Early settlement pre 1900
With law, order and the promise of a railway, settlers began to arrive. Homesteaders first settled along the good black soil closest to the river. The Clover Bar Colonization Company (Edmonton and Saskatchewan Land Co.) took land and built a store, boarding house and large storage barn in 1883.
Two years prior to this, several settlers had arrived and set up land claims in the same area. Their arrival followed a three month walk from Winnipeg to Edmonton.
One of these early pioneers was R.P. Ottewell, who chose some of the finest homestead land in Clover Bar district. The following year his small plot of oats produced more than 100 bushels to the acre. The Clover Bar area quickly became populated.
In April 1892, Thomas Pearce of Parry Sound, Ontario, arrived in South Edmonton with the first 300 settlers to settle in the Agricola, Partridge Hills and Good Hope districts. Mr. Pearce also farmed some of the fine black loam near the North Saskatchewan River. In the process of moving settlers from Eastern Canada out to the Edmonton area, Mr. Pearce wrote reports for the CPR. It was in one of these that the term Sunny Alberta was first used.
Meanwhile on May 2, 1891, fifty-three families - 250 people in total - arrived by wagon train in Edmonton from Red Deer. They were German speaking immigrants from Galecia and Poland. They settled in Josephburg and the surrounding areas. Names like Becker, Krebs, Mohr, Gauf, Berg and Hennig were added to our list of Strathcona County pioneers - many with unique skills so necessary in a newly formed community.
South in the Colchester and Ellerslie districts, a group of Moravian Church followers seeking religious liberty in Canada arrived in 1894. In 1895 they established the Bruderfeld Church and more people from Europe were to follow.
They were excellent pioneer farmers, many of whom in later years helped to make this district into Alberta's dairy belt. Names such as Seutter, Hoppe, Graunke, Schultz, Schmidt, Kittlitz, Harke, Diewart, Neuman and Dreger were among them. These pioneers were preceded by Leander Fulton, and members of his family, who took homesteads in the 1880's, adding places names like Fultonvale and Fulton Creek to the region.
In 1894, Mr. Charles Hill arrived in South Edmonton. While his wife and two daughters ran a bakery and confectionery store on Whyte Avenue, he established a homestead just east of the Colchester School. The log house he built still stands.
As the end of the nineteenth century was approaching, areas east of the Clover Bar settlement were rapidly filling up. The Bremner, Baker and what was to become the Ardrossan districts were settled with families like Thomlinson (1888) from Yorkshire, England; the Wardrop family from Scotland (1901); the Hanlan family (1899) from Ontario; Martin Reynolds Sr. (1899) from Ohio; the George Lackey family (1898); Hamilton Lackey Sr. (1899); the Clyde Parker family (1898); the Storms (1900) all from Nebraska; and the William Garbe family from Ontario (1900).
In the East Edmonton district during the early 1880's families such as Fulton, Inkster, Caverhill, Hursell and Beale had settled. By the turn of the Century they were joined by the Shephard, Myler, Warner, Gratrix and Thomas Briggs families.
The Salisbury and Hillsdale districts attracted homesteaders in the 1890's including John Ball (1890), and later his brothers George, Everett, Sam, and William R., the last three taking land in the Wye and Hillsdale district. The first registered homesteaders in this area were William McCallister and Maurice Smeltzer in 1892.
Last updated: Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Page ID: 2110