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George Stephen was President, Norman Kittson, First Vice-President, Donald A. Smith, Second Vice-President, and James J. Hill, General Manager. And on Mr. Hill fell the burden of turning a losing property into a prosperous and paying one. From the very day that he became manager he breathed into the business the breath of life.
Four Canadians, Donald A. Smith, a former Hudson's Bay Company factor, George Stephen, a leading merchant and banker of Montreal, James J. Hill and Norman W. Kittson, owners of a small line of boats on the Red River, had joined forces to revive a bankrupt Minnesota railway.* They had succeeded beyond all parallel, and the reconstructed road, which later developed into the Great Northern, made them all rich overnight.
Then it was that Kittson, having also bought the Griggs steamboat, was given the title of Commodore, a distinction which he carried through life. By this time several things had happened. One was that Hill had brought up to Saint Paul a steamboat-load of coal. This coal was mined near Peoria, on the Illinois River, floated down to the Mississippi, then carried up to Saint Paul.
In Summer it took one month to go and the same to return. In Winter dog-sleds were used and the trip was made more quickly. Kittson was the inventor and patentee of the Red River Ox-Cart. It was a vehicle made of wood, save for the linch-pins. The wheels were enormous, some being ten feet in diameter.
Hill built the second steamboat on the Red River, "The Swallow," on the order of Kittson, who bought the boat as soon as she had shown her ability to run. All the metal used in its making, which of course included engine and boiler, was sent across from Saint Paul. And if the outfit was gotten out of a wrecked Mississippi stern-wheeler, what boots it!
Naturally, it devolved on Hill to show the visitors the sights thereabouts. And among these sights happened to be our friend Kittson, who, full of enthusiasm, offered to pilot the party across to the Red River. They accepted and ascended to Fort Garry. Agassiz, full of scientific enthusiasm, wrote out his theory about the prehistoric lake.
Coming down from the north each year by the Red River to St Paul, on his way east, he talked over the railway situation with Hill and Kittson. The more they talked the greater grew their faith in the country and the railroad. It was a faith, however, that few in the moneyed East shared with them.
This gave them sufficient basis to enlarge their scheme greatly, and in the formation of the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad, they created $15,000,000 of stock, which was divided equitably among Hill, Stephen, Angus, Smith, Kennedy, and Kittson.
The first officers were H.P. Grant, foreman; M.J. O'Connor and H.B. Terwilliger, assistants; members, Harry M. Shaw, Nicholas Hendy, John B. Oliver, F.A. Cariveau, H.A. Schlick. C.D. Hadway, N. Nicuhaus, L.R. Storing, William T. Donaldson, Daniel Rohrer, J. Fletcher Williams, N. W. Kittson, Alfred Bayace, John McCauley and a number of others.
N.W. Kittson, and J.J. Hill, began at this time to take an interest in the trade of Red River Settlement, and to speak of communication between the Settlement and the outside world. The demand for transport led a company to bring in a steamer, the Anson Northrup, afterwards called "The Pioneer," to break the Red River solitude with her scream.
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