Coffee Time at the University

Today is an unseasonably warm September day and harvest is in full swing at the Boulton farm.  Thanks to sister-in-law Wilma’s garden, I had zucchini to make some muffins for afternoon coffee time for the combine drivers and grain hauling crew.  Wondering where to catch up with them, I was reminded of the blog post I’ve been working on for a while when Randy said they'd be at The University.  

Good farm helpers like me quickly learn the somewhat obscure names given to the quarter sections.  Legally, this one is the Southeast half of  24-6-28, just south of the house.  The Boultons have a Wilson quarter, Smitty’s, Don’s and Freddie’s which are named after past owners but “The University” name always baffled me. There are no buildings in sight!

A bit of research helped uncover that in 1883, the province granted a group called The Land Committee 150,000 acres to fund the University of Manitoba.  The intent was to sell the land to create and operate a University.  They had lofty goals that would make a free program to further education in the young province.  In 1900, it was renamed the Land Board and in 1904 it was known as University Council.  A few successful years soon turned to controversy as this article tells. 

 

In 1906, the fund was run by the firm Archibald, Machray & Sharpe and that seems to have been when some of the problems began.  In 1932 while John A. Machray was in charge, discrepancies and poor management resulted in a collapse of the fund and as a result tuition fees sharply increased and there were wage cuts to staff.  It ended with the arrest of Machray and his death in prison in 1933 after pleading guilty to theft. Over a million dollars was missing from University coffers and it was assumed he used the money to cover bad land investments. 

Thomas Boulton, Randy’s grandfather, started payments on the east half in 1907 according to papers that have survived the years.  There is a big stack of invoices, receipts and letters about the sale to read through.  The west half purchase is referred to as the Thompson sale #361 in 1910. 

In 1919, ownership was transferred to Thomas's brother Anthony and after his death in 1950, it passed to Edwin.  Now 112 years later, Boulton seeding and harvest continues on the same land. I'm glad I knew where to find them.  This time. ☺

The Yarn of Captain Bushby

Wow! Randy's cousin Linda just knew I would love this picture! The faded carte de visite picture has to have an amazing story, right?  It was a challenge to my Google detective abilities and fun to find out all I could about Captain T. Bushby from the few clues written on the picture.  It was among the picture collection of Linda and Randy's grandmother Elsie.  First was to find where Coquimbo is and it turns out it's a port on the north end of Chile in South America. 

In the mid 1800's, copper ore was mined in the Norte Chico District of Chile and sent back to England for smelting.  The boats were then loaded with coal for the return trip to Chile to help with the mining process.  That's why Captain Bushby was on his way to Coquimbo.

A helpful site here links to a book that recounts the shipwrecks on January 21, 1860.  There were actually four of them listed but only one started out at Swansea, Wales and was heading to Chile with a load of coals.  The ship called "William Marsland" was built in 1853 in Shoreham and was identified as having a capacity volume of 350 tons. Charles Cheesman was the owner.

Not the actual ship but one similar credit to T G Purvis [Public domain]

It was classed as a "Barque" which Wikipedia says is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) rigged fore-and-aft.

The report in the February 1, 1860 edition of the Morning Chronicles in London says the barque foundered after colliding with another ship, the Stalk, and 11 of the 12 crew and passengers on board were drowned.  The location is described as 100 miles west of Lisbon at 38.5 N 12W.  The collision with the ship carrying barley happened at 2:00 am in a strong wind on a heavy sea.  Many of the crew and passengers from the Stalk were saved by getting into their "jollyboat" along with one miner from the William Marsland by name of William Mill from Redruth, Cornwall.  There is no mention of T. Bushby and was it not for the picture and the writing on it, he may have been lost to history as well as to the Atlantic Ocean.  

But who was T. Bushby?  Great Grandfather James was born in 1852 so he would have been 8 when the accident occurred. There is a Thomas Bushby born 1825 on this page but I haven't yet found any records for him.  I am led to guess this may have been James' uncle, a brother to his father Henry (1819-1877) and son of Frances Bushby (1784-1843) and his wife Frances Artlette (1785-1860). 

The landlocked members of the Bushby descendants that I am familiar with are so far away from their English coast ancestors.  I am glad to be able to find parts of this story and any further information would be most welcome!