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"A Poetic Saskatchewan Town"
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T he vast prairie
land of the Northwest Territories was opened for settlement during the
latter part of the 1880’s and 1890’s. Prior to this, the whole area was
home to the First Nations people and their culture. Settlement by
Europeans and Americans followed the river valleys and then the eastward
movement of the railway. The first early settlement in the Southey area
consisted of ranchers north and south of the present townsite. H.B.
Chandler, one of the first settlers, filed on land on the south side of
town in 1903. When the railway arrived in the area, he applied for the
site to be named “Southey”, after Robert Southey, one of his favorite
English poets. From this point on, the town grew and developed with the
appearance of the first stores, school, banks, elevators, barber shop,
hardware and implement dealers, restaurants, lumber yard, telephone
system, sidewalks, fire brigades and others in the 1905 - 1912 period.
This growth allowed Southey to be incorporated in January, 1908.
Subsequently, streets were named after other English writers and poets,
so it is possible to travel down streets named Keats, Browning, Burns,
Byron and Coleridge. From this early beginning, the town has grown and
maintained its prairie vigor.
“I live in long past years, their virtues love, their faults condemn, partake their hopes and fears and from their lessons seek and find, instruction with a humble mind.”Robert Southey |
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Who Was
Robert Southey? Robert Southey (1774 - 1843) was an English poet, historian, biographer, and translator who was England’s poet laureate from 1813 - 1843. He was a contemporary of and friends with Coleridge and Wordsworth. His writings were historical, satirical, and political in nature including “The Battle of Blenheim” and “The Life of Nelson” Quotations from Robert Southey: “How little do they see what is, who frame their hasty judgments upon that which seems.” “The three indispensables of genius are understanding, feeling and perseverance. The three things that enrich genius are contentment of mind, the cherishing of good thoughts and exercising memory” |
