result was a state of acrimony between new arrival and native
and old pioneer, which resulted in numerous bitter quarrels
and fights. Had the British troops been retained and these
partisan soldiers sent home again, this would never have been
the case, and the dignity and impartiality of British military
rule once more demonstrated. This feeling continued until
a Dominion parliamentary election in 1873 kind of split up
both sides; and the appointment of the Hon. E. B. Wood as
Chief Justice of Manitoba, thereafter did good work. The
iron hand of that eminent jurist soon put an end to the dis—
position to lawlessness which had grown out of the rancour
referred to.

THE PERIOD OF UNCERTAINTY

After the quelling of the rebellion by Wolseley, VV‘inni—
peg’s real period of uncertainty commenced, and it was not
until the city passed through the seventies and into the
eighties, that it became a settled fact, that the place was
going to advance to the position of a great city, instead of
falling back again to an important frontier trading point.

The Fenian invasion of Manitoba by O’Neill and his fol—
lowers in 1871, was the onlv stirring time in Fort Garry, or
Winnipeg, as the village was then beginning to be called,
until the year of the city’s incorporation. In the fall of
1871 a school board was elected, and the first secretary, then
a junior officer of “Tolseley’s force, although he has filled
many positions in the interval, is at present secretary—treas—
urer of Winnipeg’s board of school directors. The writer
refers to Major J. Stewart Mulvey. The first teacher was
Mr. W. F. Luxton, in after years publisher of the Daily
Free Press, and the most enterprising and agressive journa—
listic publisher the city ever had. To—day he fills a respon—
sible position under the Provincial Government.

From 1870 to 1874: the population of the town kept
steadily increasing, and in the spring of 1871 the first houses
west of the line of Main Street were built. The two men to
make the domicillary move westward were Capt. H. S. Don—
aldson, then the leading stationer and jeweller of the place,
and Mr. Wm. Harvey, who was for many years proprietor
of a livery stable in the city. The Merchants Bank of Can—
ada was established in 1872, it being the pioneer chartered
banking institution, and Mr. Duncan McArthur was its first
manager. Quite a number of farmer settlers kept coming
into the country, but many turned back into Dakota. Can—
adian Government land regulations were ever changing and
as a rule not encouraging to new settlers. Still the town kept
growing, and the whistle of half a dozen steamboats on the
rivers during summer kept up the life. Even Black Friday
and the terrible financial crash and crisis during the end of
187 3—4: was scarcely felt, and in the fall of 187 4, when Win-
nipeg was incorporated, the newborn city had a population
of over 3,000, assessed property value for $2,076,018, over
900 buildings and about 310 business institutions of every
description.

INCORPORATING WINNIPEG

Winnipeg, municipally, was brought forth in travail
certainly. From its birth in 1.87 4 it had to encounter one
adverse circumstance after another for several years, enough

 

to crush out of existence a community less hopeful. The
year before its incorporation “ Black Friday” brought a
crash in financial affairs all over the commercial world, which.
paralyzed railway enterprise in the west, and crushed for
years the city’ s hopes of a railway outlet to the south. Every
railway heading in the direction of Manitoba was in the

hands of a receiver. The same year a change of administra—

tion took place in Canada, and the Mackenzie Government
which went into power, (announced a new policy in the con—
struction of the great Dominion highway from Atlantic to
Pacific. The natural water stretches were to be improved
and used, and only over the prairie stretches and through the
Rocky Mountains was a railway to be constructed. Worse
than all for the young city, the route of the highway was
changed, and Winnipeg was left out of the main line trail
altogether, and the proposed railway was to cross the Red
River at Selkirk, twenty—five miles further north. Then in
the midst of these disappointments came a plague of grass—
hoppers, which one year ate up almost every vestige of crop
which the: farmers of the country tried to raise. Strange to
say, through all these troubles the City of Winnipeg made
steady progress, and by the close of 187 8, when railway com—
munication with the outside world by a southern route had
reached the bank of the Red River opposite the city, the
population had increased to about 6,500, and the value of
assessed property to over $3,500,000. A cheering announce-—
ment from Ottawa closed the year and left the young enter—
prising community in high hopes. A change of party in
power resulting from the elections that year brought a change
of railway policy. The new Government under Sir John A.
Macdonald declared in favor of the: all-rail route for the
transcontinental highway, and Winnipeg was to be made an
important point on the main line of road. Still there was a
general feeling of uncertainty amongst business men of the
young city. The great cause of that was the slow, irresolute
manner in which the. transcontinental railway was being con—
structed as a. Government work. This feeling never alto—
gether disappeared until in the beginning of 1881, the Qt—
tawa administration surrendered the great work to the syndi-
cate, which afterwards developed into the Canadian Pacific
Railway Company. Up to the close of 1880 the city’s steady
growth had gone on, and that year the population went up to
over 12,000 and the value of assessed property to over
$4,000,000. When, however, the C. P. R. syndicate took
hold of matters in- 1881, the period of uncertainty end-ed
abruptly, and the people freed from all uncertainty, and
aided by a rush from the east imbued with the same new
hopes, and feeling of over—certainty, a plunge into a period
of boom was the reasonable result, although to speak para—
doxically every one seemed to have lost their reason in the
boom.

Those who passed through the first great boom of VVinni—
peg and Manitoba generally, will never forget those exciting
days of 1881—2, when the most conservative business men in
the city, and in eastern cities also, seemed to have thrown
aside all business caution and lost their heads completely. A
description of the crazy time cannot be given in detail here,
but the reader can guess at it from the increase in the esti—
mated value of assessed property in the city. In 1880 it
was placed below $4,500,000, but in 1882 the city assessor

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