What do the new Wal-Mart store (which opens tomorrow), Canadian Tire, and other Fort Frances businesses along King’s Highway west of McIrvine Road all have in common?
They’re all located on land that once belonged to the Biddeson family—one of the town’s founding families.
Bruce Biddeson, now in his 90th year, enjoys talking about his family and its history. The Biddesons were, after all, one of the first families to settle in this area at a time when many passed through but didn’t stay.
He still lives in the house on the Rainy River where he was born, with his wife, Mary. Located in the west end of town, the house bears the sign Edgbastion Farm—the name his grandfather gave to the farm that once operated here.
Daniel Biddeson was born in 1830 in Birmingham, England. He fought in the Crimean War (1854-1856), where he was said to have met one of history’s notable figures.
“He knew Florence Nightingale real well. He was injured up there,” Biddeson said of his grandfather.
Daniel was married to Prudence Green, a registered nurse and midwife, and they had seven children in England before moving to Canada around 1870.
While his grandson isn’t sure why the family decided to come to Canada, one theory is that there was a great demand for steam engine engineers in the Dominion at the time, and Biddeson—as a steam engineer—would have easily found work.
The family patriarch first came to Canada alone and settled in Guelph, Ont. “He went back [to England] three times to convince his wife to come,” Biddeson said.
Finally, on the third trip, he, his wife, and their seven children crossed the Atlantic by steamship and arrived in Montreal. The then family spent some time in southwestern Ontario, where their last two children—twin boys—were born in Orillia in 1875.
Bruce Biddeson’s father, Joseph, and his twin brother were the only children of Daniel and Prudence to be born in Canada.
The younger twin died in infancy, but young Joseph travelled with his family to Northwestern Ontario, where they settled in Fort Frances that same year (1875).
The family purchased 220 acres of land, “from the river to the railroad,” for $10—much of it used as pasture land for the dairy farm they established.
This is the same land where the west-end businesses, including the new Wal-Mart, now sit.
Daniel built the house on the river, which Joseph would add on to some 30 years later. Not only was he a dairy farmer and a steam engineer, the family patriarch was a logger, a machinist, a lay preacher, and was one of the first trustees on the first school board after the Town of Fort Frances was incorporated in 1903.
“In those days you had to be a jack of all trades,” Mary Biddeson said.
Prudence, herself, was much in demand for her skills as a midwife, and she travelled by horse, canoe, and on foot to reach various parts of the district to help deliver babies.
Meanwhile, Joseph Biddeson, Bruce’s father, attended high school in Minnesota because there wasn’t one in Fort Frances at that time. There, he met the woman who would later become his wife, Lida Mae Chase.
Joseph then attended the Woodstock Bible College and became a travelling missionary. “He travelled up and down the U.S. side [in Minnesota] preaching,” Biddeson recalled.
“He was what was known as a colporteur. He walked from town to town handing out Bibles and preaching,” Mary Biddeson explained.
Joseph returned to Fort Frances in 1907 when his father died. In a short, handwritten account of his family history, he wrote of his father that “his walk matched his talk.”
“He had to come back and take over the farm,” Biddeson remarked.
The next year, he married Lida Mae in Minnesota and brought her back to Fort Frances, where he became a Baptist pastor for three different churches, including ones in Emo and Barwick.
The couple had four children, including Bruce, who was born in 1914. He was a member of the first scout troop in Fort Frances, which was established in the 1920s.
“They had little bloomers that went to the knees,” his wife laughed.
Biddeson later served in the Canadian Navy for three-and-a-half years during World War II, and was at the D-Day invasion of Normandy. “We were told 85 percent of us would die,” he noted.
When he returned to Fort Frances, Biddeson started working at the local paper mill for 10 cents/hour. He would work there for 42 years.
His father, Joseph, died in 1950, but his mother, who was a Sunday School teacher and seamstress, lived to be 109.
In 1952, Biddeson married Mary Evans, a school teacher. Their families had known each other for many years, having attended the same church.
The couple had four children: Beth, Joe, Nancy, and Daniel. Joe died in a car accident in 1979.
The two are members of various associations in the community, including the Gideons, the Horticultural Society, and the advisory board for KBHW (the Christian radio station in International Falls).
The Biddesons celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in July, 2002 and they now have relatives in countries as far away as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and England.
“The Lord’s been very good to us,” Mary Biddeson said.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
