Dougalls: it's been a while, I know.
Updating the Dougall family history as per my 2011 publication means,
for me, drafting the new information as a blog entry. It's
preparation for tackling the manuscript as a whole. Thanks to Felix
Kuehn and his great-grandfather, Dr. Matthew Young, I can do this for
two branches. Felix is unrelated to me but a marvellous chronicler of
pioneer families in the McKenzie District of southern Manitoba. Felix
willingly shares, and we have
had many pleasant mutual exchanges. My new material is heavily
indebted to him.
Many Dougalls went west from their
birthplaces in Quebec. They shared the same emigrant Scottish
grandparents as my own ancestor, William Charles Dougall (1854-1934)
who also moved west to Winnipeg. Thus, cousins all, and the first
generations to be born in Canada. Here I dwell on two of them—one
couple as they were. Some of the source citations dating from
years-ago cooperative family research have not been updated yet.
To my great surprise and delight, Felix
brought to my attention a diary written by one Dougall, of his
journey into the "Great Northwest." In his memoirs, Dr.
Young quotes entries from April 22nd
when the adventurers headed north from the border town of Emerson,
Manitoba, up to May 28th. It's not yet clear if more description
exists before that date, for example, details of the travel between
Montreal and Emerson.
James
Joseph3
Dougall (George2,
John1,
ThomasA,
JohnB).
Probably born in 1847, he was baptized 12 September 1847 in Montreal,
son of George Dougall and Agnes (Moffat) Dougall.[1]
He died in West Kildonan, Winnipeg, Manitoba, on 17 May 1940.[2]
James J. of Pembina Crossing, Manitoba, married 28 February1883
in Montreal his first cousin Ellen
Dougall of
Farnham Centre, Quebec,
the sixth daughter of his uncle James and Agnes (Fenton) Dougall.[3]
Ellen was born at Cowansville, Quebec, 8 February 1856[4]
and died in Winnipeg in 1949.[5]
Both are buried in the Manitou Cemetery, Manitou, Manitoba, along
with their two daughters.
 |
| St Andrews Presbyterian Church; Pembina Manitou Archive (http://www.pembinamanitouarchive.ca/) |
James J.
Dougall was occupied as a carpenter in the 1871 census, in his
father's household.[6] It was another eight years
before he and a group of like-minded friends decided to head for the
Pembina River Valley of Manitoba. Jim, as he was known, wrote a diary
about the 1879 journey and obtaining his land claim.[7]
The diary
records the obstacles these hardy men faced as they explored almost
virgin territory; even reaching the land office at Nelsonville was
hard work. So much distance to cover and so few habitations. Fertile
as it is, Manitoba mud is legendary for its impediments to man,
beast, and vehicle. Jim mentions the hardships of reaching each point
of reference, sometimes "to the knees in mud and water―a
dreadful experience," broken carts, having enough
supplies for rough camping, swimming oxen across a river, getting
lost, how some discouraged men bowed out. It snowed on April 26th!
Returning to Nelsonville, on 7 May 1879 he filed for part of section
16, township 2, range 9, on the west bank of the Pembina River.[8]
It was May
28th, the last available diary entry, when Jim reached his homestead
property again with the necessary goods and livestock. A log house
would be the first priority, a location chosen on the crest of an
imposing hill with a splendid view of the valley, a home to be named
"Hillside." Four years later at the age of thirty-six,
having accomplished his main goals, he returned to Quebec to marry
his cousin.
We wonder:
being city-born and -bred, did Jim have any experience at farming?
The suspicion is that as a teenager/young man, he spent summers at
his grandfather's farm at Beech
Ridge near St. Andrews East, Quebec―he
speaks knowledgeably about soil in the diary. Whatever, this was a
versatile family. His father George—a tailor in Montreal—was
definitely involved to some extent with
his parents' farm. In fact, after his wife died and beginning in
1888, George travelled west many summers to assist his son in
preparations for a fine stone house. Felix
worked with the memoirs of Dr. Young―also
a pioneer, and good friend and neighbour of Jim Dougall―and other neighbours' recollections to bring a voice to early Pembina Crossing days.
 |
| The James Dougall home, Hillside Farm; Pembina Manitou Archive |
Regarding
the James J. Dougall home,
great credit goes to his father George Dougall ... "a
tailor who
in his retirement takes up the art and craft of a stone mason.
Although he was eighty-two years of age when he undertook to assist
his son in the building of a new home, he was still perfectly capable
of spending a day swinging a three-pound stone mallet."[9]
In Felix's words again:
A man of amazingly good health and possessing a constitution which allowed him take undertake any line of work that a man half his age could manage, I must especially write of his labours during the summer of 1900, vacation months which he spent almost entirely breaking rocks.
... With the assistance of his hired man, Jim Dougall dug out and hauled to his house yard several hundred tons of stone. These were carefully inspected by his father, who selected those displaying the best graining and finest colour. These he set out to split into pieces of appropriate size for the construction of his son's new home. In consideration of the fact that he had passed the biblical span by more than a decade, the elder Mr. Dougall was persuaded to make a single concession. When possible to do so, instead of straddling the stone he was drilling, he settled himself in his son's favourite rocking chair, an arrangement which allowed him to spend his normal eight-hour day without undue strain or unnecessary fatigue. Of course, I would not like anyone to think that breaking rocks for his son's home occupied him for the entire summer, for that was not the case. He also dug a drain for the sinks in the house from the kitchen to the top of the hill, a distance I should think of about thirty feet, two feet wide and six feet deep. Of course, this also occupied him for a number of days.[10]
The photo of George (1818-1904) is from the Peter Smith family. Alas, no photo of James Joseph "Jim" Dougall.
Another
quote following the above:
The Jim Dougalls were well-known for their gracious hospitality and Mrs. Dougall for her excellent cuisine [and] exquisite desserts which graced the table. The Dougall home was one of the first places in our district where one could enjoy an apple pie made with apples grown in the family's own orchard. An old paper from the summer of 1898 notes that a single apple tree in his orchard had produced two hundred and eighty fine apples!
The couple had
two spinster daughters, who became school teachers. Eventually they
rented their farm out and moved to 125 St. Anthony Avenue, Winnipeg.
Agnes cared for her elderly parents in their final home and loved to
keep in touch with her extended family by letter-writing. When Agnes
died in 1967 it was the end of this Dougall branch. Agnes was a
going concern and deserves her own biography.
Children of
James Joseph3 Dougall and Ellen3
Dougall:
79. i. AGNES
BENNING4
DOUGALL, 1884-1967.
80. ii.
ELIZABETH JANE DOUGALL,
ca.1885-1945.
One of Jim's
younger brothers, Peter, followed him to Pembina Crossing, and will
be my next Dougall subject.
[1] Erskine
Presbyterian Church (Montreal, Quebec), baptisms. Originally
researched by Salli Dyson, the church registers are now available
(and the baptism confirmed) in Ancestry.ca's "Quebec, Vital and
Church Records, (Drouin Collection)."
[2] Manitoba death
registration no. 020420 (1940), Manitoba
Department of Health, West Kildonan division. Also “Mrs. James J.
Dougall,” unattributed newspaper clipping, undated, referring to
husband James J’s death in 1940.
[3] "Quebec, Vital
and Church Records, (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967," digital
image, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca : accessed 2 August 2013);
Dougall-Dougall marriage, East End Methodist Church (Montreal,
Quebec), 1883, folio 5.
[4] Ellen's baptism eludes
me in the Drouin Collection, although Salli Dyson apparently saw the
church record.
[5] Felix Kuehn to Brenda
Merriman, email, 5 February 2013; Manitoba death records are not
available until 70+ years have passed.
[6] 1871 Census of Canada,
Quebec, District 106, Montreal, St. Antoine Ward, subdistrict B,
division 2, p. 83. George Dougall household; digital image,
Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca : accessed 9 October 2010),
citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-10046-10047.
[7] The diary is quoted in
Felix Kuehn's work in progress, Departed Leaving Footprints in the
Sands of Time, Chapter XI, "Our Noble Neighbours," pp.
2-5. Felix grew up in the neighbourhood, collecting tales of ancestors and their friends. Diary
excerpts have also been previously quoted in some histories of Manitoba.
[8] "Western Land
Grants (1870-1930)," database, Library and Archives Canada
(www.collectionscanada.gc.ca : accessed 15 August 2013), citing
microfilm C-5942; James Joseph Dougall, NE part section 16, township
2, range 9, W1; no image or date.
[9] "Our Noble
Neighbours," p. 6.
[10] "Our Noble
Neighbours," pp. 6-7.
©
2013 Brenda Dougall Merriman
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