Ann Fee
1844-1905
Born: Lindsay, , Ontario, Canada
Died: Ops, Walsh, North Dakota, United States
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">"Francis "Frank" Fee was born to Francis and Jane(McInerney) Fee, at Lindsay, Ontario, Canada, 23 Apr. 1852. He grew to Manhood in Ontario, and in May, 1876, married Anne Coffey. Two children were born to them in Ontario...Charles and Frank Jr.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Early in 1880, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Fee, with their 2 children and accompanied by Mrs. Fee's brother Martin Coffey, started from Ontario to Dakota Territory. They arrived in Grand Forks April 2nd, and built a shanty on the ground where the post office now stands. Mrs. Fee and the children lived there while Mr. Fee and Martin Coffey located their homesteads. It had been planned Charles Fee should choose claims for some twenty or more families of his relatives who were yet in Canada. In order to find so much land close together and unclaimed it was necessary to go into townships which were as yet unsurveyed. They decided on what is now Ops and Prairie Centre Townships. Frank Fee's claim was located in Section 1 of Ops, and Martin Coffey's was in section 35 of Prairie Centre.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">In about May, 1880, Mrs. Fee went out to live on the claim. Besides erecting his homestead buildings, Mr. Fee broke 40 acres of ground that first summer and had it ready for crop in 1881.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">During the summer of 1880, Mr. Fee assisted by Martin Coffey, starting from the surveyed lines of the adjoining townships, by means of a surveyor’s chain and compass, surveyed and staked out claims for his relatives. It was a considerable undertaking to stake out all of these claims and plow a furrow around each quarter, writing the name of each claimant on the stakes of the quarters chosen for him.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">These names and land descriptions were all filed with the Government Land Office to await the opening of the Land when it had been officially surveyed.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">During the winter of 1880-1881, Mr. Fee hauled native lumber from a sawmill somewhere on Forest River and built a large shed for the settlers to store their goods in when they arrived.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">In March, 1881, they came! Altogether comprising a whole emigrant train, people, household goods, livestock, and farm equipments, and stores of feed and supplies. Snow storms shortly after their arrival made considerable inconvenience in taking care of the settlers' property.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">One incident of this was told of how William H. Fee piled sacks of feed around and over their piano which must necessarily stand outside until his house was built.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Naturally, not all of the settlers were satisfied with the selections of claims made for them. Some were thoroughly disgusted with the country in general. Frank Fee was a carpenter by trade and it fell to him to plan many of the new homes and direct the amounts and kinds of lumber needed to build them.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">On a day in May, 1881, word reached Mr. Fee that their land was to be opened for filing at Grand Forks the following day. He called the settlers together and they decided to start out that same evening for Grand Forks. It was up to Mr. Fee to lead the way, as there were no roads to follow!!</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">He started across the prairie straight south aiming to find a crossing of Turtle River of which he knew. There were several teams and wagons in the party.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">They reached the Turtle River far into the night and, when it was apparent that they had not struck the crossing place, they began to blame Mr. Fee for leading them astray, and probably missing their chance at the first filing on their claims!</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Mr. Fee, after searching along the bank of the river in the dark, finally found the crossing, and the company arrived at Stickney in time to take the morning train to Grand Forks, where the filings were made according to the selections made by Mr. Fee the previous summer.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">For over 20 years, Frank Fee and his family lived in Ops Township and during that time, 7 more children were born to him.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">In 1901, Mr. Frank Fee, his wife and children who were still with them, went to Wetaskiwin, Alberta, Canada, and homesteaded there. They lived there until their deaths, Mrs. Fee in 1902, and Mr. Fee in 1933or 35.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">A train laden with farm machinery, lumber, cows, horses, and household goods belonging to a group of settlers bound for the prairies of Dakota left Lindsay, Ont. in the spring of 1881. They arrived in Minto May 21, 1881.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Francis Fee, nicknamed "Columbus Fee" by his friends, had gone ahead to Dakota in 1880, and set up the basis for making homestead claims for himself and several of his brothers and married sisters and their families, also his wife's two brothers, William and Martin Coffey.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">It must have been a great exodus from Lindsay. In addition to the two Coffey brothers and his own family, "Columbus Fee" had persuaded two brothers, William Henry and Charles Fee, and his sisters and their husbands and families, Mr. and Mrs. Pat (Ann) Callaghan, Mary Jane and Thomas Graham, James and Ellen Miller, William and Bridget O'Keefe, and Michael and Catherine Cayley.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">These people homesteaded in Ops Township which they named after a township of the same name near Lindsay. The Fees and their families had claims and lived for the first years in so shanties and "claim shacks" on the prairies, planting trees and breaking sod.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Winters were cruel to these people from the lower reaches of Canada. Summer heat with flies and mosquitoes must have made life nearly unbearable at times.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">One of the Fee sisters, Mrs. Cayley lost all three of her children within a few days from the disease known as "Black Diphtheria." They are buried side by side in St. Patrick's Cemetery in Minto. Catherine Cayley was not daunted and had seven other sons and a daughter.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Jane Fee, the mother of this pioneer family, who was born Jane McInerney in 1811, died in 1883 and was probably the first to be buried in the cemetery of St.Luke's in Veseleyville. The stone is still there. How odd that this woman , born on the Irish Sea, who spent her first years in Scotland, and most of the remainder of her life in Ontario, who must have been a Presbyterian, to have been interred in alien soil, in a totally new country, where her grave would become surrounded by graves bearing Czechoslavakian names. This woman has descendants in almost every town from Walhalla to</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Grand Forks and some on each coast and Canada.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Columbus Fee eventually got the "pioneer fever" again and took the younger members of his family to Alberta. He was an artist, a writer, a musician, and a seeker. He joined the Salvation Army later in life and achieved a reputation for himself."</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Information from Alice Anderson provided by Tom Whalen</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> </p>