A BRIEF HISTORY OF SPERLING:
Sperling’s roots go back to about 1880 when the Canadian and Manitoba governments were encouraging the settlement of the prairies. Under the Dominion Lands Act of 1872 the government provided 160 acres (a quarter section) of free land to each head of a family or 21 year-old male if he paid a $10 registration fee, resided on the land for three years, cultivated 30 acres and built a permanent dwelling. Much other land was for sale, having been granted originally to the railways and others, then purchased and resold by speculators and land agents.
Most of the land around Sperling, to the north, south, and east, was part of the Boyne Marsh. The Boyne River and Tobacco Creek flowed into this area from the west, and the Morris (or Scratching) River flowed out to the east. The marsh made for good hay and pasture, but was not reliable for growing wheat.
One of the early families who settled in the non-marshy area just to the west of Sperling was the Adam Waddell family. His son Thomas led the exodus from near Mount Forest, Ontario in 1879, homesteading on SW36-6-3W – about 3 miles northwest of present-day Sperling. Adam and the rest of his family followed in 1881, and homesteaded NE26-6-3W. Scottish-born, Adam had immigrated to Canada in about 1832. Four other sons established themselves on nearby farms; the daughters married other settlers.
Other pioneer settlers to arrive in that area in the next decade or so included the Bates and Garnett families. John Bates had a post office on NE28-6-3W, which served the area from 1891 to 1912. Garnett School was established in 1884 on SW34-6-3W.
R.B. Waddell (a nephew of Adam) and his three sons (and six daughters) settled in the area in the late 1890’s. Other nephews of Adam were four brothers who settled in the area in the same time frame. One of them, R.H. Waddell, played a major role as an early real estate developer of Sperling.
Starting in 1898, a plan was launched to construct drains through the Boyne Marsh. These included what became locally known as “the big ditch” running west to east along the boundary between the municipalities of Morris and Macdonald, the Norquay channel three miles north, and several others to the south. The rate of settling onto farms accelerated from this time, primarily by families from Ontario, and later from the USA and elsewhere.
Egremont Township, northwest of Toronto, was the source of many early settlers in addition to the Waddells. Family names from Egremont included: Peckover, Curdt, Mogk, Nichol, Wilson, Lester, Galbraith, and Sessions. Other southern Ontario names included: Ferris, Barry, Hamilton, Young, Rehill, Skeavington, Davison, Smith, Webster, Hooper, MacLean, Burnett, Tanner, McKee, Davidson, Dales, Hobbs, and Snider. Most of these families were of British and Scottish heritage. Direct-from England families included Dracass, Last, and Holmes.
The first church in the area was called Egremont Presbyterian, and was built in 1899 just west of Sperling on SW36-6-3W. It was moved to Sperling in 1903. The Methodist Church was built in Sperling in the same year. These churches merged to form the United Church in 1924, and the Presbyterian Church was demolished. The new United Church was built in 1944, and it served until 1993. (The building is now a home and art studio, run by Ken Potter.) The Catholic Church was established in the former Waddell School building in 1935, and continued in use until 1972. (It is now the Golden Corner, a seniors’ center.)
The first school was established in the area in 1897. Waddell No. 925 was located one mile north of present-day Sperling on SW32-6-2W. It served until a new school was built in Sperling in 1910: Sperling Consolidated No. 1488. The original building burned in 1924, and was quickly replaced with a red brick four-room school that served the area until it was closed in 1987. The building was demolished in 2006. Other schools in the Sperling area were Tremont to the south, and Lone Star and Lea-Bank to the east. These schools were consolidated into Sperling in the 1950s and 1960s.
In 1899, the first post office was located a half mile south of Waddell School, on the same quarter section (owned by Amos Davison), and was named Mariposa by postmasters Tom Bennett and his wife Allison (Waddell). After his death, she married John Smith. The post office was moved to Sperling in about 1902.
R.H.(Robert Henry) Waddell, nicknamed Yankee Bob because he lived in North Dakota for some time en route from Mount Forest, Ontario to Sperling, has earned the title as “Father of Sperling”. He purchased the south half of 29-6-2W in 1900, just in time to have the Morden and Northwestern Railway build its new line along his property in 1901. He made some of his land available to them for a station and rail yards, and then undertook to develop a town site. He subdivided the area into lots, built a livery stable, boarding house (which later became the hotel), a general store, and numerous houses, and sold lots to others. Yankee Bob became quite wealthy, but he lived out his life quietly in Sperling, dying in 1938. Three of Sperling’s street names are a reminder of him: Waddell, Robert, and Henry. Cousin Charles Waddell owned the north half of section 29, and the northernmost street is named Charles Street.
The name Sperling was chosen by the Morden & Northwestern (or its successor, the Canadian Northern Railway) in recognition of a British financier, Sperling & Company, who provided financing for the construction of the railway
It was common practice for railways to establish stations along its length about every seven to eight miles, and communities sprang up in similar manner to Sperling. Grain elevators were built at each town, providing delivery points that allowed farmers to haul their grain a manageable distance for horse and wagon. The first elevator established in Sperling was the Dominion in 1901, followed by the Ogilvie. Later came the Manitoba Pool, and then the Canadian Consolidated (later operated by United Grain Growers, and which burned in 1995).. The only surviving elevator, formerly the Manitoba Pool, is now operated by the N.M. Paterson Company.
After the turn of the century, an influx of American immigrants began to arrive. The early families included the names Tjaden, Brown, Rance, Lewis, Gehring, Parker, Bausman, and Chase. Following them were the Borsheim, Wurmnest, Jenkins, and Abry families.
From the Maritimes came the Archibalds, Colpitts, and Steeves. From Switzerland (via the USA) came settlers named Rose, Delaloye, and Ribordy, and Cretton. The Duvenaud family came from France.
Several Danish families were settlers in the 1920’s:, their names included Nielsen, Madsen, Nicolajsen, Andersen, Ortman, Nielsen,
These were some of the early settlers – most of them farmers. There were others who came and moved on, and more who came in the peak years of the 20’s and later, including several Mennonite families (mostly south and east of Sperling).
There were business people as well: storekeepers, including Pedlar, Smith, Sparling, Eaton (William was a nephew of Timothy Eaton), Foulston, and Millichamp. Blacksmiths and implement dealers included: Rehill, Hobbs, McNulty, Lester & Killeen, Davison & Soutar; lumber merchants: Morrison, Steeves, and Brown. CNR station agents in the early years included Wilson, Aubin, Bowman, Tully.
Sperling had two banks in the 1920s; C.B. McNulty was one of the managers. (What is now the Legion Hall, a red brick building on Main Street, was once the Union Bank – for some years it also housed the telephone office.) A drug store was run by T.A. Hobbs. Butchers included Bates, Pumfrey, Courtenay, Dulmadge, Smith, Tolton, Griffiths. The hotel was a fixture of the community from 1901 until it burned in 1986. Numerous restaurants came and went – the last one, combined with a small store and liquor outlet, burned in 1995. The memorial gazebo stands today on the site.
The rink in Sperling was built in1921, and was the pride of the area in its early days. With a hockey/skating rink and two sheets of curling ice, the rink was the center of community activity for the winter. Sperling produced some good hockey teams and some notable curlers, but most importantly the rink was a center for community participation. Virtually everyone was a skater, hockey player, or curler. (The rink was demolished in 1977, and replaced on the same site by a somewhat smaller arena, which includes an actively-used community centre.) And in the summer, baseball was popular on the schoolyard diamonds, with many teams of both sexes participating for many years.
Sperling had its own doctor for a time: Maxwell Bowman practiced from his home (the Millichamp/Davison/Gehring house) on Main Street south. He grew up near Miami, graduated from the University of Manitoba, and came with his wife Marjorie in 1921. They stayed seven years, but couldn’t make a go of. Several years of crop failures, a population that stopped increasing, and competing doctors in Carman resulted in him moving to Clanwilliam, and later to Winnipeg. His twin sons, Jack and Bill, born while the family was in Sperling, went on to be noted pediatricians.
To be accurate, Sperling did have another doctor: veterinarian John (Doc) Martin practiced in Sperling from about 1915 until he died in 1941.
The population of the town probably never exceeded 200, and the surrounding farms probably added a similar number. So Sperling was never a large center, but it did thrive through the first half of the century. However, as better roads and highways were built, transportation speeded up, and the need for a fully serviced town every seven miles diminished. Farm technology and economics changed, and small farms merged into larger ones. Businesses in larger centers like Winnipeg and Carman took over from the local businesses in little Sperling. Many businesses closed, buildings were moved or demolished, in some cases fires took their toll (including the hotel which burned in 1986), and today the community is primarily a residential one.
The primary business concern in Sperling today is Sperling Industries Ltd. Established as Sperling Welding in the 1970s by the Nicolajsen brothers, it has a large metal fabrication and machining shop and is the base of operations for an extensive installation contracting business. See www.sperlingind.com
For more comprehensive histories of Sperling and area, see the centennial (1880 – 1980) histories of the Rural Municipalities of Morris and of Dufferin. In the 1970s, residents compiled a series of family histories as “Tales of Sperling”. Another interesting history is “The Story of Sperling” published in 1992 by former resident Bob Holloway.
This brief history was compiled for the sperling.ca website by Glenn Peckover, with apologies for errors and omissions. Please contact him with any comments or suggestions.