The Patrick family had roots in Canada since 1822, when they emigrated from Ireland to Québec. They had moved to Ontario by the time Thomas Patrick was born in 1864. In 1884, he entered the faculty of medicine at Western University in London, graduating in 1889. Dr. Patrick decided to follow the message of his time, which was “Go West, Young Man and Grow With The Country.” He boarded a train of the Manitoba and North Western Railway and arrived at Saltcoats in the spring of 1889, which was then the end of steel. A year later, he married his Ontario fiancée, Marion Griffith. The couple lived in Saltcoats until 1894 when they moved to Yorkton. Before the turn of the Century, Dr. Patrick became involved in politics. He was elected Member of the Legislative Assembly of the North West Territories in 1897 and up to 1904. He was at first an advocate on creating one large province out of the four Provisional Districts of the North West Territories. However, if the influx of immigrants he then thought the Territory was populated enough to form two provinces. He lobbied on this idea. The concept became law in 1905 when Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces, although Dr. Patrick was not then in the Assembly.
This edition of History Corner was originally published in the March 24, 2010 issue of Yorkton This Week.
Terri Lefebvre-Prince
