William Cusitar

Another of the first settler to arrive in Brightside was William Cusitar.  He came as a boy at the age of 17 or 18.  Boy though he was, he made the long trip from Portage la Prairie to Russell driving a team of oxen, with his plough and other settlers' effects loaded on a wagon.  He chose homestead N.W. 1/4 6-21-28 and filed it on December 5, 1882.  In the same year, a little girl named Elizabeth Bennett arrived with her parents from Scotland and settled in Harrowby district.

Elizabeth and her Mother often walked nearly ten miles to Russell, to get mail and necessary groceries.  The first recollection of her William Cusitar had watching her walking past his homestead with her Mother, both laden with parcels.  Later they met and became friends and in 1892 Elizabeth Benett and Wm. Cusitar were married.  The Cusitar owned the first team of oxen in the Brightside District, having driven them along the Pelly Trail from Portage in 1882.  His first car was an Overland, bought in 1914.   It was the first car in the district with electric lights and an electric starter.

The early settlers had to do with what was available.  Mrs. Cleve Rea (nee Maude Cusitar) remembers her mother lining the walls of their cabin with yards of unbleached cotton.  The walls were sometimes left their natural shade or tinted in various colours.  In early days the Cusitars had no cream separator but took the fresh milk in large cans to the Dr. Barnardo home where it could be separated and sold to the Dr. Barnardo Creamery.  Bill Cusitar owned a saw mill in the Riding Mountains around the year 1895.  Some of the lumber sawn in this mill is still in use in Brightside.   Around this time, there was a grist mill at Millwood where the wheat could be taken to be made into flour, shorts and bran.  Around 1902 a party of Doukhobors on their way to Yorkton, SK, stopped at the Cusitar's farm and baked their bread in Mrs. Cusitar's oven.

N.E. 1/4 6-21-28 was the pre-emption of Bill Cusitar.

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