.

It was ideal to have the shoe shop in the same business because of the use of leather for both. In Pioneer Manitoba and up until recent times, shoe repair shops were common and made repairs such as resoling shoes and boots. Frugality was common in Pioneer Manitoba and people were used to repairing, renewing and making do in order to avoid purchasing new items.

While there were factories that manufactured harness, it was somewhat common for the harness maker not only to make repairs but to tan his own hides, cut the leather and make new sets of harnesses to sell.

Northern Pacific & Manitoba Railway Station (1890)

Station caboose
Station caboose

The railway station was originally built by the Northern Pacific & Manitoba Railway in 1890 to serve the community of Baldur. The station was moved to the museum in 1975.

The Northern Pacific and Manitoba Railway is not well known today and illustrates the complicated relationship between agriculture and railways in Manitoba and the Prairies in general.

The 1881 agreement between the Government of Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) for the construction of the railway stipulated the CPR was to enjoy a rail monopoly for 20 years. No railway could be built south of the CPR line. It is thought that this clause was to prevent another railway siphoning prairie traffic south to the US and practically guaranteed the CPR all the prairie traffic. In addition, the Government of Canada had stipulated that the CPR line was to remain on Canadian territory which meant the line had to cross Northern Ontario which offered little local traffic and so no revenue or profit.

The section of the railway from Calgary to the Fraser Valley was also expected to generate little local traffic and so little revenue or profit. As well, the Canadian Government was not prepared to offer an annual subsidy for the operation of the CPR. As CPR lines in eastern Canada faced competition from other railways plus water transport in the summer, rates in the east could not be increased to cover the losses incurred in operating across Northern Ontario. However as the CPR was the only game in Prairie transport, western freight rates could be safely increased. The 1883 CPR freight rate schedule set western rates at almost three times the eastern rates for movements of comparable distance. Prairie farmers were naturally upset that they had to pay such rates as they left little profit on grain for farmers. One must note that western wheat was, and still is, largely sold into the export trade where it faces completion from wheat from Australia, Argentina, the US and other countries. Prairie wheat prices have to be comparable to the prices from these countries meaning the cost of transporting prairie wheat to port cannot be easily passed on. So farmers absorb these costs and this is why grain freight costs were, and remain, a hot topic to farmers.

The Government of Manitoba was on the side of farmers and believed that high freight rates could be solved by competition for prairie movement from US railways. The Province issued provincial charters for railways however the Government of Canada disallowed such charters as not being in the interest of Canada. This situation persisted until the election of 1888 saw a Liberal, Thomas Greenway, installed as Premier of Manitoba. Greenway resorted to unilateral action, the threat of violence between provincial and federal authorities and the open defiance of the Federal Government and its policies. Greenway also approached the US for political and economic support on the Manitoba rail issue. This show of determination resulted in the Federal Government buying out the CPR monopoly, granting the CPR financial assistance to meet US railroad competition and abandoning the disallowance of provincial railway charters. The Manitoba government immediately built a line from the US border to Winnipeg and arranged running rights on this line with the Northern Pacific Railroad (NP) which was a major US railroad. The NP agreed to cut rail freight rates to 85% of the current CPR rates. The CPR lowered its rates immediately to meet the NP. By 1891, the Northern Pacific had set up a subsidiary Northern Pacific and Manitoba (NPM) to operate the line from the border to Winnipeg and had also acquired a charter to build a line west from Morris to Brandon.

However it became apparent the NP was really interested in making the CPR quit attempting to acquire traffic in the Puget Sound area of Washington State so cutting into NP traffic and profits there. NPM was a means to this end. CPR and NPM arrived at an understanding on rates and the Manitoba Governments dream of competition in rail freight rates went unfilled. NPM was never a profitable venture for the NP and by 1900 the NP wanted out. The lines were returned to the government who then sold them to the Canadian Northern Pacific (CNoP) which was rapidly expanding on the prairies at the time. The CPR was interested in acquiring these lines but this was unacceptable to the farmers and the politicians. As a result of the financial conditions of WW1, the CNoP declared bankruptcy and was later folded into the Canadian National Railway system. While the border to Winnipeg rail line remains active, the Morris, Brandon and west line was cut back over the years and the last remnants were lifted in the 2000s.

While an authentic railway station of Pioneer Manitoba, this station reflects more the US Northern Plains railway station design standards as it possessed no attached living quarters and was quite Spartan. Stations built by the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian National and its predecessor railways in western Canada usually incorporated living quarters as housing in many early communities was quite limited and the station agent could not be assured of obtaining a house or accommodation of some sort. CP in its early days did build quite plain stations and railways often used portable stations in new communities but as communities grew, new more elaborate stations were constructed. As competition grew between the CPR, the predecessor railways to the CNR and the CNR, station design began to pay close attention to aesthetics and the later CPR and CNR station designs were, for the time, attractive buildings.

railway station

The standard location for the railway station in a Pioneer community was at the head of the Main Street which usually ran at right angles to the rail line. On CPR lines this arrangement could vary. On Grand Trunk Pacific the layout of prairie communities on this rail line, now CN’s mainline across the prairies, was notoriously standard even down to having the names of communities and sidings on the line being named in alphabetical order.

The Baldur station was built long before electricity came into vogue. The station has been converted to electricity but still has the authentic brackets for coal oil lamps in its freight shed.

The station master issued passenger tickets, took orders for boxcars and other types of cars, kept track of cars in the yard associated with the station, handled less than car load freight (packages, boxes, cream cans, egg boxes, etc.) was responsible for operating the telegraph system in the station, noted the passing of trains and passed on train control messages to train crews, made sure the water tower was full for the steam engines and kept up the maintenance of the building and grounds.

The CPR, in particular, encouraged its agents to beautify the grounds as a means of promoting the Prairies. Some of their activities perhaps went too far as in the case of a senior CPR staffer who reputedly tied apples to a tree at Medicine Hat early in the spring for the passengers in passing trains to admire.

Arizona Church (1898)

Arizona Church
Arizona Church

The church is a simple frame structure with Gothic windows. Throughout the building’s life as a church, it was not equipped with pews but used chairs instead. It was originally a Presbyterian church. Methodists rented it until 1925 when the Methodist Church of Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, Congregational Union of Canada, and General Council of Union Churches amalgamated into the United Church.  Arizona Church became a United Church at that time.

The Arizona United Church remained in use until the mid-1960s when it was closed for regular services. However, it was used for weddings and funerals as needed. Former members of the church raised money to have it moved to the Museum in 1974.

interior

The Arizona district was settled in 1883. The community came to be named “Arizona” because early settlers joked that they were so far away from civilization that they might just as well be in Arizona, USA. This isolation meant there were no schools or churches in the early years. Some twenty years after settlement, the area received rail service when the Canadian Northern Pacific Railway built a rail line from Portage la Prairie to Brandon. This rail line eased life in the area considerably.

The first settlers were Mr. and Mrs. Fred Roseberry who were prominent members of the Methodist congregation. The first Church services were held in their home. Using private homes for church services was a common practice in pioneer Manitoba. After the formation of a school district in 1885, the Methodist congregation in Arizona used the school classroom for church services, another common practice in pioneer Manitoba.

The church services were conducted in the Roseberry home by Rev. J. W. Bell, who walked from Carberry (a distance of 17 miles) every Wednesday morning. According to local lore, Rev. Bell carried a gun en route to these services in Arizona so that he could take advantage of duck shooting along the way.

Ayr School (1883)

Ayr School
Ayr School

The Ayr School is representative of schools that appeared in pioneer Manitoba. It is a very Spartan building. The desks were long benches. The students used slates and chalk as there were no notebooks. The blackboards were boards painted black and the school was heated by a wood stove. The washroom facilities would have consisted of an outhouse. Water would have been provided by pail from a nearby source. While some pioneer schools had their own water well, other schools did not. Someone then had to obtain water from a nearby well, stream or pond on a daily basis.

As well as functioning as a school, Ayr also served as a dance hall, community hall, church or another purpose the community needed. In the pioneer era, money was scarce and public buildings had to serve as multipurpose facilities.

Ayr school interior

Ayr School was originally located in the community known as “Mekiwin”, close to Gladstone. There are claims that the name “Mekiwin” is of Native origin and means “many dogs barking”; The Mekiwin post office apparently attracted many dogs, which heralded the arrival of every person with much yelping. Cree authorities at Brandon University disagree with this interpretation and claim that Mekiwin means “gift.”

There were only 149 schools in Manitoba when the log school house was built in 1883. The school, according to old school board minute books, was constructed of solid white poplar logs which cost the board $50. The original plans contain the specification that the teacher’s platform was to be built at the front of the room. This platform was to be ten inches above floor level. It is assumed that this was done to ensure that the teacher could clearly see to the back of the room and keep an eye on students. The completed log school cost approximately $500. The Board decided to raise $100 per year in taxation, and therefore, paid for the school in five years. In 1883, school taxes were set at four mills in the area and the average farmer paid $6.40 in school taxes per 300 acres.

Ayr School was used until 1908. In 1909, a concrete floor was put in and the building used as a stable. A new school was built right beside it and this school was used until 1962. In 1962, the school closed and the students were transported to Gladstone. In 1966, the school board donated the first Ayr school to the Manitoba Agricultural Museum for restoration and the school was subsequently moved to the Museum.

While pioneer schools provided an education it was often in the school of hard knocks. Ayr was no exception. Children had to walk to school. The more affluent families could provide the children with a horse. With no weather forecast or means to broadcast one even if one was available, the weather in the winter was a constant menace to children making their way to school or home. Being storm stayed at school was common in pioneer Manitoba. As the school was usually not in use at night there would have been no one to tend the wood stove and so the school on a winter morning would be almost as cold as it was outside before the first arrival could light a fire and begin heating the building. In this sort of environment, using slates and chalk made sense as one would not have to wait for the ink to thaw before writing. Using the outhouse in the winter would have been a chilling experience.

Epidemics of illness were prevalent. Records show that the school was closed for epidemics of mumps, scarlet fever, and Spanish influenza in the years extending from 1883 to 1910.

School teachers boarded with local families or with School Board members as rental accommodations in Pioneer Manitoba were rare. One of the first teachers at Ayr had to walk seven miles to school from the teacher’s residence. In hard times, they were often paid with goods instead of money. At the time of the first Ayr School, the teacher was generally anyone who had finished their grade ten or their high school. Later, the teachers were trained in a six week summer course in a “Normal School” in Brandon, Winnipeg, or Manitou.

Blacksmith Shop

Blacksmith
Blacksmith

While this replica built in 1973, the Museum Blacksmith Shop is representative of the type that were a common feature of pioneer Manitoba communities. A blacksmith shop of the time was a very simple building, the chief function of which was to keep the tools and blacksmith out of the weather. Often the shop was built with very large doors, not only to let horses and machinery into the building for shoeing and repair but also to let the heat from the fire in the forge escape in the summer.

Any community of any size attracted a blacksmith. A blacksmith was necessary to pioneers as  horses needed to be shoed.  Horses not only provided the power for farming operations of the time but horses also moved people and goods around Pioneer Manitoba. A good blacksmith could correct a number of problems with the legs of horses by adjusting the shoes on the horse’s hooves. A poor blacksmith could cripple a horse. Blacksmiths also repaired farm machinery, tools and any other metal object that might need repair. Parts could be built as well. There are a number of operations that a blacksmith can carry out, forge welding, creating metal shapes, cutting holes, sharpening parts, tempering metal, building up metal parts and so on.

Blacksmiths often worked on the wooden wheels common to wagons and some farm machinery of the era. These wheels had a steel tire fastened around the face of the wheel and needed adjustment from time to time. For more complicated repairs, wooden wheels had to go to a wheel wright, a specialist in wooden wheel manufacture and repair.

Blacksmith shop interior

A blacksmith in Pioneer Manitoba was sometimes called upon for services beyond metal working. A blacksmith was the only person who had the tools, like pliers, to pull teeth with. If one had a two or three day journey to a dentist, the blacksmith appeared to be a reasonable alternative.  The blacksmith often served as veterinarian and so possessed tools for bleeding animals.  A common idea at the time was that diseased blood should be removed for complete recovery. Sometimes human patients turned to the blacksmith for bleeding. Whether different tools were used in these cases is not known. Again a long journey to a medical doctor made the blacksmith appear as a reasonable alternative. Pioneering was not for the faint of heart.

Blacksmithing died out as horses were replaced by internal combustion engines and transportation and distribution systems developed making factory spare parts more accessible. As well, electric welding and metal working equipment became common on farms.  However the art of blacksmithing has enjoyed revival in recent years. Many people have taken up the trade but more as an art as blacksmithing is capable of producing decorative metal work.

The Blacksmith shop is an interesting flashback to a pioneer trade but if you have the surname “Smith”, somewhere in your family history there is probably a blacksmith.

Carrothers House (1903)

Carrothers house
Carrothers house

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Carrothers were married in 1909 and rented a farm in the Austin area. In the fall of 1913, they moved to the quarter-section north of the Museum which was the original homestead of the parents of Mr. Carrothers. They stayed there for three years living in a little house on the property. During that time, they rented the north quarter of the present Museum grounds, as well as working the quarter they lived on. The north quarter was originally homesteaded by Mr. G. Pell. The quarter-section where the house now stands was originally CPR land, later acquired by Mr. H. Tingly. Mr. and Mrs. Carrothers bought both these quarter-sections in 1916.

For several years during the 1800s on the south quarter, the Tingly family lived in a house with a sod roof. In 1903, Mr. Tingly built the house which still stands on the property. Mr. and Mrs. Carrothers moved into this house when they purchased the land. At that time there were already four children and more room was needed. They moved the little house from the parent’s farm and attached it to the Tingly house for a kitchen. This kitchen is the single-storey section of the house and is visible in the left hand side of the above photo.

General Store

General Store
General Store

The general store that stands here today is a replica of a typical general store at the turn of the century. It includes many of the articles which would have actually have been found in a general store. Often the general store was the only store in town and, as the name implies, sold a wide variety of goods ranging from hardware to food items.

In pioneer Manitoba, most food needs of the locals were met from their own gardens and farms. However, they still had need of salt, pepper and other condiments, tea, coffee, sugar, baking powder and so on. Specialty items such as dried fruit for Christmas puddings and cakes could be purchased as well.  Flour was often sourced locally as there were a number of small flour mills in Pioneer Manitoba which would grind a farmer’s wheat in return for a percentage of the output.

Interior - shelves

General stores sold mostly working clothes with fancier clothes usually being ordered from the catalogue. Sewing was popular and the store sold materials and sewing “notions” such as thread and buttons.

The early telephone system worked through a central switchboard often located in the general store or post office because a person was usually working there. Hence the store clerk or postmaster would also have the duties of switchboard operator.

The credit/barter system was used quite frequently in general stores. General stores often kept a ledger book with a couple of pages devoted to each family. As a purchase on credit was made, an entry was made in the family’s page debiting the family. In the fall when the harvest came in and grain was sold the pioneer family would pay off the store keeper. As well pioneers would often exchange goods instead of money as money was scarce. As a family brought in items to sell to the merchant such as butter, eggs, chickens and so on further entries were made in the ledger to record the credit. General stores would resell these items to other customers of the store or sell them to “big city” merchants.

interior stove and barrel

The banking system in Pioneer Manitoba was not well developed so arrangements such as these were common and necessary to keep the economy going. Farmers often had no money coming in for long periods of time and it was always necessary to have to obtain some items such as harness, shoes, baking powder or yeast. Barter or credit arrangements such as offered by the general store were the only way to obtain items. The credit situation was one of the reasons for the famous “grain rushes” of the early years of farming on the prairies. Farmers were eager to sell grain in the fall to pay creditors and secure supplies for the upcoming winter. As well, the grain companies were eager to move grain through the Lake Head to the ocean before the Great Lakes froze for the winter.