b'From Bishop Wilton to the Canadian Prairie - Was this The Good Life?Mrs Lucy Sharp - 30 January 2004 In collaboration with Mrs Lorna Sleightholme, Peter Gospel and Derek WilemanH enry Quarton Stilborn, the second son of John and Sarah Stilborn, made his appearance into the world in December 1845 and was baptised at Bishop Wilton on 15 January 1846.The Stilborn family can be traced back in Bishop Wilton to the 1730s and by the time Henry Quarton was born were very successful farmers.Mary Gospel, who was later to become Henry Quartons wife, was also born in the autumn of 1845 and christened on 30 November at the Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bolton.Mary was the first child of William and Elizabeth Gospel (nee Robson) who had married earlier that same year at Harpham.William also came from good farming stock and at the time of his marriage was living in Bishop Wilton.In and around 1860 he was a churchwarden for the Parish of St. Ediths.It is hardly surprising that Henry Quarton and Mary Gospels paths were destined to cross and on 10 April 1872 they were married at the Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bolton.Little did the newlyweds know what fate had in storeIn 1870 The Homestead Act had been passed which was designed to entice settlers to western Canada and the Prairies instead of America.It succeeded, and people from Great Britain, Europe, Iceland and the Ukraine began to emigrate.There was a strong recruitment campaign offering a variety of incentives from free land and homesteads to freeHenry Quarton Stilbornsea passages.The young Henry Quarton, ever forward-thinking, ambitious and ready to take on new challenges, grasped the nettle and emigrated tocommunity citizen, supporting church, school and Toronto in 1880 with his wife Mary and by now theirvarious community organizations, with particular three young children Henry junior, Esther and John.emphasis on farm clubs.He encouraged immigration Henry Quarton (who was known as Quarton andby placing advertisements in English newspapers who will be referred to as Quarton from now on) wasguaranteeing employment to farm labourers and a cattle drover in England, and in Toronto he carriedartisans in the colony.on the same business, operating from 459 ParliamentIf he had acquired an aversion to salt water travel, Street, a few doors from Robert John Fleming (ait would have been justified.On 28 December 1896 director and later president of the Primitive Methodisthe made a trip back to England with Thomas Jessop Colonization Company or PMCC).In late fall ofand they had a narrow escape from drowning before 1881 Quarton shipped a cargo of cattle to England;they reached their destination.About 15 miles off unfortunately, en route in mid-Atlantic, the cattle hadthe Irish coast, in dense fog, the ship struck a rock, to be driven overboard in an effort to save the shipstoving in one of the compartments and causing the from sinking. Thus, Quarton decided to invest capitalship to almost stand on one end.Fortunately they in another direction and he joined the PMCC projectwere rescued; fate was kinder to him than the cargo to encourage settlers to the North West Territories,he lost in1881. persuading his brother John to come from England inQuarton was the employer of Ernest Henry time to join the first group to colonise.He patentedHaylock, who married his youngest daughter Louise two homesteads, majored heavily in livestock andin 1912.Ernest had a varied background before purchased additional acreage.He was an activeemigrating to Canada from Norwich in 1902/3.He 106 BULLETIN 7'