This house is set off the road a bit and is fenced and we did not want to trespass. After years of passing by when we were in the area, we made a connection with another explorer and got permission to access the site. It was for sale and went to visit with the new potential owners. When we reached the property it had an original small house and a large house which was a stone house with a large addition on the side/back. We did a full walkthrough and were able to come back one more time after the people we had originally gone with purchased the house.
William Thompson came to Saskatchewan in 1882 while it was still known as the Assiniboia District of the North West Territories. He was 20 years old and determining he liked the land in Saskatchewan he returned home to Quebec for the winter and came back in the spring of 1883. He started his homestead and built his house, it was 27 x 23 feet and was valued at $1000.
In 1885 he was joined by his parents from Quebec who came with William's future wife Rosanna and a man called "Dummy". The man was deaf and illiterate and he could not indicate who he was or where he had come from. He helped on the farm and became part of the family. He lived to a very old age and is likely buried in an unmarked grave in the Abernethy cemetery.
In 1892 he completed the stone house which was built from stones that he had collected when he cleared the land over the last years. He married Rosanna that same year and they went on to have give children.
Space was tight in the stone house so a smaller building was built for "dummy" and his parents to ensure they had some space to themselves. In 1919 an addition was built on the stone house. It was a 20 x 20 foot space attached to the stone house on the north side. The upstairs of the large home was now four bedrooms with a large landing that could hold a cot. The main floor had six rooms, an entranceway, parlor, dining room kitchen, pantry, washing room and a room doubling as a den. Underneath the original house there was a root cellar but when the addition was added it created a full cement basement with a cistern in the floor and a coal furnace.
William Thompson died of pneumonia in 1946 at the age of 84 and his wife Rosanna died from a heart condition in 1959 at the age of 85. They are buried in the Abernethy cemetery together.
We do a full video walkthrough of this beautiful old home - check it out!