White Pine
James Franklin McCreight was born 11 November 1882 in Barrie, Ontario, Canada to John and Martha Jane (Cook) McCreight.1 The birth register is for Vespra, Simcoe Co., Ontario. Vespra is adjacent to the City of Barrie. The family lived in Midhurst,2 five miles to the north of Barrie. James Franklin was the fourth oldest child in a family of nine brothers and sisters. What little I know of him I gleaned from the autobiography of his last child, Margorie Emma Amelia McCreight, my mother.
When James Franklin was young his family moved to Thessalon, Ontario where there was a booming lumber industry. “White pine was the prize commodity."3 In the 1891 Canadian census, when James was 8 years old he was living in the township of Kirkwood, which is in Ontario.4 The place must have also been known as Thessalon. There was a Thessalon Pine, sometimes called the Kirkwood Pine, which was the tallest in the province at 162 feet. This great white pine collapsed in 1997.5
James marries Jenny Henry
James probably worked during the wheat harvest season in Manitoba where he came to the Henry homestead called Lavenham and met his wife, Jenny Henry. They were married in Rossendale, Manitoba in 1905.6
In those days Lavenham was thriving with a railroad, blacksmith’s shop and post office. There was a water pump in the middle of town. Jenny and James kicked up their heels in the dance hall. After all it was the roaring 20s and there was no prohibition in Canada.
Today Lavenham is merely a residential site. When I visited there in the 1990s twenty-five houses were scattered about. I saw the water pump and the empty post office-general store. People traveled to Brandon and Portage-la-Prairie to do their shopping or go to dinner and a movie. Bare open fields still appear as the main landscape today.
In my mother’s opinion since her father was raised in the lumber industry, “he hadn’t the ‘where-with-all’ to set himself up as a farmer.”3 However, James did apply in 1907 for a land grant in Saskatchewan, three years after his marriage to Jenny. When they moved they had one child, Elsie.
Family goes to Saskatchewan to seek land
James Franklin McCreight received a Dominion Lands Homestead Grant on 17 February 1916. The grant can be found in volume 1844 as registration no. 347723. The location was SW, Section 16, Township 5, Range 26, Meridian W3. He would have had to occupy and improve the land before receiving title. Each homesteader could apply to homestead a quarter section (160 acres) of their choice. Then, after paying a $10 filing fee and 'proving up' their homestead claim (occupying the land for at least three years and performing certain improvements, including building a house and barn, fencing, breaking and cropping a portion of the land), the homesteader could apply for patent (title) to the land. 7
Two more daughters were born while they lived in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan: Martha (1908) and Dorothy (1913).
John Kristen McCreight (1854-1938, James Franklin's father applied for Dominion Lands Homestead Grant in Saskatchewan 25 July 1913 but did not receive it until 11 September 1917. John must have come after his son, James, settled. James' family and his fathers' were together in Saskatchewan 1916. James' sister Sadie lived with her father; also, James’ brother Ben lived there with his wife, Ruth Swihart. Next door were several other Swiharts, Ruth’s father and mother and 9 siblings. James Franklin’s brother William was in the neighborhood with his 18-year-old bride, Fern and one small infant. Following along the road we find Ruth’s uncle and aunt and their four children.8
John's father and my great-great grandfather, James McCreight died 28 May 1891 of dropsy (old-fashioned or less technical term for edema) in Vespra, Simcoe.9 Antrim, Ireland. He and his wife Margaret were linen weavers.10
Spanish Flu
The “Spanish” influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 caused 50 million deaths worldwide. Two of James’ daughters, Elsie (14) and Dorothy (6) died from it in 1919. They are buried in Robsart Cemetery in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan.11
The family, then consisting of James and Jenny and their daughter Martha, must have left Saskatchewan shortly after receiving land title. Did they abandon the land so that it returned to the property of the Dominion? Did they dream of starting over? They moved to Pratt, Manitoba, which was 22 miles from a little town called Lavenham where Jenny grew up.
James loses Jenny
When they lived in Pratt, Jennie gave birth to three more girls. When he was 43 years of age his 6th girl was born and he was informed by his brother-in-law, "Well, Jim this one doesn't have a handle either!"3 Jenny would have given birth at home. Margorie her last born, was premature and was placed on an oven door to keep warm.
Jenny died three years later in 1928 from pleurisy. Pleurisy involves inflammation of the tissue layers (pleura) lining the lungs and inner chest wall. James refused to put his children in a foster home but cared for them and raised them on his own.
The Depression
In 1933, during the depression, James and family were in Wellwood, Manitoba and had a blacksmith shop across the road from his house. James enjoyed playing horseshoes on the main street with the men of the town. In 1903 Charles Buckborough’s blacksmith and carriage repair could be found in Wellwood on the main street which runs north and south.11 Could this be the same building used by James 1933?
For his youngest daughter, Margorie, he made a bed on a shelf at one end of the shop. He must have struggled to keep his business afloat after the stock market crash of 1929. He was once embarrassed because he didn't have a penny for candy for her. He received $5 a month from the government and was often paid for his work with food or clothing from his customers.3
A blacksmith or ‘smithy’ as he was called in days gone by, is one who makes things out of iron or steel. The village smithy created and repaired household goods like plows, shovels, door hinges, gates, iron tires for wagons and hardware for homes, barns and stables. In the past he was also required to shoe mules and horses.12
In 1933 the Manitoba Association of Blacksmiths declared they could not reduce prices for gas welding and repair work because of the price of raw materials and were not in a position to extend further credit.
Settlers began homesteading the plain which later became Wellwood in 1880. The closest supply depot was Portage la Prairie, 60 miles away. One could travel there by oxen in a week. The Canadian Pacific Railway began in Carberry in 1881. The railroad was unable to link from Wellwood at that time because there was “no available virgin land through this territory.”11
James died 22 November 1933 after hurting his leg in an accident. There was no doctor to attend him.
