Etc. -- Lucky Sam VanBuskirk

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An unedited transcription of an article in 16 Aug 1893 Waterford Star, reprinted from Hamilton Times. Paragraph breaks inserted by transcriber.

A Lucky Norfolk Man

In writing to a friend in this city [Hamilton] Mr. David D. Young, formerly of the Great Western Railway, gives the following interesting information: --

"To form some idea how fortunes are picked up in Manitoba, I will tell you a case that I am fully acquainted with. 

"Mr. Sam VanBuskirk, a young man from the Township of Townsend, who used to attend school in the same schoolhouse I taught in twenty-three years ago, took up a homestead and preemption two and a half miles west of my place a little over a year ago.

"This place was to all appearances too wet for first class agricultural purposes and had been neglected by land hunters. Everyone laughed at Sam for taking it up, but he discovered some curious mineral springs thereon and with spade and pick he began digging, and soon brought to light an iron mine about 100 acres in extent, also large quantities of yellow ochre, fire brick, and bath brick clay.

"The iron is termed bog ore, and I believe, very valuable, about 500 lbs. to the ton. What makes matters better, it is easily mined, lying only from two to eight feet below the surface. The Souris [sic] coal fields are not far off.

"No one can begrudge Sam his luck, for he is a fine fellow. His mine is only ten miles southwest of Brandon." 

 
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