SASKATCHEWAN AND ITS PEOPLE
1924
Volume II

         
EVOLUTION OF TOWNS AND VILLAGES.
  


THE COUNTRY POST OFFICE.


There are country post offices today, sufficiently remote, but condi-
tions are wonderfully different. The telephone and the motor car have
gone far to annihilate distance, and render social isolation a thing of the
past. The remuneration of the rural post master was almost a joke. The
Times correspondent informed the British public in 1886 that the salary
of the Craven post master was two dollars per annum. There was often
competition among the settlers as to who should have the honor and glory
of being post master. It was not a question of money, but of social pres-
tige. The homesteader who had the post office took rank among his fel-
lows. His farm was the hub of the settlement. Everybody had to come
to that particular quarter section. for mail. There was variety of course,
but a common practice was when the mail man arrived in his buckboard
or democrat wagon, or bob-sleigh or jumper as the case might be, to empty
the mail bag on the table, when the settlers helped themselves, each pick-
ing out his own mail. The post office was thus a common meeting place.


When the C. P. R. opened in 1882 it issued a map or maps. We have a
lively recollection of one. South of the line in Eastern Assiniboia was
a great blank, with two places only marked and they were marked in
heavy type, which had a very important look, suggestive of important
towns. They were Montgomery, south of Whitewood and, a few miles
from the U. S. Boundary, Carnduff. As a matter of fact the only claim
of these places to such prominent distinction was that they were post
offices. Montgomery was John Dermody's farm house, and Carnduff was
the far-away farm of John Carnduff, after whom the present town was
named. Mr. Hewgill, the pioneer school inspector, whose memory will
long be cherished, told me rather an amusing experience of his on his
first visit to the south country.  Misled by the bold-faced type I have
mentioned, he was looking for what he took to be the considerable village
of Carnduff. At length it began to dawn upon him that he must be out of
his way, and fortunately just then he met a man on horseback. "Is this
the way to Carnduff"" he asked. "Yes"! "Thank you", and he chirruped
to his team to get along. "Say!" said the man, "you're wrong." "But this
is the way to Carnduff you said". "Yes, but you're going to the wrong
way". Mr. Hewgfll had passed Carnduff miles before. Instead of being
a village it was just John Carnduff's homestead, without another building
near it. Carnduff has now been for many years a town with a Mayor and
Corporation, although it is not on the site of Mr. John Carnduff's home-
stead.


Bibliography follows:

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