The Ancrum Story

Related Collection: Remembering CFB Rivers

Excerpt from Bradwardine & District, A Century & More, Bradwardine History Book Committee, 2003, p. 13

Wellwood/Ancrum School District

In 1881-82, the Chisholm, Scott, Crowe, Sharman, Doering, Lockhart & McDermid families had all acquired land within a one-mile radius from the SW of Section 16. The area was then known as a part of Lothair district, but would in future be called Ancrum. Robert Chisholm, who owned the SW16, must have been a prime mover in the formation of Wellwood School District as the new school was built on Robert’s land and he also became the first trustee.

In September 1884, a bylaw was enacted by Daly Municipality fixing the boundary and establishing the Protestant School District of Wellwood. In 1885, Ancrum school was built on the west side of SW S1/2 16-12-22, about midway between the corners.

Mr. Robert Chisholm was the first trustee and the first teachers were Miss Cameron and Mr. Hays.

Ancrum

About 1900, the proposed route for the Great Northwest Central included a railway station at Ancrum, then the location of Ancrum school, the Canadian Order of Foresters Hall and St. Matthew’s Anglican Church. (A small two-story house was located immediately south of the old church site and was occupied until about 1946. It was originally intended as a manse.) However, in the final design the company moved the station one mile west to an alternate site at Bradwardine.

Ancrum was apparently not chosen for a townsite by the railway builders due to a dispute about land price and what was claimed to be an unsatisfactory railway grade. The site switch was a common tactic used by railway companies to minimize construction costs by obtaining cheaper land. The school has been gone since the early 1900s, and the Anglican Church manse since about 1950. The Anglican Church was closed and relocated to the farm of Clair and Beth English in 1986, a mile to the north of Bradwardine on Highway #259.

The Forester’s hall was moved to Bradwardine shortly after 1902. Used first as a hall for the Foresters, then as a school, later as a residence during WWII, and finally as a hall for the Canadian Legion, it was destroyed by a fire in 1967.

Today, the only evidence of the small settlement at Ancrum is the stone cairn which marks the site of the former Ancrum school. It may be found three quarters of a mile south of Ancrum cemetery inside the fence on the east side of the road.

A half mile north of the old Ancrum church site, on the northwest corner of the highway, many of the pioneer family members and their descendants are remembered in the well-kept Ancrum Cemetery. A historical cairn is located at the SE corner.

Many other pioneer family names are to be found in the Greenwood Cemetery near Harding in Woodworth Municipality and in Tarbolton Cemetery.