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With the facts which have
made history in the northwest Colonel Justus D. Willson, as he is known,
is thoroughly familiar—not from a study of the annals of the country,
but from actual participation in the events which have shaped its
development, growth and progress. His life story, if written in detail,
would give a most accurate account of the early conditions here and the
changes which time and man have wrought, bringing the country up to its
present state of progress and civilization. Mr. Willson was born in
Norwichville, Ontario, April 5, 1852, and comes of Scotch ancestry. His
grandfather was a descendant of a Scotch refugee and the
great-grandfathers on both the paternal and maternal sides of the family
were early settlers of Norwichville. in the maternal line he is
descended from Huguenot ancestry, numbered among the early settlers of
Ontario. His father, a physician, removed to Saint Mary's, Ontario, when
it was a new country, becoming one of the first members of the medical
profession there. lie had prepared for his chosen calling as a student
in medical schools of both Toronto and New York and he rendered most
valuable service to the district in which he lived.
Justus D. Willson was but
a year old at the time of the removal of the family from Norwichville to
Saint Mary's and there he was reared, obtaining a public school
education, attending Saint Mary's grammar school, afterward known as the
Collegiate Institute. When eighteen years of age he took up the reading
of law, to which he devoted a year, but decided to abandon that
profession, and crossed the border into the United States, remaining for
a year and a half. On the expiration of that period he returned to Saint
Mary's, where he managed his father's farm for two years and then in
1877 started for the west, arriving in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the month
of May.
Soon afterward Colonel
Willson joined an exploring expedition under a civil engineer named
Lucas, who with his party started out to select a better location for
the building of the railroad line, the Canadian Pacific having been
extended in part to the mountains. They left Winnipeg on the 19th of
June, 1877, there being fifteen men in the party, with fifteen Red River
carts and forty horses, including saddle horses, while the carts were
used in carrying the provisions and outfits. Mr. Willson was with this
surveying party from June until the following October, when they reached
the McLeod river. With the return of the party to Winnipeg, Colonel
Willson decided to remain in the country, at Battleford, and within a
few days he obtained an old skiff, which he repaired, and in company
with Mr. McLain of the Hudson's Bay Company, he went down the
Saskatchewan river to old Fort Canton, a distance of one hundred miles
by river from Battleford. At Fort Canton they found Lord Percy, who with
his wife was camped there and had an outfit consisting of saddle horses
and other equipment for the frontier. They were on a return trip to
Winnipeg, having visited the wild western country. Lord Percy, later
Duke of Northumberland, died recently.
From the fort Colonel
Willson proceeded to Prince Albert, then a small outpost around which
lived a few retired officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company,
together with some half-breeds and a few adventurous white settlers who
were farming, freighting and trapping. He obtained a contract to get out
cordwood on the Saskatchewan river for the flat-bottom steamers which
made the trips on the river for the Hudson's Bay Company, carrying
freight from the mouth of the Red river to North Saskatchewan, serving
various central posts of the Hudson's Bay Company. Colonel Willson
continued over the country to Edmonton in his contract work and had a
number. of Indians chopping wood for him, largely doing his cutting near
Fort Pitt, through the winter of 1877-8. In the summer of the latter
year he worked under the late John Reid, Dominion land surveyor, on the
survey of townships surrounding Prince Albert. In the succeeding winter
he undertook farming at Red Deer, twelve miles south of Prince Albert,
renting a large tract of land from Thomas MacKay, J. P. There he engaged
in farming until 1880 and in August of that year his entire crop of
wheat—one hundred and sixty acres—was frozen white and was therefore
perfectly worthless. It was then that he quit farming and entered the
employ of the Hudson's Bay Company at Prince Albert, spending a year in
that connection. Later he was employed on Dominion land surveys and at
such work as he could find on the frontier, and during these two years
he was also lieutenant of a troop of the Northwest Mounted Rifles, which
was disbanded in the autumn of 1884, their arms being then turned into
the mounted police. In March, 1885, Colonel Willson, with sixty other
men, volunteered for service as special constable under the late Major
H. S. Moore of Prince Albert. They were attached to the division of the
Northwest Mounted Police and posted at Fort Carlton under the late Major
Crozier. On the 26th of March, 1885, Mr. Willson, with some thirty-five
or forty Prince Albert volunteers, moved out from Fort Carlton with
sixty mounted police under Major Crozier, for the purpose of securing a
considerable amount of provisions and stores belonging to Stobart, Eden
& Company, a fur trading concern. These stores of merchandise were in
charge of Hillard Mitchell and were threatened by Louis Riel and his
rebel forces, who held the district around Duck Lake, where the fur
company had its headquarters and was operating. Ten miles southeast of
Fort Carlton their advance guard of a half dozen men under Sergeant
Stewart was confronted by about two hundred and fifty French half-breeds
and Indians, who were strongly posted on a ridge across their front and
occupying log houses which had been loopholed on their right and fairly
concealed by trees. They found themselves in depressed ground without
cover. They formed a front with the road police on the left and the
Prince Albert volunteers on the right. |
