| Summary: | THE LONG AGO. The Selkirk Settlement PnRT ifpS. N THE decade following Henry's account of the early settlement of the country, there is little written history until we reach the latter end —that is. along in 1811-12 when the erie of actual settlement and agricultural pursuits begin and the foundation for the present greatness of the state was laid. Many writers have given thought and research to this period and in the main essential features they all agree, but the best short account is one contained in Colonel Lonnesberry's Record of August 1895, and is as follows: The far-sighted Earl of Selkirk, who first realized the capacity of the Red River valley for growing the things essential to human life, must have taken into consideration its capacity for sustaining the wild animals and reasoned from that. In 1811 Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, having gained control of the the Hudson Bay interests so far as to enable him to do so, secured a tract of 1 16,000 acres in the Red River Valley, on which he planted a colony of about 200 evicted Scotch settlers from the lands of the Duchess of Sutherland. They arrived via Hudson's Bay in 1812 and made settlement near the site of Winnipeg. Of these about 150 were induced to desert and those that remained v/ere harrassed in many vays. They were threatened by employes of the Northwest company, ordered to quit the valley and reduced to fifty, did take refuge in Pembina, wfipre they spent the winter of 1812. and two or three succeeding winters. In 1815 the colony v/as increased to 150 by new arrivals of Highlanders, and it was attacks upon these that resulted in the Seven Oaks "massacre in »'hich Governor Semple and associates were killed; as hereafter noted. Other additions were made from lime to time to this settlement; at one time about. 200 Swiss, who became discouraged, and became' the first settlers about St. Paul and other points in Minnesota. They not only secured lands from the Hudson Bay company through the Earl of Selkirk, but established amicable relations with the Indians, through purchasing from them the land on either side of the river as far as a man could be seen on a white horse. Their settlements were compact and the individual holdings were six chains in width and extended back from the river on either Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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