Hargrave

This story was shared by Malcom Sissons as this is direct line. James father was John Hargrave, brother to my 2nd great grandfather Andrew Hargrave. They left Scotland with their father Joseph and arrived in Beach Ridge, Qubec, Canada.


James Hargrave

James grew up in a small stone farmhouse at Beach Ridge, Quebec. With farming poor in the neighbourhood, James took advantage of his uncle James' position with the Hudson's Bay Company to secure a position as an apprentice clerk and in 1867 travelled via St. Paul to the Red River and finally from Pembina by poney and cart in the care of a Cree. The pariries were dangerous at that time, from both mosquitoes and the Sioux. Arriving in July at Fort Garry, he learned the ropes there before bing sent to Norway House at the north end of Lake Winnipeg. Subsequent postings included Fort Churchill and Moose Factory supervised from York Factory. He apprenticed there until 1872 when he spent a year in Saskatchewan and then two years (1874-1876) in charge of the post at Portage-la-Prairie where he met Lexie Sissons. James acquired three parish lots (French survey river lots) in High Bluff in the early 1870's probably trading for the Metis land scrip. He was obviously wondering what to do with the land at High Bluff. In an 1877 letter from John Jr., John talks about Andrew thinking of coming out but not wanting to leave Mary Jane. John would like to go himself but he is not well. After the wedding in 1875, James was posted as clerk in charge to Fort Frances (1876-1878) and clerk at Cumberland House (1878-1882). During these assignments, several children were born to Lexie and travel included snowshoes, freight canoes and york boats. He also acquired a deep regard for the Indians and Metis which was to remain with him always.

In 1882, the fur trade was languishing and despairing of a prosperous career with the HBC, he resinged and tried farming at High Bluff. The next year, he took the train to end of rail least of Maple Creek and walked to Medicine Hat which he found to his liking. (Will Hargrave says in his manuscript that the rail was already west of Medicine Hat and that they Hitch-hiked and walked to Calgary.) Nevertheless, he continued to Calgary but returned to Medicine Hat where he set up trading. Medicine Hat was a border between Cree and Blackfoot territory. He set up a tent, later a wooden building, on South Railway Street (then called West Railroad Street), and operated a store "Hargrave and Sissons", trading especially with the Indians. With partner and brother-in-law Dan Sissons, he brought his first cattle overland from Manitoba in 1884.

From the CPR, James obtained 40 acres of land on Riverside where the Riverside Presbyterian church is now located and set up a homestead to hold cattle taken in trade and in 1884, his wife and family joined him. His neighbour to the west was Bob McCutcheon, a former Mountie, with whom he often shared work. James later subdivided the land into lots and called the subdivision Altawana. With his partner Dan, they shipped trade goods by barge down the Saskatchewan as far as the Battlefords and Fort Carlton, taking cattle in trade which they trailed back to the Hat. During one of the first winters (1886-87), feed was so scarce that the small herd was pastured near the N.W. M.P. post at Police Point and existed mainly on the waste hay in the horse manure from the stables.

James was an elder at St. John's Presbyterian Church since its inception in 1883. In 1885, along with two others, James was elected as one of the first trustees of the Medicine Hat public school board and empowered to apply to the territorial goverment for incorporation. In 1886, upon the death of two year old son Cecil, he bought land and established Hillside Cemetery, with Cecil being the first buried there. Politically, he was a Liberal, and at election time he tried to sway the Metis to vote lliberal (probaboy not difficult since Macdonald's Tories had hung Riel).

As the herd grew, James obtained some grazing land in the Little Plume area 20 Miles south of Medicine Hat where a shack of logs, corral and stable were erected but the ranch was burned out in two successive years. An Indian friend, Little Corn, took James on snowshoes down to an area where he knew the buffalo wintered on blue joint grass and this was the start (1888) of the JH ranch north of Walsh. The cattle were moved down by Tom, who was then 12, and a young man from Kingston, Ontario, Jack Macdonald, who lived in a dougout on the hill beside the lake and herded the cattle during the first winter. They had some Highland bulls and the offspring of the free range cattle ended up quite wild. Timber wolves (Paririe wolves?) were still quite a nuisance at this time. Permannent ranch buildings and corrals were erected about 1893, a mile east of the dougout. Regular trips to the Cypress Hills took place to fetch poles for various construction projects. From 1894 to 1897, James decided to ship his steers to Glasgow, Scotland, in the hope of obtaining a better price than locally sellling to the Mitchell brothers. Each shipment was accompanied by one of James or sons Jack, Tom or Will. After 1897 he started sellling to Burns Abbatoir in Calgary. Applications for homesteads were made by James and son Jack in 1898 and by Tom 1900. During the Boer war, horses were sold to the British Army for use in South Africa. Leases were taken and expanded, the Sissons' ranch acqired, and eventually it became the JH ranch of today.

Little Corn helped out at the Riverside homestead in the early years, taking charge of the plowing, seeding and harvesting of the garden and c rop. The Cree Indians traded exclusively with Hargrave and Sissons according to Will Hargrave, and called James' store the one operated by the "great bone king". James would outfit the Indians and Metis with wagons, harness, supplies and they would collect buffalo bones which were then shipped to Chicago. If they wished to go hunting, he would give them groceries, blanket and ammunition and I.O.U. with their X signed on it. Upon their return, the furs would be evaluated and the accounts settled. Every Christmas, he would send out to each teepee a pound of tea, ten pounds of flour, sugar and some candies for the children. The Indians brought him a huge grizzly bear skin which they had taken on the Red Deer River and it hung in the back of the wooden store for many years.

A great friend of the Indians, James could speak Cree and ensured that his children learned to speak it as well. During the 1884-1885 Northwest Rebellion, the authorities wanted the Hargraves to move to the south side of the river where they could be protected. However, the Hargrave's Cree friends assured them that they would know long in advance of any trouble. His sympthies may have lain with the Indians and Metis, knowing their plight.

On one occasion a hunting party of Blackfoot from Gleichen sold or traded a grizzly bear cub to James Hargrave. They had killed the mother and bundled the cub in a blanket to protect themselves. When she arrived at the house, she was only the size of a cocker spaniel. The famiy kept Nancy around the place at Riverside, often chained to a clothesline post and the children taking it down to the river to swim. James became concerned when the bear was about three and gave Nancy to the Hospital Board about 1889 who put it on display in the CPR yard where it attracrted much interest and contributions to the hospital fund during station stops. Other Cree friends included Thunder Bear, Standing Stone, The Peeper and Running Horse, a total of about twenty families who refused to go to the reserve at Battleford and eventuallly were settled on the Piapot Creek, about 20 miles SE of Maple Creek.

The trading business with Dan continued until 1896 when it was sold to J.D. Drinnan. A brick and stone building at the corner of South Railway and 2nd St. known as the Hargrave Block had replaced the earlier woodframe store and this building is still standing.

In 1907, James and Lexie replaced their wood frame house with the big house built of moulded concrete simulated stone which stood for many years as a landmark in Riverside. It was built with the help of Little Corn and supplied with gas from a well James had drilled on the property. There was large garden and the home was the site of many family gatherings, particularly at Christmas and New Year's. In 1911, James had a brick cottage built in Banff and many family members enjoyed vacationing and relief from asthma and hay fever there over the years.

In 1912, during a visit by Herb Sissons of Montreal, a friend of his son Will (who was attending McGill), a plan was made to start a brick company. The Redcliff Pressed Brick Company Ltd. was incorporated that year with Herb as general manager and was producing brick by 1913. Most of the Hargrave children and Herb's sisters had shares as well as some outside businessmen. James was the chairman of the board until his death.

Land from the Hargrave home on Riverside was donated for a park and also for Altawana Drive up to Crescent Heights. A staunch elder, he left the house and property to the Presbyterian church. Known for a dry sense of humour, strong religious beliefs, a respect for native and Metis peoples, and a committment to famiy, James carried on ranching and other business endeavours until his children took them over. His interest in family was a prime motivation in collecting the information for the original Hargrave family history. Shortly before his death, he walked across the bridge from Riverside to visit the doctor and got a chill which led to peneumonia. He is buried in Hillside Cemetery in Medicine Hat.


Alexandra Helen (Sassons) Hargrave

Born 23 June 1853 in the more settled Kent County, Ontario, farm country, Lexie came west to Portage-la-Prairie in 1871 as a 18 year old yound woman. They came by rail as far as St. Paul, Minnesota, and then by horse and wagon the rest of the way. Portage was on the frontier at that point, with only fur trade posts and a few Metis settlements to the west. When James Hargravce arrived in 1874 to take charge of the Portage post of the Hudson's Bay Company post, she would have been an eligible 21 year old farm girl. The Sissons family was very involved with the Church of Christ in Portage. James and Lexie would have met in the small community and become engaged soon afterward. She almost lost her husband at the time of their marriage but he recovered.

As the wife of an HBC employee, over the next eight years, she travelled with a soon growing family to the remote fur trade posts of Fort Frances and Cumberland House, often by snowshoe or voyager canoe. On one memorable occasion in 1877, while returning to Red River from Fort Frances across Lake of the Woods, the canoe capsized, and she had to struggle ashore with Tom held overhead while James looked after Jack.

Another time, in late 1878, she and her three small children had to travel 200 miles from Norway House to Cumberland House in winter weather. James had gone on ahead so this was accomplished with a dog sled and Indian guides.

She often had the help of the Indian or Mets women around the posts and developed a great respect for Indian ways, ensuring that her children learned to speak Cree as she had.

At Cumberland House, Lexie was known as the Great White Queen among the Indians, probably because of her physique and kindness to them. She had blue-grey eyes, dark brown hair and wore ankle-length skirts all her life. Her first daughter, Helenora, was known as the Little Queen at the post for her imperious ways.

After leaving the service of HBC, they settled in High Bluff near Portage. The building of the railway attracted James to business opportunities further west. Lexie and the family remained in Portage until a frame house had been built on the 90 acres he acquired on Riverside. Here she established her home and the children grew up.

During the Riel Rebellion, the authorities wanted them to move across the river to Medicine Hat. They stayed put but Lexie had a small pistol and she how to use it.

In 1907, the "stone house" was built to replace the smaller frame house and in 1910, James drilled a gas well nearby to supply it with gas, one of the earliest in the area. The various children gradually married and grandchildren appeared on the scene. A favourite memory of many of the grandchildren is of the Christmas dinners and activities including dances. Lexie died after suffering a hear attack while working in her beloved garden. She is buried in Hillside Cemetery.

Marriage Notes for James Hargrave and Alexandra Sissons:

James and Lexie would likely have met first at the Houdson's Bay Co. trading post which James operated. According to Thomas Sissons' (Jr.) diary, by July of 1873, he was making visits to "Hargrave's". On the 1st of December 1874, he brought Hargrave home for tea. In early February 1875, the wedding was imminent. Lex's brother Thomas invited the relatives to attend the wedding at High Bluff. On the 8th, he "went to invite the folks to Lexie's wedding". On the 11th, he went out to David Yuill's (his brother-in-law) to ask them to the wedding.

However, on the 12th, he "stopped with Hargrave all night, he being sick." By oral tradition, on a winter snowshoe trip to an outlying post (must have been early February 1875), James contracted pneumonia and was laid up at his brother's farm. On the 13th, Thomas was "at Hargrave's till evening, then home" and next day, he "went for hay for Hargrave".

In Will Hargrave's manuscript, he says his mother told him that "Jimmie was threatened with typhoid fever, rampant in the early days due to poor sanitation and bad water. I was some what timid about marring a man that I did not know would survive! However, some of our friends and members of the family said they would ostracize me if I did not. So Jimmie was wrapped in a bed sheet, carried to a chair and the wedding proceeded. From that time I became nurse as well as wife. Good care pulled him through."

On the 17th, "A.E.S. wedding day", Thomas writes that "her and Mr. Hargrave were married at his place, he lying down not able to sit up. The party came out to dinner." Rev. Alexander Frazer, the Presbyterian minister at High Bluff, performed the wedding.

On the 19th, he went to see Hargrave. On the 21st he "drove Lex up to Hargraves in morning" which almost suggests that Lexie was still staying at her father's place in Portage. On the 24th, he "went to Hargraves in the morning found him worse, stopped there all day. Sent to Winnipeg for Dr. Jacks (?) Sat up all night. On the 25th, he "stopped with Lex all day" and on the 26th and 27th he was "attending to Hargrave again" although on the latter day, he also noted that "he is getting some better". James lost a lung through this illness but did recover.

> From the 28th of February till mid March, Thomas visited Hargrave almost daily and transacted business for him. Even in April, (6th) he went to sow grass seed for Hargrave, although this could have been as a favour if James was back at work and busy. At this time, he was also attending to his sister-in-law, Annabella Ogletree, wife of Dan Sissons, who then died on 12 April 1875.

>From "The Story of the Church at HighBluff, Manitoba: by Marjorie Stewart, the first six marriages are listed, including:

"James Hargrave, Portage La Prairie and Alexandra Ellen Sisson (sic) St. Mary's Marquette, Canada - Rev. A. Frazer."


Joseph Hargrave

Joseph Hargrave was a shepherd on the high, grassy plains of Carter Fell on the border with England. He studied the theological library which had been passed down in the family from the 1600's. He later became a grieve or farm manager near Kelso. Joseph's brother James came to Quebec in 1812 and had a home in Beach Ridge for a short time. From their home in Kelso, Joseph and his family emigrated to Quebec in 1817. The area south of Chateauguary was fairly wild but Scots immigrats were settling in the area. Until the early 1900's, the congregation required bilingual Gaelic - English ministers, although the Hargraves were English speakers from the Borders. The Beach Ridge does not have any beech trees, but an early settler was named Beach and it is so spelled on the title to the Hargrace farm.. A stone farmhouse was erected which is still in use by the Faille family. The Presbyterian Church was erected across the road and many of the family were subsequently buried there.





Andrew Hargrave  my 2nd Great Grandfather

Andrew was born just north of Hawick, perhaps where his father was stationed as a shepherd. He was baptized on 5 June 1808 by Rev. Mr. Rodger, minister at Hawick, but at the parish church of Ashkirk. He may have spent part of his childhood at Kelso. He became a farmer in Quebec and later moved to Illinois, Indiana, then to Oregon and Washington state.

Marriage Notes for Andrew Hargrave and Margaret Lawson"

They were married by Rev. Thomas MacPherson. Witnesses: Hargrave, Andrew (X); Lawson, M.; Guthrie, John G.; McPherson, Isabella; Chruch: Beechridge Presbyterian Church

Quebec, Vital and Church (Drouin Collection)

Name: Andrew Hargrave 1621-11967
Spouse: Margaret Mcewen
Event Year: 1847
Event: Mariage (Marriage)
Religion: Church of Scotland
Place of Worship or Institution: Ormstown (Church of Scotland and Episcopal Church and Church of England)
Province: Québec (Quebec
　

1860 Census Wheatland, Will, Illinois
Roll: M653-238;

Hargrave Andrew Head M W 51 M Farmer Scotland
Margaret Wife F W 40 M Canada
Joseph Son M W 20 S Canada
William Son M W 16 S Canada
Margaret Dau F W 11 S Canada
Jeanette Dau F W 9 S Canada
Mary Dau F W 8 S Canada
James Son M W 6 S Illinois
Andrew Son M W 3 S Illinois
Susan E Dau F W 2/12 S Illinois

1870 Census York, Benton, Indiana
URL: M593 - 299 ED: 6 Aug 1870 Page 5 Line 8 - 14

Hargrave Andrew 61 M W Farmer $800 Scotland
Margaret 46 F W Keeping House Canada
James 16 M W Farmer Canada
Andrew 13 M W Farmer Illinois
Elizabeth 10 F W At Home Illinois
Lillie 8 F W At Home Illinois
John 5 M W At Home Illinois

1880 Census Parish Grove, Benton, Indiana
URL: T9-266 ED: June 1880 Page 295C Line # 15 - 23

Hargrave Andrew W M 71 Head Farmer Scotland Scotland Scotland
Margaret W F 50 Wife Keep House Canada Scotland Scotland
Nettie W F 28 Dau Teacher Canada Scotland Canada
Mary W F 27 Dau Teacher Canada Scotland Canada
James W M 26 Son Farmer Canada Scotland Canada
Andrew W M 23 Son Farmer Illinios Scotland Canada
Elizabeth W F 19 Dau Teacher Illinois Scotland Canada
Lillie W F 17 Dau At Home Illinois Scotland Canada
John W F 15 Dau At Home Illinois Scotland Canada

Photo Gravestone
Yamhill Cemetery, Carlton, Yamhill, Oregon

Andrew Hargrave
Born May 5, 1809
Died April 30 1884