Millford Cemetery

The Millford Cemetery is a rare designated site recalling and celebrating an interesting phenomenon in the early-settlement era (1870-80) in southern Manitoba, when boom towns were established in anticipation of the arrival of the railway service, but were then abandoned within a few years when the hoped-for railway lines materialized elsewhere. Like several other such pre-railway communities in the region, Millford was a bustling centre of about 100 people, and the first place to get mail delivery in the province's southwestern corner. At its peak, the village had several stores, three hotels, three livery stables, two blacksmith shops, three doctors and a variety of other services and social clubs, and became a gateway for homesteaders who travelled to the area via paddlewheel steamers on the nearby Assiniboine River. In the mid-1880s, however, construction of a Canadian Pacific Railway branch line bypassed the settlement, as it did many others, giving a business advantage to different communities; residents of places like Millford had little choice but to relocate, often hauling their buildings to the new privileged community site. The Millford Cemetery, still in active use, and the simple townsite monument bearing a dedication written by Nellie McClung, a prominent author, reformer and political figure who spent part of her childhood at Millford, are now all that mark the former settlement, important reminders of the kind of institutional obstacles that, along with a severe climate, isolation and back-breaking labour, made pioneer life so challenging.