Historic Sites of Manitoba: St. Daniel School No. 811 (RM of Dufferin)

The St. Daniel School District was formally established sometime before March 1894. A log school building was built on an acre of land on the northeastern-most corner of NW16-7-5 west of the Principal Meridian, adjacent to the St. Daniel log church, in the Rural Municipality of Dufferin.

Around 1895, the school building was moved to SE30-7-5W and a new one-room wood frame structure was erected in 1902. Originally operated as a bilingual school (French and English), it became unilingual English in 1910, reflecting a gradual change in the ethnic composition of the surrounding community.

The present building on the site, featuring a full basement, furnace, and running water, dates from 1952. The school operated until June 1966 and the district was dissolved in 1968. The building is now used as a community hall. Nearby is a stone cairn, dedicated at a ceremony on 9 August 1992, for the students, teachers, and pioneers of the St. Daniel district.

Teachers at St. Daniel School during its early years included Anna Dupuis Lapointe, J. L. Larocque (1898), Alfred Loiselle (1899-1901), Maria Bloudeau (1901-1902), Rose A. Perras (1905), Evelina Desaulniers (1906), Louisa Prud'homme (1906), Era Dureault (1907-1909), M. C. Lajeunesse (1909-1910), Matilda H. McKee (1910), Frank Harrison (1910), Lillian McDonald (1911-1913), Minnie Nerseen (1913), Helen V. Werry (1914-1915), A. M. McCullough (1916-1917), Edna M. Cochrane (1918), Alice Somers (1918), Pearl P. McCullough (1919-1920), and Gladys G. Abercrombie (1920).

St. Daniel School (no date) by A. J. Manning Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 4. The former St. Daniel School building (September 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Interior of the former St. Daniel School building (September 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough St. Daniel School cairn (September 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Location (lat/long): N49.59506, W98.11930 denoted by symbol on the map above

See also:

The Confrontations at Rivière aux Ilets-de-Bois by Alan B. McCullough
Manitoba History, Number 67, Winter 2012

Sources:

One Hundred Years in the History of the Rural Schools of Manitoba: Their Formation, Reorganization and Dissolution (1871-1971) by Mary B. Perfect, MEd thesis, University of Manitoba, April 1978.

A Study of Public School Buildings in Manitoba by David Butterfield, Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, 1994, 230 pages.

The Rural Municipality of Dufferin, 1880-1980 compiled and edited by June M. Watson with the assistance of the History Book Committee, RM of Dufferin, 1982, pages 163-165.

Information for this page was collected and prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 19 May 2013

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