[the following is one of the more bitter accounts of the Barr Colonists' adventures. It is included as it captures something of the sentiment that many of the colonists came to have of Mr. Barr and his scheme.]
From: James J. Walker
St. Onyth
Clacton-on-Sea
Essex, England
"The Barr Colony"
At the moment when the problem of finding a sanctuary for a multitude of persecuted Jews is so acutely demanding solution it may be of interest to recall the last great exodus of homeseekers from England to Canada in the year 1903.
There had already been sundry organized pilgrimages since the Mayflower landed her contingent in New England in 1620, but few that had less of the light of day thrown upon them this extraordinary adventure. Extraordinary in the first place because it was engineered by a Jew ... the unorthodox Issac "Moses" Barr. Secondly because it so successfully appealed to the gullibility of 2,000 Englishmen and women; and lastly for the reason that although the Home Government, the English Press, and the Canadian authorities were all observant of the size to which the venture had grown on the eve of its departure, no official move was made to see that guidance or superintendence was offered or imposed.
Maybe very little blame lies with our own people here for at that period there was such a huge flow of emigration from England that this large party easily escaped critical survey in the general movement.
From this country and the continent, Canada was absorbing immigrants by the thousand weekly; passage rates were cut low and all outgoing ships were full. There was, at that time, no limit to the number of families which the prairie provinces were prepared to accept.
Russian wheat shipments to England were being successfully combated by the increasingly large crops from Manitoba and the West, and no serious competition was yet visible from the Argentine. Emigration was therefore such a commonplace topic that this big scheme - controlled by one man for that one man’s sole personal benefit - was allowed to proceed on its unhappy course to the despair of most of its members, the financial ruin of many, and its own ultimate disintegration.
It has not been possible to fully trace the antecedents of the "Reverend" Issac Moses Barr - for with this title, and in clerical costume, he came to England in 1902. He had conceived his plans somewhere in the United States, where he was living; crossed into Canada to perfect them with the Immigration Dept. and the C. P. R., and arrived in London fortified to all appearances with every necessary official recognition. For the furtherance of his ends he acted as locum-tenens for a North London cleric who was taking an extended holiday. Then, as if to ensure the perfect atmosphere, he rented offices in Temple Chambers exactly opposite the Law Courts.
Barr was clever and had no scruples. He was here with a big scheme and no one suspected that he was the bigger schemer. He obtained publication of long articles on "The Land of the Golden Grain" and these gave him boost that he needed. He then found outlets in all direction for his booklet describing his proposal for an "All British Colony" in Saskatchewan.
His offices were adorned with an assortment of Canadian trifles likely to intrigue the hundreds of us who interviewed him. In brief his proposal was to gather together a company of 2,000 souls; charter a vessel to carry us across the Atlantic; transport us another 2,000 miles over the C. P. R. line to a large area of fertile land, the location of which had already been agreed upon by the Immigration Dept. of the Canadian Government, and there set up the "All British Colony", complete with Community Stores, Hospital, Library, and what not.
The first direct question he put to me when I entered his sanctum was "How much money have you?" "How much money have you to invest in our Stores; how much to help towards the cost of Hospital equipment and the engagement of nurses? How many bell tents would you like me to buy for you? Would you like horses or oxen purchased for you in advance by my agent in readiness for the long trek ahead of us after arrival at the rail terminus? Would you like to take some shares in our transport service, which is certain to be one of our most profitable activities? How much?’-and always "How much?" And so gullible James and trustful John, flattered by the enquiry and proud in the possession of £300 apiece laid their cards upon the table and allowed this stranger to shuffle and deal.
The scheme was attractive enough on the face of it and had it been born of the Canadian Government and officially nursed by them it would presumably have been a success. But Barr, unsuspected by us, was just a common Commission Agent working on a basis of five dollars from the C. P. R. for every full fare, long journey, passenger he could steer into their booking-office. I will not hazard a guess at the profit Barr made out of the chartering of the S. S. Lake Manitoba for the passage from Liverpool. She had just finished bringing home troops from South Africa and was about to change ownership. This was her final trip under the old Beaver Line flag.
On March 31st, 1903, the "Lake Manitoba" sailed from Liverpool with approximately 2,000 souls aboard. It would have been more in the fitness of things if she had delayed her start until the next day, April 1st! For if ever a big bunch of people started out on an All Fool’s errand it surely was this company of "Barr Lambs". As soon as we boarded ship and viewed the confusion, the overcrowding, the unreadiness, we sensed that we were just ‘lambs’ for the slaughter. Here was a ship normally accommodating say 750 passengers all told. Stripped, for transport of troops, she would carry maybe 1,500. The excessive overcrowding of the ship revealed within the next few hours an incredible disregard for the privacy of married couples and single women. The accommodation which did exist in what were styled the Married Quarters was swallowed up by those who had made their reservations early and by those who were first to board the boat. The reminder of us were summarily directed to the various decks which for the next twelve days were to be our uncomfortable lodging.
Sanitary and ablutionary arrangements were at a discount. Drinking water was obtainable at two points only, viz. In the Married Quarters and on the 1st class deck.
The mountains of baggage which had in 2 or 3 days become piled up in the quay sheds defied assortment at the last moment and was all shot down into the holds, without any attempt at discrimination between "Wanted on the Voyage" and "Not wanted". A distressing mess and quite impossible of retrievement. Confusion supreme!
It is safe to estimate that there were at least one thousand men women and children who had to complete that sea trip without a change of garments, and minus those innumerable small "comforts" which, for weeks in advance, had been so hopefully prepared and packed for the journey.
There were 257 men in the "cabin" which I occupied. On Thursday April 2nd, having twice called upon Barr to come down and examine our grievances we sent a deputation to a cleric who was accompanying the party as a Missioner - the Revd. G. E. Lloyd - (later the Rt. Revd. G. E. Lloyd, D.D. Bishop of Saskatchewan). We showed him the wretched "pudding" which was being served to us under the guise of bread. We took him into the adjoining cabin which formed part of the Married Quarters and showed him how single men were occupying some of the berths there. That there were women sleeping in the Library (which so many of us were anxious to use); that there were men sleeping on our dining-tables, and some in "other places" without beds. He admitted he already knew. But as for remedying anything - what could he do! We questioned him on the matter of Barr’s integrity, and he was full of misgivings, like ourselves. He did his utmost to encourage the hopes of the emigrants by addressing as many as could hear him on the deck each day. In addition to his regular services in the Saloon he came down to our cabin twice and preached to us. We liked him, instinctively trusted him, and responded as best we could to the gospel of optimism which he expounded.
On Tuesday [April] 7th [1903], just a week after sailing, we were gratified to receive a big bunch of letters which had been addressed to us c/o the ship at Liverpool. Welcome enough at this late stage but another pointer to the loose management which characterized the whole conduct of the expedition. On Thursday 9th, more letters and telegrams were showers upon us, having at last been unearthed in the "clean up" which was evidently in process as we neared the end of our passage. On Saturday 11th, our last day in deep water, a collection was made all over the ship with the object of presenting to the Revd. G. E. Lloyd a team of horses and a "sulky" in recognition of his efforts to instruct and encourage us. He so rightly appreciated our growing uneasiness and showed such a brotherly understanding of our fears that we had resolved at various meetings on different decks to entrust ourselves to his guidance alone.
Barr had, from the day of embarkation, discarded his clerical garments in favour of a lounge suit, but not yet did we suspect, nor did the Revd. Lloyd realize, that Barr had been brazenly imposing upon us in this direction! He was not Church of England clergyman! All too late was this discovery made.
We reached St. John, New Brunswick, on Sunday April 12th, all very eager to disembark, and commenced to entrain on the following day. At the end of that week, after discomforts inseparable from a journey of 2,000 miles in third class coaches in what was still the Canadian winter, we reached Saskatoon - then the terminal point of that branch of the line - and were literally dumped out on to bare prairie. Our first train carried a quantity of baggage and stores but only a very inadequate portion of the bell tents which were necessary for our party. They had been paid for in advance by all of us and it was another unpardonable delinquency on the part of Barr and his staff that they were not obtainable immediately upon arrival.
We found two or three typical Western "Saloons"; a couple of livery stables and a few wooden buildings of one sort and another on the spot, and these gave a night’s shelter to as many of our women who could be crammed into them. The rest of us who were without cover did the best we could in the cold coaches which were stationary in the siding.
A further truckload of tents arrived next day and eagerly we surrounded it, clamouring for it to be opened. But Barr, protesting that individuals who had bought none at all might purloin the property of those who had, or that men entitled to two tents might get away with three, refused to break the lock until we could hunt up the receipts he had given us against the cash we had paid him in London. Barr had now climbed to the roof of the car accompanied by the one "Mountie" who had been sent to the district to keep an eye on us. Having been assured by our spokesman that unless he quickly unfastened the locks we would break them loose ourselves he threatened to shoot the first man who attempted force. However, a few words of timely advice from the Constable induced him to revise his ideas; the car was opened and our demands supplied. If any wrong was done by any Colonist in this hour it was as a flea-bite to the wrong which Barr had already inflicted upon us by inducing us to purchase shares to various offshoots of the venture which he had determined from the start should not mature. He had come thus far with us but he was no longer our leader. The Revd. Lloyd was now taking charge, although it was not until Barr in his folly had exposed himself in a state of unashamed drunkenness at the Queen’s Hotel, Battleford, that the former finally repudiated him. Barr hung about for a few weeks pursued by those of us to whom he was in debt. With the assistance of a lawyer who was induced to come in from the town of Rosthern, writs were served upon him and his movements were restricted to a defined area until he had cleared his liabilities. In two well remembered instances he was forcibly "held up" by creditors possessed of more spirit than the rest of us and was compelled to disgorge.
Everything that he could turn into cash he had disposed of even to the several cases of books, in part given to us by friends and in part donated by our own members, which were to have formed our library. "I paid the freight on them, and I want my money back" was his rejoinder to our challenge over the matter.
And so, one morning when the eyes of the "Mountie" were not upon him, he climbed into the outgoing train and was lost to us - for ever.
His brother, Jack Barr, a man of long experience in the West, had been deputed to procure horses and oxen for us. Unprincipled, and cunning to a degree not quickly apprehended by newcomers like ourselves, he speedily waxed fat upon our ignorance and credulity; had his day and later died in the Asylum at North Battleford. Let him pass.
Barr’s advance agent, one W. S. Bromhead, arrived in Saskatoon three weeks ahead of the main party and connived with the storekeepers, who had hurriedly established themselves in anticipation of our arrival, for a schedule of prices on all commodities purchased by members of the Colony which would provide a "rake-off" of 10% - 20% for Barr’s own exchequer. There were two honourable exceptions who refused to be parties to this fraud, but see how we were hemmed in on all sides by organized graft! Graft, naked and unashamed! The price of flour in our "All British" store (Barr’s satellites were in control here for we had as yet no Committee or Secretary nor Manager of our own) was six dollars (25/-) per 98 lb. bag. We could drive ninety-miles further west to Battleford (Headquarters of the N. W. Mounted Police) and purchase the same quantity for 14/6. Potatoes in our Store was six dollars per bag of 90 lb; the price in Battleford just three dollars only. At the few places where meals were procurable in Saskatoon the uniform price was one dollar (4/2) although these were the days of the shilling meal all over the West. This latter situation was not relieved until Mr. Speers of Griswold, a Government deputy who was present taking stock of the position, rushed up some C. P. Ry. "boarding cars" to provide us with the properly priced meal. The "Chattham" wagon at 85 dollars and the "Bain" ditto at 82 dollars provided a commission of 12 dollars in each instance for Barr, according to the admission of the local Agents. Thus, and thus, and thus, was the fleecy wool plucked form the lambs.
On May 18th, the Revd. Lloyd was free to assume full charge of the expedition and preparations for departure were begun in earnest. To about one half of our original number the scheme had been for the past few weeks in a state of suspended animation. The remaining half had evaporated. It need not be a matter for surprise that during five weeks of enforced inactivity in an environment so strange, at a time when climatic conditions were so unfamiliarly cold, with an organization so perilously near disruption, amongst a small army of people who had never previously wandered more than fifty miles from their doorsteps, there were a good many unhappy ones who decided to withdraw. Individuals who had no appreciable stake in the Colony drifted off in search of work elsewhere. Others who had so far hesitated to admit the certainty of their losses now lost heart altogether and returned home.
At this not-quite-too-late moment, the Canadian Government should have sent a Supervisor to assist. Revd. Lloyd pleaded with Ottawa, but beyond the loan of one or two Land Agents to help us in locating our "quarter sections" no aid was forthcoming from that direction. Yet they knew the position in full. Canadian papers had sent their reporters amongst us and were daily blazoning our extremities. English papers from the "Star" to "Truth" were loaded with correspondence and editorials.
The folly of our presence there, in tents, on the prairie, in the month of April, before the winter had commenced to break, in clothing entirely unsuited to the temperature, had dawned upon us and discouraged us. To obtain water we had to descend the banks of the Saskatchewan River and chop the ice. The occupants of every one of the hundreds of tents had to purchase a stove for the dual purpose of cooking and heating. Snow fell heavily and it became a matter of the most ridiculous difficulty for us to locate our own tents again after wandering from them for any purpose. It had not occurred to our uninstructed minds that these should have been "lined up" in military style in the first place.
Necessity therefore compelled many of us to erect poles with a distinguishing signal at the summit - a red scarf, a football, etc. These became serviceable landmarks for the many of us who were constantly losing our bearings.
There was, inevitably, some sickness amongst us and some regrettable deaths. Within few days of each other we buried Mr. Wood and another member who was crushed between freight cars during shunting operations. This last was a sad case, for the widow was left with three little mites under four years of age. The whole of their capital had been exhausted so Mr. Speers provided her with flour, firewood, and other immediate necessaries and we left her bravely fighting it out at the washtub.
One baby was born in camp whilst we were still embedded in snow. Its advent brought the number of that little "Erhard" family to eleven - the largest by far. It is worth noting that at that time the Dominion was so hungry for settlers it would allow a man and wife to bring eight small children to an uncultivated spot in the West content in the knowledge that they would not likely become a public charge. Today no shipping company would accept the risk of carrying them across.
In those days the need of men to gather the crops in August and September was so great that not only were trainloads of harvesters enlisted in the Eastern provinces and given cheap excursion rates, but hundreds from the British Isles would make the journey for the same purpose and return home with money in pocket in time for Christmas.
Day by day the camp had diminished in size and now, the snow having melted, the last long trek of 200 miles began. The sloughs were giving up their long winter’s frost to the warming winds and the line of route soon became littered with "casualties" - bogged and mired pioneers in search of the promised land.
Farming was, of course, the primary object of the Colony but not five per cent of its members possessed any experience in that direction. In their eyes this was a minor shortcoming when they recalled the well advertised reputation of the Canadian Prairie - "tickle it with a drill and it will laugh a harvest".
On the border line dividing the two provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, the pioneers eventually came to a halt and christened their settlement Lloydminster in place of the originally determined Barrville. There being no scarcity of funds the building of residences and stores proceeded apace during the summer months, so that with the immediate advent of banks, elevators, and merchants [including Chinese lunch counters and laundries], a spacious town arose upon the erstwhile barren prairie.
Lloydminster grew and prospered in a leisurely way and was becoming one of the substantial little towns of the West when in the summer of 1929 it was swept by fire and virtually wiped out. This calamity cost the Insurance Companies over £75,000 and provided leisure once again for abundant repentance to many of the original colonists.
Saskatoon reaped where we had sown and grew at mushroom speed until its population now exceeds 50,000 souls. Compare this with 113 in 1903! Five mighty bridges - three railway and two traffic - span the river and, in addition to the main lines of the two great transcontinental companies, the city is served by no less than eight branch lines from all points of the compass. The total grain storage capacity has now reached the figure of 8,500,000 bushels, of which the Quaker Oats Company take care of 1,500,000; the Robin Hood Flour Mills 1,300,000, and the Dominion Government Terminal Elevator the balance.
Much is being said and written upon the subject of large scale emigration to Australia and Canada. When it can be accomplished it will surely benefit immeasurably both those dominions and the motherland. But it will call for a large degree of selection on this side and positive supervision on the other. It will call also for considerable measure of financial support from this side and a well studied system of infiltration in the Dominion.
Never again will there be a repetition of the Barr Colony muddle where a couple of thousand ignorant wanderers can be allowed to squat down upon a patch of remote soil in the smug delusion that they can amass a fortune and create a city by taking in each other’s washing.
[article courtesy of the Lloydminster Regional Archives]