He was the surveyor of the
Company and a map of the Colony of which a copy is given by us marks the
Colony Gardens, where Governor Miles Macdonell lived. This spot they
chose, and the locality at the foot of Rupert Street is marked in the
City of Winnipeg. A stone's throw further north along the bank of Red
River, Fort Douglas was afterwards built, around which circles much of
this Romantic Settlement Story.
This spot was the centre of the First Settlement of Rupert's Land and to
this first party peculiar interest attaches.
There can only be one Columbus among all the navigators who crossed from
Europe to America; there can only be one Watt among all the inventors
and improvers of the steam engine; only one Newton among those who
discuss the great discovery of the basal law of gravitation.
There can be only one first party of those who laid the foundation of
collective family life in what is now the Province of Manitoba--and what
is wider--in the great Western Canada of to-day. There may have been not
many wise men, not many mighty, not many noble among them, but the long
and stormy voyage which they made, the dangers they endured on the sea,
the marvellous land journey they accomplished, and their taking "seisin
of the land," to use William the Conqueror's phrase, entitles them to
recognition and to respectful memory.
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