The Shaws of Midnapore- Part 2 ©
By R. Neil Brown
Life at Fish Creek (Midnapore), North West Territories
After arriving at Fish Creek, just west of the present-day Macleod Trail, and the nearby irrigation farm of John Glenn, the family erected a large marquee type tent, walled off with blankets, and began acquiring logs with which to construct the first log home. Logs were to be found in the Priddis area far up the Fish Creek valley. The family was fortunate that during construction, the fall that year was an Indian Summer and the good weather stretched into the month of December, when they were able to move into their first log home which measured about 20 feet by 30 feet; complete with sod roof which leaked muddy water when it rained heavily, or the snow melted. Later, when sawn lumber became available from the Walker lumber mill in Calgary, the sod roof was replaced with a wooden one which better protected the home from the elements. In 1884, the year following their arrival at Fish Creek, Helen gave birth to her tenth and last child: Irene Julia Daphne.
At the time the Shaws arrived at Fish Creek, mail service was rudimentary. Any mail destined for the residents of the area was forwarded through Fort Calgary and left by the stage coach operator on his route south, with John Glenn, the first settler in the area, from whom residents could collect their mail, as and when they came by. However, Mr. Glenn could neither read nor write, and the job was thrust upon William Shaw. The Shaws by contrast to Mr. Glenn were well educated and avid correspondents and wanted to have a more formal arrangement for the sending and delivery of their mail. Thus, only a few months after their arrival at Fish Creek, William Shaw applied to the Dominion Post Office Department in Ottawa, for a post office to be established at Fish Creek, North West Territories. However, he was informed by the Department that there was already a Post Office established in the name of Fish Creek in the North West Territories, in present day Saskatchewan. Hence, it was necessary to choose a new name for the Post Office address.
When William Shaw heard from the Post Office Department that it would be necessary to apply for an alternate name, he decided on a novel and rather amusing way to choose the name. He tacked a map of the world on the wall of their home and blindfolded his young daughter, which we believe, due to her age of 8 years at the time, was Elphie Mable Idalie, and had her put a tack in the map. It landed on a place called “Midnapore” in the State of West Bengal, India, which was then part of the British Empire and at that time the only place on earth with the name “Midnapore”. William’s further application with this name to the Dominion Post Office Department was approved and thus, the post office at Fish Creek was officially established as “Midnapore, North West Territories” on February 1, 1884 and Samuel William Shaw was officially appointed the first postmaster. [1] The standard oversized oak Post Office roll-top desk which belonged to William, replete with pigeon holes, side boards, letter drawers and even a supply of stamped postcards, is still kept in the author’s home.
Soon after their arrival at Fish Creek, the family experienced a cattle stampede when a herd belonging to the Cochrane Ranch was being driven south to new range at Waterton Lake. These cattle were the remnants of twelve thousand head, most of which had perished during the disastrous winter of 1882. The Shaw girls were busy washing clothes on the banks of Fish Creek that day when they heard the rumble of the approaching herd and upon sighting the oncoming cattle, fled to the house, leaving clothing, wash tubs, and all, which were trampled and gone without a trace after the herd passed.
In the Spring of 1885, Fish Creek flooded, and caused considerable damage. The house was inundated to a depth of several feet of water. A tent which had been used as a summer kitchen and store house was swept away, along with many of its contents. A cook stove and furniture were later recovered from the mud and debris left behind. After this incident, a new second home was built on higher ground and in due time the old house was dismantled and moved to a higher elevation, where it was used as a bunk house.
In the same year 1885, William and a group of area residents, including Henry Wood, Arthur G. Wolley-Dod, and Arthur Winterbottom got together to construct a building which would serve as a church, of the Church of England, and which would serve double duty during the week as a school house. Helen Alice Julia, the Shaws’ eldest daughter was the first teacher in the school. The one acre of land upon which the Church was built was a gift of Fish Creek’s first resident, Mr. John Glenn. The little Anglican Church built in 1885 remains in active use to this day as a chapel of St. Paul’s Anglican Church. It is now either the oldest or second oldest building extant in the City of Calgary. The oldest may be the Hunt House, which was possibly built in 1876, however, according to Alberta Historic Resources, adequate documentation for this date is lacking, while one other Calgary building the Major Stewart House was also built in the same year as St. Paul’s, 1885. William also purchased town lots in the growing centre of Calgary, as they were made available from the Canadian Pacific Railway; and had constructed substantial buildings on them by 1885, according to Burns and Elliott’s Calgary Directory published in that year.
In 1889, the family began construction of the long planned woolen mill. The machinery had been stored for the preceding years in Winnipeg and was reputedly rusted from the long delay in getting it to Fish Creek. An expert from Montreal, William Dyson, was hired to help William and the sons assemble the machinery and get the mill in production. In 1890 the mill began production, taking raw wool; which was then scoured and washed, carded, spun into yarn, and woven into a variety of woolen goods, including blankets and finer fabrics like tweeds and fine wool suitable for making suits.
York Shaw related the following account of mill operations to Shelagh Jamieson on September 3, 1957: “I began working in the mill when I was about twelve. My first job was running the carding machine. There were two long machines. I fed the wool in and it came out in strands. Later I looked after the spinning machines. Maltman ran the machinery-the power end of it. We used steam. Water had to be hauled in barrels for the boiler. Maltman was responsible too for the scouring and washing of the wool and had men helping, of course. Hugh hauled coal and wood. I don’t think he ever working in the mill itself. I remember when the mill was running the Indians would sometimes come in and watch. They’d just stand along the wall and watch the machinery—sometimes a whole row of them.”
Spinning and weaving were done with steam powered machines. For spinning, a “mule” having 190 spindles was used. The loom was a large one and produced blankets of extra large size, one of which the author still has in his possession. Later a machine called a “jack” with 240 spindles was introduced along with extra looms from Ontario.
To market the products from the mill Helen Maria Shaw opened a tailor shop in a red cottage on Stephen Avenue (now 8th Avenue S.W.) between 1st and 2nd Streets West on the north side. The tailor shop specialized in suits made from cloth from the mill in Midnapore. The Mill was operated by the family until 1905 when it was sold to Buchan and Berry, who defaulted on payments and after three years the Mill was repossessed by the Shaw family, although it was evidently never again in production. The mill was being used for storing hay at the time it burned down in 1923 or 1924.
In addition to the operation of the Mill, the family also produced quantities of vegetables, which were taken by ox team and later horse team to Calgary for sale. William also opened the first store in Midnapore, at first it was just an adjunct to the house but was later a stand-alone house constructed up the hill alongside the Macleod Trail, which was operated chiefly by William himself, and later by his son Hugh.
William Shaw was a keen amateur scientist. He constructed the first telegraph line between the store on Stephen Avenue in Calgary to Midnapore. This line was later transformed into a telephone line which linked the Calgary store with the Midnapore store, the Shaw home and the Father Lacombe Home in Midnapore. This line stayed in use until 1914, which was said to be when the copper wire, of which the line was made, became a commodity in demand for the First World War. It is believed that this was the first telephone system in the Calgary region, if not the area comprising the future Province of Alberta. William continued to be take an active interest in chemistry and was a talented photographer who developed his own glass negatives and made many photographic prints. He also kept accurate meteorological records from the time of his arrival in Midnapore and weather records for the City of Calgary in the years before 1890 are almost certainly the product of his records.
William was known to be eccentric and one story related that he was observed working in the vegetable garden at Midnapore one hot summer day, while wearing an enormous full-length fur coat. A passerby asked him why he was wearing a fur coat on such a hot day, to which he reputedly replied: “what keeps the cold out, will keep the heat out as well”.
William played the organ at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Midnapore. After St. Patrick’s, the Roman Catholic Church was built, he also played the organ periodically for that congregation; for which he charged a fee of 10 cents a service; ostensibly so that it would not get to be a regular responsibility. He also loved to play chess and carried on several games by correspondence with players overseas, and for that purpose had several sets of metal chess board characters which could be inked and from which prints could be made for mailing; a couple of which have survived to this day.
In 1896 tragedy struck the Shaw family when their eighth child, Henry Kinnaird Turner Shaw contracted rheumatic fever and died at Midnapore at the age of 18 years. Hardship again struck the Shaw family, one winter night in 1902 or 1903 when the Shaw family’s second home caught fire and burned down and the family had to take temporary shelter in the barn before a new and better home could be constructed.
William was an acquaintance of Prime Minister, Richard B. Bennett, and a token of William’s status in the community was his appointment as a Justice of the Peace for the Government of the North West Territories. Although he exercised his office as a Justice of the Peace very sparingly, he held the position for a number of years and maintained a collection of the Statutes of the North West Territories and the Dominion of Canada, a few volumes of which have been preserved.
Samuel William Shaw the well-educated, adventurous eccentric, who had taken his wife and eight children across the sea to the western frontier of Canada to start a new life, died at Midnapore in 1919 at the age of 79 years.
Helen Maria Shaw (nee York) lived on for 22 years after William’s death, in her Midnapore home directly across the street from St. Paul’s Anglican Church, where she attended services faithfully and hosted the congregation with tea and refreshments after Sunday services. She operated a retail outlet on Stephen Avenue in Calgary as well as owning several properties. She was active in the Southern Alberta Pioneers and Oldtimers Association and held the position of President of the Women’s Section. Helen, the matriarch of the Shaw family, a petite and delicate woman who left a life of privilege in England for a life of hardship and adventure on the frontier of the west, and who gave birth to 10 children, died on April 15, 1941 after a brief illness, at the age of 95 years.
The Children
Helen Alice Julie Shaw served as the first teacher in Midnapore from 1887-1891. In 1893 she married a Scottish born Alberta rancher, and former member of the North West Mounted Police, Malcolm T. Millar, who became a postmaster and named the post office Millarville, North West Territories. Alberta. Helen died at the age of 79 years, on January 1, 1943.
Agnes Egerie Louise, married Robert Cadogan Thomas, who started a highly successful business, the Alberta Ice Company which cut and stored ice during the winter from lagoons of the Bow River near Calgary for sale year-round to customers in Calgary and area. Robert also built and operated a hotel business in the City of Calgary. Louise died on October 13, 1947 at the age of 81 years.
Edward William Oliver was the child who died in 1867 at 3 days of age at Bromley, Kent, England.
Evelyn Flora Lida married Frank Gough and died December 8, 1941 at the age of 72 years.
Hugh Kinnaird Shaw married Augusta Kaye in 1906. After hauling coal and wood for the Mill, he later ran a steam tractor which was contracted out for freight and construction and continued to run the store and coal retail business in Midnapore for many years. He died January 10, 1960 at the age of 87 years.
Maltman William Stevens Shaw trained with the Canadian Pacific Railway to qualify as a Second Class Engineer, which qualified him for running pressure steam boilers, and was issued Certificate No. 27 in the North West Territories. Both the Mill equipment and early tractors were powered by steam boilers. During the 1920’s he and brother York were partners in a logging business which was carried on at Boom Lake, with a sawmill at Castle Mountain, areas which later became part of Banff National Park. He later purchased land from the C.P.R. north and south of the original Shaw homestead on Fish Creek and farmed with his son James until his death on January 17, 1960, aged 85 years.
Elphie Mable Idalie married her cousin Walter Phillips. She died January 1, 1901 at the age of 25 years.
Henry Kinnaird Turner Shaw worked selling the woolen goods from the Shaw mill wholesale. He died at Midnapore from rheumatic fever in 1896 at the age of 18 years.
John Oliver York Shaw married Mary Victoria Graham in 1905, who died in 1917. He was remarried to Sarah Elizabeth Kirby in 1922. During the 1920’s he and Maltman were partners in the logging business and York operated a business selling coal and wood. He later started a successful building moving company -York Shaw and Sons which he ran with his sons Kinnaird and Bill. York died on May 13, 1961, eleven days short of his 82nd birthday. He was the last surviving child of Samuel William and Helen Marie Shaw.
Irene Julia Daphne Shaw married Reuben (Dick) Goodall in 1907 and they homesteaded and farmed in the Coronation district of Alberta. She died January 17, 1950 at the age of 66 years.
[1]Note: There have come to be a couple of alternate stories about how present-day Alberta’s Fish Creek, N.W.T. became Midnapore, N.W.T.. However, those versions suggest that a letter was addressed to someone in “Midnapore”, a place in West Bengal State, in the eastern part of India-- a place half way around the world, with no connection to the Shaw family whatsoever, which letter somehow mysteriously ended up in the remote outpost of Fish Creek in the frontier of the North West Territories of Canada, and which was then delivered to William Shaw at a precise time period in which he was in need of a new name after having the prior chosen name of Fish Creek rejected by the Post Office Department. Such suggestions defy common sense, logic and credibility and must be treated as apocryphal. The foregoing version which I have related, whereby the name was chosen by a blindfolded Shaw daughter, was passed down orally from Maltman Shaw’s daughters Frances and Irene to the author and were partly corroborated by information given to Shelagh Jamieson by York Shaw in an interview on September 3, 1957 who stated: “I think Father just sent the name in”.
Acknowledgements: In preparing this account, I drew heavily on the written materials, based on letters and records gathered by my aunt, Frances Borgal, (nee Shaw) Maltman’s eldest daughter in her research in England and Canada for a book on the Shaw Family, which sadly, was never finished. I also had the benefit of original letters of Samuel William Shaw and other family records kept by my mother, Maltman Shaw’s youngest daughter Irene D. Brown (nee Shaw) and by Maltman’s son James Miller Shaw. Many of the original letters of William, his diary, and nearly all of William’s voluminous collection of glass photographic negatives from the 1860’s to 1918, were in Frances Borgal’s possession and lost in the house fire in which she perished.
I interviewed Frances Borgal in December 1977; as well as Maltman Shaw’s children, my mother Irene and James Miller Shaw, tape recorded in December 1977. I obtained records regarding the Midnapore Post Office and William’s appointment as Justice of the Peace from the Government of Canada. I also had the benefit of notes made by a local historian Shelagh S. Jamieson from her interviews of Elsie Douglass, (nee Millar) August 7, 1957; Maltman William Stevens Shaw, August 13, 1957; Hugh Kinnaird Shaw, August 21, 1957; and John Oliver York Shaw, September 3, 1957.
