Thursday is here and that means we only have one more work day to go before we can mosey into the weekend. So with that, let me bring you another Thursday Tack and Tale from Stockmen's Memorial Foundation to help ease you through today.
This week the story of the tall, dark and handsome man, who had an incredible resemblance to Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Arthur Wells.
Arthur was born in Ontario and as a young man decided to make his way west. He settled upon Cayley which is just south of High River, Alta. He didn't take much of a liking to the area and its grand farming ways so he would pack up his things and land north west of Cochrane near Grand Valley road.
"I'm not sure who he bought the land from but it was homesteaded by a man named Dan Shine who planted a marvellous row of spruce trees that are still standing tall inside the road," mentioned Jo Hutchinson, a neighbour who lived about three miles from Arthur at the time.
The bachelor raised cattle on his farm and often a time would scoop the snow off the grass in the winter so his herd could graze. He quickly named this entrepreneurial technique 'buffing.' All of the work on Arthur's farm was done with horses. He never was one for too much advancement and preferred the old school ways of doing things. There is a little story that can shed some light on his personality.
One day in 1918, Arthur purchased a new McLaughlin Buick vehicle. Soon after, he drove his housekeeper, Mrs. Mortimer and her little girl, Jean, to Cochrane. Upon getting out of the car, silly Arthur forgot to take the car out of gear and off it rolled into the ditch. There was steam coming from the top of Arthur's head and after arriving home from town, he put the car up on blocks in the garage and never drove it again. Following that mishap, his transportation method would become his white horse or team and wagon.
Jo Hutchinson was a young girl when Arthur settled near her parents farm. She explained Arthur never called her by name and would refer to her as "the kid." She also doesn't recall him ever settling down and getting married.
"There were lots of bachelors in the early days, simply because there was a lack of women, I guess," chuckled Hutchinson. "I don't know whether he ever had any interest in that sort of thing but bachelors were sort of categorized in some respects as either 'dirty' or 'clean.' Some of them kept very nice houses while others spent their time outside working on the farm and couldn't care less what the house was like but he was a fairly clean, house conscious person."
It was a common suit for Arthur to have housekeepers. One whom Hutchinson says she remembers as a child was oddly enough named Mrs. Wells but had no relation.
Arthur took a liking to Hutchinson's parents and that bachelor in him conveniently always knew the right time to turn up for a warm cooked meal. It must have been that perfectly set internal clock of his Sunday's at noon.
"That was common with bachelors who craved a good meal cooked by a woman," remarked Hutchinson.
One year Hutchinson said her family was short of pasture so her father and her drove their few head of cows down Grand Valley to a fella that was renting pasture. He also had a few cattle from others so the cows became mixed. Shortly after taking their cattle to his place, someone drove through the pasture and left the gates open. The cattle were not settled in their new environment and dispersed throughout the hills of Grand Valley.
"I spent the summer riding through the hills looking for our few cows and finally I spotted one of our cows in with some of Mr. Wells cattle. So, I told him - and he didn't believe me - so, I said 'well let's run them into the corral and we will clip the hair on her to check the brand. So we did, and his brand was on the left rib, and he started to clip there to prove that it was his cow and I said 'no use clipping there, clip where our brand is, the right hip' so he rather disgruntled clipped on the right hip and sure enough there was our brand, and he didn't like me from then on," laughed Hutchinson.
Arthur's cattle brand was in fact placed on the left rib and read Y Monogram Reverse J. He never did register a horse brand. Selling his ranch to Dr. Watson in 1957, Arthur would buy a little house in Cochrane and retire. His sweet ride that had been sitting for some time after the ordeal was sold at an auction to a very well known Cochranite, Frank Wills, for $375. Mr. Wills would turn around and make some profit out of that vehicle, cleaning er up nice and selling it to an Imperial Oil guy for $875.
Arthur was known for his sense of humour and having a good discussion, which would never fall short of becoming an argument. He was said to have a loud voice, alongside a slight lisp and you wouldn't miss him in a room saying "Well, I tell yuh."
