We Made Hartney

W.E. CRAWFORD CAME TO HARTNEY in 1892 and opened a jewellery store. He had been in Manitoba for several years, having arrived with his parents before 1870 and settled with them on a farm in the Erinview district near Stonewall. He disliked the school which seemed boring and uninteresting in comparison with the one he attended in Ontario, and he disliked his task of herding his father’s cattle when the school closed, so, at the age of 14 he ran away to Winnipeg and found work as cook’s assistant in a circus that was set up near the railway track. When his first day’s work was over he went to his designated bed in a box-car on the railway track and fell sound asleep. He awoke to find himself surrounded by rough men, smoking and swearing as they played cards by the light of a lantern.

Willie Crawford had been brought up in a strict Presbyterian home to believe that smoking and card playing were evil, and on taking stock of his surroundings in the box-car he was convinced that he had died and was in Hell as punishment for his running away from home. He eventually grew accustomed to circus life, gained experience as cooks’ helper, and later found work in the camps of a CPR construction gang and traveled with it west to the Rockies in the years that followed. He returned to Winnipeg and became an apprentice to Major Forest, a capable watchmaker. On the completion of his apprenticeship he married and opened a jewellery business in Stonewall. The lure of the prairie horizons brought him and Mrs. Crawford to Hartney with their small son and daughter, Edgeworth and Jessie. Two other daughters, Lillian Rossa and Evelyne, were born in the Hartney home. 

In 1902 Mr. Crawford built and occupied the store now owned by J. McDowell. Although this building never boasted a clock, it had a high clock tower that the Hartney Star declared “lent to the store a certain novelty and grace.” When, in 1906 the Union Bank sought to enlarge its premises Mr. Crawford sold this store to the bank and built beside it the one-storey building that is now L.H. Gabel’s jewellery store.

Mr. Crawford served on the school board and the council and was mayor of the town in 1909. He took a leading and vocal part in planning the town hall and was one of the company who started the Lyceum theatre.

Many of the school children used to stand before Mr. Crawford’s store window to admire the rings, brooches and clocks displayed there, but they were most interested in a miniature golden steam engine that Mr. Crawford constructed with tiny wheels and pistons, which they were told would actually run.

Although there had been engines installed in old buggies that ran on Hartney’s streets before 1908, it was in that year that Mr. Crawford brought the first factory-built automobile to the town. It was a Ford. He enjoyed driving it but was so concerned for the effect its appearance had on the horses that when he saw one approaching he used to sop his car, walk around to meet the horse and driver, lead the horse past the automobile and wait until the horse was on its way before starting his motor again.

Text adapted from The Mere Living, page 100.