In 1881, John Brown McLaren, a young lawyer from Ontario, wrote an article on the Mennonites of Manitoba for Picturesque Canada, an illustrated survey of the nation’s regions, edited by George Monro Grant. This article, based on McLaren’s travels through the West Reserve, describes a people whose religion and culture were alien to him. He found them to be “honest, upright and moral,” but said that the “filthiness of their domestic habits” brought them disrespect from “the ‘white men’ of the country.” He claimed that the men were slow workers, and he noted that “a large share of the out-door work falls to the lot of the women.” Nonetheless, McLaren declared them to be “excellent pioneers” and asserted that they would gradually adapt to Canadian ways.¹

Lamentably little attention has been directed at lawyers like McLaren who assisted the Mennonites of the West Reserve in their adaptation to Canada. In the reserve, he quickly earned the reputation as someone among the “English” who could be entrusted with Mennonite affairs. Having first established a law practice in the town of Nelson, he moved a few years later to the town of Morden, in the northwest corner of the reserve’s original boundaries. McLaren was sought out by Wilhelm Rempel, the secretary-treasurer of the newly formed Rural Municipality of Rhineland, in 1884. It seems likely Rempel acted at the instigation of Jarvis Mott, an early legitimate homesteader settler near the “Menno-Canuck” line who was elected the first reeve of Rhineland, heading up a reluctant council of Mennonites.² The minutes of the municipal council record that J. B. McLaren was to be appointed solicitor for the municipality and that the clerk should notify him; McLaren accepted.³ In the years that followed he would play a significant role in settling legal disputes and navigating the intricacies of government bureaucracy for Mennonites.

A news item in the October 12, 1894, Morden Herald reported that a delegation was at work to secure a new reserve for Mennonites in the Canadian Northwest, and had recently met in Winnipeg with Thomas Mayne Daly, minister of the interior and Indian affairs in the Conservative federal government.⁴ A stream of new immigrants from Russia and the natural growth of families in the now prosperous West Reserve had produced a growing demand for land.⁵ Daly was noted as being sympathetic to immigrants generally, and the presence of Mennonites in his Manitoba riding must have made him familiar with their commitment to farming and their proven ability as settlers.

In negotiations with the government, McLaren acted as the representative for the Reinlaender (or Old Colony) Mennonites, who were under the leadership of Aeltester (elder or bishop) Johann Wiebe and Obervorsteher (overseer) Franz Froese. McLaren had already written to the minister of the interior on February 21, 1894, requesting help in obtaining two widely separated townships.⁶ After being informed that these townships were not yet surveyed and not likely to be reached by rail for some time, McLaren responded that his clients would consider adjacent townships.⁷ By the fall of 1894 their attention had shifted to the Prince Albert district.

The Department of the Interior was slow to respond to the request, as evidenced by a letter from McLaren to Daly on November 14, 1894. McLaren wrote, “I should be glad if you would let me know soon what has been decided in regard to the Application of the Mennonites for a Reserve of land in the Prince Albert District about which I called on you in Winnipeg with Mr. Froese and the Bishop.”⁸ Mennonites had applied for a reserve comprising township 40 in ranges 3, 4, and 5, and township 41 in range 4, all west of the third meridian.⁹ The proposed reserve would straddle the rail line built between Regina and Prince Albert, known as the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake, and Saskatchewan Railway. By December 24, Minister Daly wrote a letter to the governor general recommending the creation of the reserve for Mennonites.¹⁰

On January 7, 1895, McLaren again wrote to Daly to inquire about the matter. The letter smacks of frustration but also shows an understanding of the political situation: “Mr. Froese was in again today to enquire whether we had heard from you in regard to the Mennonite Reservation asked for in the Prince Albert District. I told him that I had not yet received your decision, but that owing to the death of Sir John Thompson [the prime minister] and consequent changes in the Cabinet your contemplated action in the matter might have been delayed. I promised, however, to write you again requesting to inform me as soon as you possibly could of your decision, as the people cannot make arrangements until they know it and they are anxious to begin their preparations at once.”¹¹ There must have been a degree of rapport between McLaren and Daly which permitted such bluntness.

On January 23, an order-in-council was issued reserving the even-numbered sections of the requested townships for Mennonite settlement. This was the so-called Hague Reserve. Mennonites, however, did not hear the news until late February. This delay explains why McLaren wrote to Daly with impatience on February 20. He stated: “My clients are getting more and more restless every day, as the time is already at hand when preparations should be underway for their removal.”¹² The letter demonstrates the significance of McLaren’s role as an intermediary between Mennonites and government officials.

Since the odd-numbered sections of the reserved townships had already been granted to the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake, and Saskatchewan Railway, per government policy, an agreement had to be reached if Mennonites were to have exclusivity on these sections. At the prompting of Froese and Wiebe, McLaren wrote Daly suggesting they be reserved for a term of at least five years for a maximum price of $2.50 per acre.¹³ Daly told McLaren to contact the Winnipeg office of the brokerage firm serving as agents for the railway.¹⁴ McLaren must have personally acted on this information as subsequently Mennonites occupied both the odd- and even-numbered sections. As this was happening, the Mennonitische Rundschau reported that Wiebe and Froese and “others” had made an agreement with the CPR to transport settlers from the West Reserve to the Hague Reserve.¹⁵ The unnamed others likely included McLaren, perhaps performing a crucial role in negotiations.

With migration starting in the spring of 1895, the Reinland Mennonite Association, under the direction of Froese, undertook to provide financial support for the aspiring farmers, largely poor and young, who intended to settle in the new reserve. Over the next years McLaren’s firm devoted significant time to placing the settlers on a sound legal footing with regard to homestead filings. It helped the association with the registration of liens against the quarter sections the homesteaders were allotted (although they actually settled in traditional compact
villages).¹⁶ For this service the firm charged a fixed sum of ten dollars per lien.

In January 1898, McLaren wrote Daly’s successor, Clifford Sifton, on behalf of the Reinland Mennonite Association, to request township 41, range 3, offering, if it was required, to exchange it for township 40, range 5. Mennonites reasoned this would make the reserve more compact and give it better access to water.¹⁷ Having received no response by early March, and with Mennonites anxious for an answer before a spring migration, McLaren sent another letter to the minister.¹⁸ A month later, with approximately seventy families preparing to leave Manitoba for the Prince Albert district, the exchange request was dropped in favour of simply adding the latter township.¹⁹ Sifton, who had served as attorney general and minister of education in the Manitoba provincial government, was very familiar with Mennonites, and with McLaren personally. Mennonites would find favour with him as the type of “men in sheepskin coats” that were his ideal immigrants. By June 24, an order-in-council was proclaimed setting aside township 41, range 3, for Mennonites only.

In early February 1898, McLaren and his wife moved to Winnipeg, where he threw himself into his new position as a manager of the Canada Landed and National Investment Company, which he had served as an agent for years. By this time he had added two partners to his law practice in Morden, A. McLeod and J. H. Black. Although McLaren remained involved, much of the minutia of correspondence regarding the Reinlaender Mennonites fell to them.

The settlement of the added township was one matter McLeod and Black had to address on behalf of the Reinland Mennonite Association. The Commissioner of Immigration in Winnipeg and the Dominion Lands Office in Prince Albert had settled Ukrainian immigrants on that land in 1898 before they received the order-in-council reserving it for Mennonites.²⁰ Conflicting claims by Mennonite and Ukrainian settlers were the subject of much legal correspondence over the next two years. During two of the most protracted disputes, Black and McLeod accused officials of the Dominion Lands Office of obstruction and deceit for trying to resolve these claims in favour of the Ukrainians who had already settled on the land.²¹ Eventually both Mennonites abandoned their claims.

Mennonite homesteaders also encountered problems when in 1899 they began to apply for patents to their land after fulfilling the three years of residency required by the Dominion Lands Act. These applications were refused on the ground that they had not cultivated separate homesteads. Instead they had settled in villages and farmed the land of their pooled quarter sections according to a waiver to the Dominion Lands Act known as the “hamlet privilege,” which was first granted in Manitoba. Under his discretionary power, Minister Daly had promised Mennonites this privilege when they requested the Hague Reserve, but Dominion Lands officials refused to acknowledge this exception to the law.

McLaren took up the matter directly with Minister Sifton, his long-time political friend. In November 1899, McLaren, accompanied by Froese, met with Sifton on his private railway car as he returned through Winnipeg after a tour through the West. In a letter after their meeting, McLaren recapitulated the agreement with Daly about the use of the hamlet settlement pattern. McLaren reminded Sifton that he had agreed to review the matter so that he could rectify the intransigence of the agents, either through ministerial order or by legislation.²² At Sifton’s recommendation an order-in-council was issued reaffirming the hamlet privilege for the Hague Reserve.²³

Ten years after their initial meeting with Minister Daly in 1894, McLaren and Froese requested another reserve for Mennonites in what would become the province of Saskatchewan. This request was made because the land near the Hague Reserve had been settled to the extent that further compact village settlement would not be possible. The area they requested, south of Swift Current, had been ignored by settlers and the CPR because of its semi-aridity. It was deliberately selected so that conflict with other settlers would be minimized. In early July 1904, Froese and fellow Reinlaender John Wall met with Sifton in Ottawa, unaccompanied by a lawyer, to discuss the proposed settlement. McLeod, not McLaren, wrote a lengthy letter of introduction to D. A. Stewart, of the Department of the Interior. Enclosed with the letter was an appeal from Aeltester Johann Wiebe.McLeod explained that “Mr. McLaren and Mr. Froese [had previously] waited on Mr. Sifton in Ottawa (just after the election, I think) and he arranged to provide a reserve for these people somewhere but nothing definite was done since then . . .”²⁴

The Reinland Mennonite Association sought an exclusive reserve of four and a half townships that could be settled using the hamlet privilege. Sifton questioned the suitability of these lands for settlement, but nevertheless rapidly acceded to the request, and recommended to the Privy Council that six townships be set aside for Mennonites. Odd-numbered sections adjoining even-numbered homesteads would be made available for purchase at three dollars an acre.²⁵ An order-in-council to this effect was issued on August 13.

By 1905, McLaren’s role had devolved to the status of senior advisor; correspondence and advocacy fell to McLeod and Black, who were running the Morden law office. About this time, in March 1905, Sifton was replaced by Frank Oliver as minister of the interior. McLaren’s firm took extra care to make sure the issue of conflicting claims was not repeated at Swift Current, which they emphasized in correspondence with Oliver.²⁶

While negotiations for the Swift Current reserve were underway in the summer of 1904, some eighteen homesteads were filed by non-Mennonites on the site of the future reserve. McLaren’s firm responded by instructing Dominion Lands officials that further homestead entries should only be approved to persons holding a certificate from Obervorsteher Froese.²⁷ The McLaren firm was engaged again in 1906 to ensure homesteads could be registered under the hamlet privilege, which became an issue because not enough families had migrated to the new reserve to constitute a hamlet.²⁸

In late 1906 the Reinlaender Bruderschaft (brotherhood) requested that Froese meet directly with government officials in Ottawa. Froese would only agree to such a trip if he could take along a lawyer. McLeod accompanied Froese to a meeting intended to protect Mennonite homestead entries despite not yet meeting the requirements of the hamlet clause. At this time McLeod delivered a cheque from Froese in the amount of $7,696, held in trust, for payment of pre-emptive land purchases in the Swift Current reserve.²⁹

West Reserve resident Peter A. Elias mentioned in his memoir that the trip cost the Reinlaender “the tidy sum of $335.” He questioned the community’s frequent use of a lawyer, “seeing that such a person argues against our teaching” and “only works for the money.” He continued, “It has almost come to the point in our Gemeinde that nothing can be done without a solicitor, be it an inheritance or any business transaction.”³⁰ One wonders if this was an indictment against McLaren, McLeod, and Black in particular or lawyers in general.

McLaren’s attitude towards Mennonites was generally sympathetic. Cordial relations and strong business connections developed between them. However, differences still existed. While McLaren vigorously represented and defended the peculiar interests of Mennonites (such as the hamlet privilege) during negotiations with government officials, he still held a personal belief in the necessity of Canadianizing and integrating foreign settlers. Many Mennonites would eventually fulfill his prediction, first made in Grant’s Picturesque Canada, and adapt to their adopted homeland.

Albert Siemens lives in Winkler and is an active local history buff. His roots in Manitoba go back to 1875, with the arrival of great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. He is the author of Whisky Sales and Hotel Tales of the Mennonite West Reserve, 1873–1916 (2018).

1. J. B. McLaren, “The North-West: The Mennonites,” in Picturesque Canada: The Country as it Was and Is, ed. George Monro Grant, vol. 1 (Toronto: Belden Bros., 1882), 324. ↩︎
2. Gerhard Ens, The Rural Municipality of Rhineland, 1884–1984: Volost & Municipality (Altona, MB: R.M. of Rhineland, 1984), 49. One wonders if Mott viewed his role with Mennonites as a “Canadianizing” influence. The “Menno-Canuck” line redrew part of the western boundary of the West Reserve to account for land at the reserve’s edge that had been settled by squatters from Ontario. ↩︎
3. Minutes of the RM of Rhineland, Jan. 3, 1885, p. 9. ↩︎
4. Mordern Herald, Oct. 12, 1894, 4. ↩︎
5. Franz Froese made a trip to British Columbia and the North-West Territories prior to July of 1894. He probably included Price Albert on his itinerary travelling on the newly constructed rail line from Regina. ↩︎
6. Adolf Ens, Subject or Citizens? The Mennonite Experience in Canada, 1870–1925 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1994), 87. ↩︎
7. McLaren to Secretary, Department of the Interior, April 18, 1894, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 15, D-II-1, vol. 652, file 270476. Available at Canadiana Héritage (https://heritage.canadiana.ca/), reel T-14401. ↩︎
8. McLaren to T. Mayne Daly, Minister of the Interior, Nov. 14, 1894, Ibid. ↩︎
9. Daly to A.M. Burgess, Nov. 3, 1894, Ibid. ↩︎
10. Minister of the Interior to Governor General, Dec. 24, 1894, Ibid. ↩︎
11. McLaren to Secretary, Department of the Interior, Jan. 7, 1895, Ibid. ↩︎
12. McLaren to Daly, Feb. 20, 1895, Ibid. ↩︎
13. McLaren to Daly, Apr. 2, 1895, Ibid. ↩︎
14. Daly to McLaren, May 2, 1895, Ibid. ↩︎
15. Mennonitische Rundschau, May 1, 1895, 1. ↩︎
16. LAC, RG 15, D-II-1, vol. 718, file 379364 consists of documents relating to these liens. See Canadiana Héritage, reel T-12446, images 1034–1319. Thirty-two liens had been registered as of Dec. 17, 1898 (image 1273). ↩︎
17. McLaren to Minister of the Interior, Jan. 27, 1898, LAC, RG 15, D-II-1, vol. 652, file 270476. ↩︎
18. McLaren to Minister of the Interior, Mar. 8, 1898, Ibid. ↩︎
19. McLaren to Minister of the Interior, Apr. 7, 1898, Ibid. ↩︎
20. Agent of Dominion Lands at Prince Albert to Department of the Interior, Oct. 6, 1898, Ibid. ↩︎
21. McLaren, McLeod & Black to Secretary, Department of the Interior, June 21, 1900, Ibid. ↩︎
22. McLaren to Clifford Sifton, Minister of Interior, Nov. 24, 1899, Ibid. ↩︎
23. Extract from a Report of the Committee of the Honourable the Privy Council, Mar. 6, 1900, Ibid. ↩︎
24. McLaren to D.A. Stewart, Department of the Interior, July 6, 1904, LAC, RG 15, D-II-1, vol. 940, file 917620. See Canadiana Héritage, reel T-14532. ↩︎
25. Clifford Sifton, Memorandum for Mr. Smart, July 14, 1904, Ibid. ↩︎
26. A. Ens, Subjects or Citizens, 101n46. ↩︎
27. Ibid., 93. ↩︎
28. McLaren, McLeod & Black to Secretary, Department of the Interior, Dec. 4, 1906, LAC, RG 15, D-II-1, vol. 940, file 917620. ↩︎
29. A. McLeod to Secretary, Department of the Interior, Dec. 4, 1906, Ibid. ↩︎
30. Peter A. Elias, Voice in the Wilderness, trans. and ed. Adolf Ens and Henry Unger (Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2013), 78. ↩︎