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- ROBERT DUNCAN
Robert Duncan was born near Almonte Ontario, December 7, 1854. His parents, James and Elizabeth Duncan, had a family of eight boys and three girls. Robert was the eldest.
As money was scarce Robert was obliged to leave home in his early teens to make his way in the world. Equipped with a team of horses and a sleigh he found work in logging camps along the Petawawa and Mississippi Rivers. Wages were a dollar a day. In the spring of each year he came back to help his father with the farm work. He would go back to the "shanty" as the camps were called, for the winter months.
In the spring of 1878 he and some other young fellows decided to go West. They left Almonte on May 5th and travelled by train and boat to Emerson and finally to Winnipeg. They worked there for the summer. He told of getting his wagon, with a load, stuck in the Red River mud of what is now main street. The load was removed from the wagon but even then the wagon had to be taken apart to free itself. Having met some men who had been farther west, Robert decided on their advice to go too. The result was that he filed on a parcel of land the west half of 12-3-12. This land was owned and operated in recent years by his only son James Hamilton Duncan until his death, November 1972 in Pilot Mound. Robert then went back to Ontario logging camps for the winter.
In the spring of 1879 James Duncan gave his eldest son, Robert a team of horses, a wagon and provisions for the trip west. Again he went to Emerson and then drove west along the Boundart Commission Trail to his homestead near Pilot Mound. This 100-mile trek was completed on May 29. Some grain was planted and a log house was built that summer. The remains of this pioneer dwelling exist on the present farm-site. This log house is a very special one. In 1879 there was not a minister or a church in which to conduct divine services. A meeting was held in Robert Duncan's log house to organize the first Sunday School. The next year, 1880, a meeting was held there to organize the Goudney School district. Until then the community was identified only by their post office, Preston, about three miles west of the present town of Pilot Mound.
In 1880 Robert Duncan and William Butchart (who was later to marry Robert's sister, Margaret Jane) bought a horse powered threshing machine. They threshed most of the grain in the settlement that fall and winter as this was one of the first threshing machines in the area. In those days the harvested grain was stacked, pending threshing operations so that work on the land could continue until freeze-up.
Robert Duncan returned home in the spring of 1881, returning to Pilot Mound in June with his bride, Ellen MacPherson Hamilton. The young bride could hardly visualize the ruggedness of the new country she was coming to, in comparison with the relatively gently and settled Ottawa Valley countryside which had been her home from birth. On the last leg of their trip from Emerson to the homestead, the young couple enjoyed the warm hospitality of the Mennonite homes as they passed through their communities. At last they reached the end of the hundred miles and arrived in the Goudney District. That summer the grass was so tall that even the cows seemed lost. When Ellen opened her kitchen door she could hear the cows mooing and running towards her but all she could see above the tall grass was their heads and tails.
"Bear stories are always interesting, especially when they have the added interest of being true. One day when Robert was harvesting a field of oats with his three-horse binder he saw a bear coming towards him. At the same time a neighborhood "character" an old chap who loved to hunt and fish, and who dropped in frequently to visit the Duncans arrived on the scene. Unfortunately his gun was not powerful enough to reach the bear from his distance. Robert unhitched one of the three horses and mounted it. Horse and rider pressed the attack but the Duncan mount was a colt that had never been ridden and he ran wild. However, the battle continued with added force and finally the bear, exhausted, lay still on the ground to be dispatched at close range by the itinerant hunter.
In the early 1900's a Mr Dearlove needed power for his newly-constructed brick yard north of town. He contacted Robert Duncan for the use of his steam engine which had replaced horsepower on the Duncan farm. It might be noted that the Duncan's second home succeeding the beloved log shack, was a spacious dwelling made of red brick from the Dearlove yard.
It is no exaggeration to say that Robert Duncan was an active leader in the community endeavors. Before 1905 when the Statute Labor Law was in effect, he was a path master. This meant that he was to see to it that roads and trails were kept passable in his section of the township. In later years he served as a councillor in the Rural Municipality of Louise and President of the Pilot Mound Agricultural Society. During his tenure with that Society he promoted the formation of a Board of Lady Directors. It proved to be a valuable innovation.
He was also a devoted church goer, serving as Sunday School superintendent and elder on the Presbyterian Church Session and following church union in 1925 he served with the United Church Session until his death in 1943.
His wife Ellen had many talents and interests. She was renowned for baking and butter-making. Her baking skills were such that local merchants would have her test newly arrived flour shipments. She could tell them how many loaves could be made from a hundredweight.
In 1911 she won a sweepstake prize for her butter making at the Winnipeg Exhibition, also first prize for a tub of butter at the Chicago Fair. She encouraged boys and girls in furthering farming skills, a work now done by the famous 4-H Clubs. She held sewing and cooking classes in the local school (after 4:00 PM.)
She was a member of the Ladies Agricultural Society her husband founded, a Charter member of the Women's Institute, Life member of the Red Cross and life Member of the Women's Missionary Society. Robert and Ellen Duncan turned the farm over to Their only son Jim in 1930, retiring to Pilot Mound. Mrs Duncan passed away in 1937, her husband in 1943. Both of them had been truly public-spirited and contributed enormously to the economic and cultural health of the community they had seen grow from pioneer days.
In the United Church at Pilot Mound are two beautiful candelabra, presented by members of the family in memory of their parents. These are fitting memorials to two who had shed the light of life on many a pathway.
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1854 - 1943 (88 years)
