Good Day AO. I'm thinking I should add a few more tidbits a little more regularly.
This is an interesting story written by Mark Gaillard about a colorful man from Alberta's past. Worthy of sharing. Enjoy.
MEDICINE HAT, AB – May 12, 2017 – It is well-known that perhaps the most famous North West Mounted Police member of all time, the legendary Sam Steele, was the proud possessor of Regimental Number 1.
But who was Regimental Number 2?
John Henry Gresham “Turkey Legs” Bray was born on January 24, 1840, at Bewdley, Worchestershire, England. His father died when he was one year old and his mother when he was eight so he was raised by an uncle.
In June 1859 at the age of 18 he enlisted in the British cavalry in the 10th (The Prince of Wales’s Own) Royal Hussars Regiment. Soon afterwards his regiment was transferred to India. However, with rebellion brewing in Ireland, they were transferred to Carragh in County Kildare to assist the Irish Constabulary, the force that would be the model for the North West Mounted Police.
In 1863, John Bray left the Hussars to become an instructor with the Staffordshire Yeomanry on Burton-on-Trent. Later, on June 13, 1868, he left the British military.
John Bray decided to seek a new life and adventure in Canada.
Exactly 145 years ago, on May 12, 1872, he departed England for Quebec City on the ship SS “Nile,” never to return to his native land.
In the spring of 1873, he saw an advertisement for the newly established North West Mounted Police. In Toronto, Ontario, he submitted his application along with 621 men.
The recruiter, Arthur Henry Griesbach, the first recruit to join the NWMP with as Number 1 (more on this later), sorted through the applications and selected the 50 best men. John Bray was the top choice, no doubt due to his experience in a British cavalry regiment.
John Bray was among the third contingent of recruits to depart Toronto for Fort Dufferin, Manitoba, where the new Force was being assembled.
Once at Fort Dufferin, he was sworn into the Force and was assigned Number 92.
In preparation of what would later be known as the “March West,” John Bray was assigned as the Chief Constable (equivalent to Sergeant-Major) of “C” Troop, under the command of Inspector William Winder, Officer Number O.5. Members of “C” Troop rode light chestnut-coloured horses and also were the “artillery troop,” responsible for towing the Force’s two field guns.
Among the Mounted Police, John Bray was known as “Turkey Legs” – he was quite small by Mounted Police standards, being only 5 feet 9 inches tall.
Upon reaching the Belly River, the March West was over. In June 1875, Bray joined the men under the command of Superintendent James Morrow Walsh, (who later in his career would have two Officers’ Numbers O.7 and O.109!) in the Cypress Hills where Fort Walsh had been established.
Here John Bray, orphaned at a very young age, would have his own family.
Apparently, the location of Fort Walsh was selected to be near the abode of the Métis family of Edward McKay.
Ruth Daw, in her chapter “Sgt-Major J. H. G. Bray, the Forgotten Horseman” in the 1974 book “Men in Scarlet,” published by the Historical Society of Alberta, wrote:
“It has been suggested that the fort location was selected because McKay had five daughters who were all considered pretty and respectable girls. In June 1876, John Bray married one of the McKay daughters and they had one of the first babies to be born at a NWMP post.”
John Bray’s family quickly expanded in size – Flora (born 1877); Bessie (born 1878); Helen (born 1880); and Harry (born 1882).
In August 1878, the Force decided to regularize and consolidate the Regimental Numbering System. Arthur Griesbach had been in the meantime commissioned as an officer. Samuel Steele, who had first engaged as Number 5, was the Corps Sergeant-Major who was the most highest ranked non-commissioned officer in the Force. So Steele was assigned Regimental Number 1.
Sergeant-Major John Bray was the second most senior non-commissioned officer, so he became Regimental Number 2.
He was present at the 1881 trial of Star Child, who was accused of the murder of the first NWMP member to be killed on duty, 19-year-old Constable Marmaduke Graburn, Reg. No. 335, who was shot and killed while on solitary patrol in the Cypress Hills on November 17, 1879 (RCMP Honour Roll #3). Star Child was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Sergeant Major Bray was also the NCO in charge of the NWMP Farm at Pincher Creek from 1881 to 1882.
Concerned about his wife’s loneliness in a cabin full of kids while he was away on duty, John Bray decided to leave the Force. He was discharged on November 8, 1882.
Upon his discharge he was given his 160 acre land grant in lieu of a pension, and he selected land in the area of Pincher Creek, Alberta, where he farmed cabbage and raised cattle.
In 1885 news of the North West Rebellion reached him. Without hesitation he joined the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a volunteer militia unit that was being raised.
Commanded by John Stewart, a rancher turned militia officer from the Fort Macleod area, the 114 members of the Rocky Mountain Rangers were a mixture of local citizens, stockmen, trappers, politicians and NWMP Veterans who were hastily formed into an irregular cavalry unit.
Veteran John Bray was made the unit’s Sergeant-Major.
A member of the Rangers, John Higinbotham, a druggist in Fort Macleod, wrote in his diary: "discipline is quite unknown to them; a Mountie [probably Sergeant-Major Bray giving instruction] told me that he heard one of them, during drill to-day, call out to his commander [when the Captain apparently had to repeat an order to fall in] 'Hold on, Cap, till I cinch my horse!'"
In an article in the December 1941 issue of Canadian Cattleman, a former member of the Rangers, self-identified simply as "Old Timer," remembered "Charlie Smith was our Lieutenant. Charlie would give the orders - 'Mount, Walk, Trot,' then when we got in front of the little log saloon - 'Halt! Everyone dismount and have a drink!' That was all the drill we got."
What Sergeant-Major Bray thought of his troopers is unrecorded!
No. 3 Troop remained in the Fort Macleod area as a home guard, but No. 1 and No. 2 Troops were sent to Medicine Hat, a strategic point where the newly-built Canadian Pacific Railway bridges the South Saskatchewan River.
Although the Rebellion’s main theatre was in the vicinity of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, the Rocky Mountain Rangers helped keep the peace and ensure the safety of residents of the Medicine Hat area.
Dubbed the "Tough Men" by the residents of Medicine Hat, the Rangers spent their entire period of their service engaged in long, mostly uneventful patrol rides, relieving the boredom by bothering the soldiers of the Halifax Provisional Battalion, a Nova Scotia militia infantry unit also stationed in the town.
One of the Rangers's favourite pranks was riding through the infantry bivouac located on the heights to the southwest of the town-site, collapsing tents and jeering the "feet soldiers."
A member of the Halifax Battalion, Wiliam Tupper (whose father would later be the Canadian Prime Minister), wrote at the time: "[the Rangers] go through town firing revolvers and swearing like fiends!"
Relations between the two units became so strained that Major John Stewart ordered the Ranger encampment moved a distance upriver. This decision was probably a great relief to Sergeant-Major Bray!
Following the end of the Rebellion, the Rocky Mountain Rangers were disbanded on July 17, 1885. Sergeant-Major Bray, along with 49 other members of the Rangers, was awarded the North West Canada 1885 Medal.
And like on the Guidon of today’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Guidon of the South Alberta Light Horse Regiment, which perpetuates the 1885 Rocky Mountain Rangers, is emblazoned with the Battle Honour “North West Canada 1885.”
Back on his ranch in the Pincher Creek area, Veteran John Bray would later return to Medicine Hat and settle there permanently in 1891 when he became the Foreman of Public Works in what would be later be known as the “Gas City.”
In 1896 Veteran John Bray was elected to the position of Hides Inspector and later Territorial Brand Inspector, as well the Secretary of the Medicine Hat Agricultural Association and secretary- manager of the Montana Stockmen’s Association.
Between 1910 and 1918 as a liquor inspector he issued liquor licenses in the City of Medicine Hat.
On September 9, 1923, Veteran John Bray passed away at age 83. He is buried in the Kin Coulee Cemetery in Medicine Hat; his grave marker displaying his Regimental Number of 2.
Based on his contributions to the Province of Alberta as a member of the NWMP and as a Veteran, Bray Lake, located about 42 kilometres southeast of Edmonton, is named in his honour.
In the 1970’s Veteran John Bray’s great-grandson would himself join the RCMP. Constable George W. Halstead, Reg. No. 28397, retired from the RCMP on December 20, 1995.
We will remember Veteran John Henry Gresham “Turkey-Legs” Bray, Reg. No. 2.
Mark Gaillard
Executive Officer
RCMP Veterans’ Association