CHAPTER I. — MY YOUTH AND EARLY LIFE.
AS the principal object of this work, is to give an account of my experiences in the North-West, and my many adventures during the last few months, I would deem it out of place to detain my readers with any lengthy description of my birth-place or any details of my younger days. I have noticed many false reports that have been circulated through the press, upon the different situations and conditions in the North-West—whether as to the whites, the half-breeds, or the Indians. In the second chapter I will give a truthful version of what I saw, heard and know. Still I cannot well enter upon this work, with justice to myself or to my late husband, without informing my readers whence we came and how our lots happened to be cast together amidst the scenes of our new home, and upon the theatre of the fearful tragedy in which we played such important parts.
My grandfather, Henry Marshall Fulford, while yet a young man, about the year 1812, came from Woburn Massachusetts, and established his home on the Aylmer road, near Bytown, the Ottawa of to-day, where he carried on an extensive lumbering and farming business. My father was born there, and it was also the place of my own birth. Our home was situated about two miles and a half from Aylmer, and about five miles from the present capital of the Dominion.
In those days Ottawa was called Bytown. No one then dreamed that it was destined to become the capital and the seat of the future Federal government of the country. The town, for it was then a town, was small and far from attractive, and the surrounding country was not very much inhabited. The lumbering operations constituted the staple commerce, and the shanties were the winter homes of the greater number of the people.
Nearly all my life, except the last three years, was spent at home. I never travelled much, and in fact, never expected to become a traveller, and above all, an unwilling heroine in the North-West troubles. I had several sisters and brothers. I was the eldest of the family, and as such, for many years had to devote my time to household cares. My school-days seem now the pleasantest period of my early life. Since then I have known many ups and downs; but never felt the same peace of mind and gayness of spirit that I have felt in days now gone. I might say that I have lived three distinct lives. From my birth until the day of my marriage, which took place on the 27th of July, 1882, I led a uniform life. Few, if any changes, marked each passing year. The seasons came and went, and the winter's snow fell and the summer's sun ripened the golden harvests, and days flowed into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, and year succeeded year as I felt myself growing into womanhood. The changes in my life were few and my troubles so small, that memory had scarcely ever to recall a dark or dreary scene and hope always beckoned me on to the future.
The only events that seemed to stand out, landmarks in the past, were two deaths in the family—the first my eldest brother and the second my dearly beloved and much lamented father.
Had it not been for these two events I might drop a veil over all the past and consider merely that I had lived through such a number of years:-these years, like the great desert of the east, would stretch back, an unbroken tract, with no object to break the monotony of the scene. But, as the kirches tombs or monuments of Arabia, rise up in solemn grandeur from out the loneliness of the plain, casting their shadows of the sandy waste, so these two monuments or tombs appear upon the level scene of my uneventful past. Could I, then, have caught one glimpse adown the valley of the "Yet to be," what a different picture would have presented itself to my vision! A confusion of adventures, a panorama never ending, ever shifting, of an eventful life.
My second life might be called a period from my wedding day until the third of April, 1885. And the third, the last and most eventful life, is that of three months—April, May and June, 1885. To the second important period in my career I will consecrate the next chapter and to the third and final part of my life will be devoted the last chapter.
My husband was born in Napean, in the Province of Ontario, about the end of 1846. Physically speaking, he was a man of very fine appearance. Over six feet in height and weighing about two hundred and ten pounds. His youth was spent in his native place, where he went to school and where he commenced his life of labor and exertion. I don't know, exactly, when it was that I first met him; but I must have been quite young, for I remember him these many years. He was, during the last ten years that he lived in the Ottawa valley, foreman for different lumber firms. Naturally gifted to command, he knew the great duty of obedience, and this knowledge raised him in the estimation of all those whose business he undertook to direct. And owing to that good opinion, he received a general recommendation to the government, and in the year 1879, he was appointed Indian instructor for the north-west. Like my own life, his was uneventful. Outside the circle of his friends—and that circle was large—he was unknown to the public. Nor was he one of those who ever sought notoriety. His disposition was the very opposite of a boastful one.
Often I heard tell of the north-west. But I never took any particular interest in the country previous to his appointment and departure for his new sphere. I knew by the map, that such a region existed—just as I knew that there was a Brazil in South America, or a vast desert in the centre of Africa. Our statesmen were then forming plans to build the great Pacific Road, that band of iron which was soon destined to unite ocean to ocean. However, I never dreamed that I would one day visit those vast regions, the former home of the buffalo, the haunt of the prairie-chicken and the prairie-wolf. It never dawned upon me, that as I watched the puffing of the engine that rushed along the opposite side of the Ottawa from my home, that, one day, I would go from end to end of that line,—pass over those vast plains and behold the sun set, amidst the low poplars of the rolling prairies,—listen to the snort of the same engine as it died away, in echo, amongst the gorges of the Rockies. My husband had been three years, previous to our marriage, in the north west. His first winter was spent at "Onion Lake," there being no buildings at "Frog Lake." In fact, when he arrived there, "Frog Lake" district was a wilderness. During those three years I began to take some interest in that "land of the setting sun,"—but, as yet, I scarcely imagined that I would ever see the places he described. In 1882, my husband returned to Ottawa and his principal object in coming, was to take me, as his wife, away with him to his new home.
We were married in Aylmer on the 27th July, 1882. Our intention was to start for the wilds on the first day of August. In the next chapter I will take up that second period of my life and strive to describe our trip and what we saw, learned and experienced during the following three years.
My readers will have to excuse what may seem egotism on my part, in speaking so much about myself and my husband. But as the subject demands that I should detail, all that can be of any public interest, in my short life, it would be difficult to write my story and not appear, at times, somewhat egotistical.
This first chapter must necessarily be short, when one has nothing to write about it is hard to fill up pages, and my life, and that of my husband, so far as I know, were most uneventful up to the day of our union, when
"We joined the hands of each other.
To move through the stillness and noise
Dividing the cares of existence,
But doubling its hopes and its joys."
My younger days seem to have passed away like a quiet dream, leaving but a faint memory behind; but my last period of life resembles more some frightful night-mare and I often wonder can it be true that I have passed through such scenes or is the whole affair a fevered vision of the night!
Now that I am safely home again with my good dear mother beside me, my fond brothers and sisters around me, it would appear as if I had never got married, never left them, never saw the north-west, never suffered the exposure, loss, sorrow, turmoil, dangers and terrors of the late rebellion. But fancy cannot destroy the truth—the real exists in spite of the ideal, and, as I enter upon my description, faint and imperfect as it may be, I feel my hand shake with nervous excitement, my pulse throb faster, my heart beat heavier, as scene after scene of the great drama passes before me, clear and perfect as when first enacted. Had I only the language at my command, as I have the pictures before me, at my summons—I feel that I could do justice to the subject. But as I was never destined to be an authoress and my powers of composition were dealt out to me with a sparing hand, I can but express my regret that an abler writer does not hold my pen. A cloud has come over my life-dream. The angel of death passed by and in the shadow of his wing a heavy and better stroke was dealt. It may not be of much interest to the public to know how I feel over my loss, but if each one would, for a moment, suppose the case their own and then reflect upon what the feeling must be. Let them attempt to write a cold, matter-of-fact statement of the events, to detail them simply as they took place, without giving expression to sentiments of sorrow, I think that, at least, ninety-nine out of every hundred would fail, and the one who could succeed would appear, in my mind, a person without heart or feeling, unable to love and unworthy of affection.
I will strive to push on to the end of my undertaking without tiring my readers, with vain expressions of sorrow, regret or pain; but do not expect that I can relate the story from first to last, without giving vent to my feelings.
There is one pleasure, however, in knowing that I have no complaints to make, no blame to impute, no bitter feelings to arouse, no harsh words to say. But on the contrary, I will try not to forget the kindness, sympathy, and protection, that from one source or another were tendered to me.
I hope this little book will please all who read it; amuse some; instruct others; but I pray sincerely that not one of all my readers may ever be placed in the painful situation through which I have passed. Methinks some good prayers have gone up to heaven for me, and that the Almighty lent an attentive ear to the supplications; for like the angel that walked through the flaming furnace to protect the just men of old, some spirit of good must have stood by my side to guide me in safety through the fiery ordeal and to conduct me to that long wished for haven of rest—my old home on the Aylmer Road.