Notable People



MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION



Bate, G. Eilleen


Biography:  
Claims:   Became the Town’s first female councillor in 1972.
Probable Significance: 
Source: Reflections  P.

Cossar, Andrew

Biography:  (1855-1921) In 1885 he married Betsy Deacon.
Claims: Andrew came to Manitoba in 1880 and worked for two years helping to build the first two bridges across the Red River. In 1882 he homesteaded N 10-2-19. He was elected councillor for Turtle Mountain Muncipality in 1886 and re-elected until the change of boundaries in 1890 put Range 19 in the Municipality of Morton. There, too, he served on the Council and also on the Wood Lake School Board.
Probable Significance:  Medium
Source: Trails & Crossroads to Killarney  p. 221  / Reflections  p. 

Foster, Andrew

Biography:  (1867 – 1956) m. (1896)  Katherine Cullen ( 1876 – 1944)
Claims:  Lena - Enterprise district. 1888.  Served on the first school board of Enterprise, and later on the school board of Lena when it was opened in 1907. He supported the United Grain Growers and served as president of the Lena Pool Elevator Association. He was also a member of the Killarney Consumers Co-operative. For several years he was councillor. Though brought up a Conservative, he became interested in the Progressive party and in 1922 was elected member for Killarney in the Manitoba Legislature. Defeated in 1927, he ran again successfully in 1932. Perhaps dearest to his heart was his elec- tion as Manitoba director of the Canadian Aberdeen Angus Association of which he later became president.
Probable Significance:  Medium
Source: Trails & Crossroads to Killarney  p.    241 / Reflections  p. 


Hannah, John

Biography:  (1857 - ), Ontario.  M. 1887 Kate Grieve
Claims: Farmer, municipal official.
Homesteaded in 1884. In 1888 he was appointed councillor for the RM of Riverside, in which position he served for five years. In 1902 he was elected Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Turtle Mountain. In 1905 he was Mayor of Killarney.
Probable Significance: 
Source: Reflections  P.


From the Local History Sources...

Born in Bruce County, Ontario on 25 April 1857, son of Richard Hannah and Jane Owens, he farmed before coming to Manitoba in 1882. Two years later he took up a homestead near Pelican Lake, where he remained until 1897 when he purchased a farm four miles south of Killarney. 

In 1887 he married Kate Grieve of Bruce County, Ontario. They had five children: Clara Mabel Hannah (b 1889), Bertha Agnes Hannah (b 1892), Howard Eldon Hannah (b 1894), Mary Kathleen Hannah (b 1900), and Lawrence Hannah (b 1905).

Monteith, Robert

Biography: b. Ontario.  (1843-1930) Married Mary Kilpatrick (1838-1912) in 1867
Claims:  Blacksmith, farmer, municipal official.
First Mayor – 1904 after the village was incorporated in 1903, 1884-1886, Reeve from 1887-1890 and again after 1893. Operated a woollen mill at Crediton, Ontario. Monteiths moved to Killarney in 1896 and started a furniture business and implement business in partnership with George McNamee and dealt extensively in the sale of farm lands. In partnership with Jonathan Lindsay, they owned a threshing machine, a hand-fed separator run by a straw-burning engine. In 1897 he was appointed Justice of the Peace. He was originally trained as a blacksmith.
Probable Significance: 
Source: Trails to Killarney  p   / Reflections  p.  445

From the Local History Sources...

Born in Renfrew County, Ontario on 28 February 1843, son of George Monteith and Euphemia Crawford, he came with his family to Canada in 1849 and worked for a time as a blacksmith. From 1874 to 1882 he worked in the woolen trade then came to Manitoba, settling on a farmstead five miles south of Killarney. He farmed until 1895 when he moved to Killarney and, until 1903, operated a furniture business after which he retired. In 1867, he married Mary Kilpatrick (1838-1912) of York County, Ontario. They had five children: George Monteith, Robert Ernest Monteith (1870-1957), John Herbert Monteith, Mary Helen Monteith (1874-?), James R. Monteith (1879-1879), and Euphemia Margaret Monteith (1884-?, wife of John R. Hodson). He served for four years as a councillor and nine years as a Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Turtle Mountain. He was the first Mayor of Killarney. He was a member of the IOOF. He moved into Winnipeg in 1922 and died there on 28 March 1930. He was buried in the Killarney Cemetery.
Robert was a councillor, a reeve, Killarney's first mayor and a founder of the Presbyterian church. The Monteiths moved to Killarney in 1896 where Robert had a furniture business until 1912. Mary died in 1912. Robert stayed in Killarney until 1922 when he went to Winnipeg to live with his daughter Helen. He died there in 1930 and is buried beside his wife in Killarney cemetery.   

ROBERT MONTEITH (1843-1930) was born on a farm on Thames Road near Exeter, Ontario. He became a blacksmith but there is only one record of his practice in that skill after he came west. One day he criticized the way David Cullen was sharpening a ploughshare whereupon Cullen handed him the ploughshare and suggested he do it himself. Robert borrowed Cullen's apron and sharpened the ploughshare to his satisfaction.
He married Mary Kilpatrick (1838-1912) in 1867 and later operated a woollen mill at Crediton, Ontario. In March 1882, he joined George Crawford and his family and Mrs. William Craw- ford (Mary Monteith's sister) and her children on their journey to Manitoba. Robert filed for E 10-2-17 and prepared a shelter for his family.
In August Mary Monteith and her five children came out by way of Brandon with her brother John Kilpatrick. With their possessions piled high on a cart drawn by oxen, they drove across the fenceless, roadless, open prairie to their new home. In their first house, a sod shanty with a dirt floor, the two youngest children spent most of the winter playing on the bed. Later a log house was built from logs hauled from Turtle Mountain.
The land was prepared for seeding by a walking plough and harrow drawn by oxen. The seed was broadcast by hand, the grain harvested with a scythe and flailed out. That winter snow had to be melted, not only for household use but to water the oxen.
By 1889 Robert Monteith in partnership with Jonathan Lindsay owned a threshing machine, a hand-fed separator run by a straw-burning engine. Ernie Monteith was water man, W. J. Schnarr fireman, and James Tait a member of the crew.
Robert Monteith served for many years on the Council of Turtle Mountain Municipality, as councillor from 1884-1886, Reeve from 1887-1890 and again after 1893. He became the first mayor of Killarney when the village was incorporated in 1903. He was one of the founders of the original Erskine Presbyterian Church and for many years an elder.
Leaving the farm in 1896, he ran a furniture business in Killarney, an implement business in partnership with George McNamee and dealt extensively in the sale of farm lands. In 1897 he was appointed Justice of the Peace. He retired in 1912 and went to Winnipeg to live with his daughter Helen.

Their second son, Ernest (1870-1957), graduated first from Ontario Agricultural College where he received an honorary fellow- ship for "Valuable Contribution to Veterinary Science" and in 1904 from Manitoba Medical College. He married Catherine McKinnon of Killarney in 1905 and practised in Balcarres, Saskatchewan, until he retired in 1928.

Rollins, Margaret (McGill)

Biography:    d. 1948  m (1904) P.K. Rollins
Claims: In 1904 P. K. Rollins married Margaret McGill (1880-1948), daughter of George McGill of the Neelin district. She had been secretary for James M. Baldwin of the Union Bank, and in 1917 became secretary treasurer of the Municipality of Turtle Mountain, a position she held for thirty years. In 1946 she built the first cottage on the South Shore Land Development.
Probable Significance:  Medium
Source: Trails & Crossroads to Killarney  p. 301   / Reflections  p.