Over the years this column has offered brief biographies of Wellington County natives who went on to significant careers, usually in the United States, and often as an employee of a railway company. Another name to add to that list is that of Francis Greene, who was born near Fergus in Garafraxa (later West Garafraxa) Township in November, 1847.
Frank’s father was John Greene, one of the Garafraxa pioneers of the early 1830s. Young Frank developed an early distaste for farmwork. He struck off on his own in 1863, at the age of 16. He soon crossed the American border. Employment prospects were better there. He eventually landing in Chicago. There he supplemented his early schooling by learning Morse code in a Windy City telegraph office.
In May 1870 the Rock Island Railroad offered him employment as a telegrapher and ticket seller. His first posting was at Iowa City, on the line’s main line between Chicago and Omaha. There was never a better time to work for a railway in the American Midwest. The Rock Island’s traffic had received a major boost as the a result of the completion of the transcontinental line a year earlier.
Frank Greene impressed his employers with his quick grasp of his duties. In September 1871 they transferred him to Trenton, Missouri, on the Rock Island’s branch to Kansas City, as assistant train dispatcher. That was merely a training position. Four months later he became a dispatcher and train master for the Rock Island’s Southwestern Division. His progress was impressive for a young man of 24 with only 18 months of railway experience.
With a solid job and good prospects, Greene married in 1875 to a local Missouri girl. Eventually they had a family of three daughters and two sons.
In 1876 the Rock Island transferred him to Fairfield, Iowa, which was then booming with a rapidly growing agricultural economy in the area. The station handled large quantities of cattle, and Greene soon developed a skill at dealing with both farmers and cattle buyers. While there he branched out into a new venture, establishing the weekly Fairfield Tribune newspaper.
Greene’s success at building the Rock Island’s cattle traffic at Fairfield led to another promotion. In 1880 he was named the general livestock agent for the Rock Island’s Southwestern Division.
Two years later he left the Rock Island to join the St. Paul, Minnesota & Manitoba Railway. That company, shortly to be renamed the Great Northern, was under the control of James J. Hill, another Wellington County native, who grew up in Eramosa Township.
Hill was nine years older than Greene, so it is unlikely that they knew each other, but the families could well have been acquainted. In any case, Greene was posted as agent at Grand Forks, at the eastern edge of what was then Dakota Territory, and later the state of North Dakota. That area contained an immense number of Wellington County natives, who supplied such town names as Minto and Elora to stations on the line.
That posting lasted only a year. In 1883 Greene signed up with the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad, as agent at Red Wing, Minnesota. A year later he switched employers again, joining the Northern Pacific as a division superintendent, based at Mandan, Dakota Territory.
While at Mandan Frank Greene indulged his interest in politics. The voters sent him to the Territorial Legislature. His electoral success was a rarity for a railroader in an area where most people detested and denounced railways. In addition, Greene stood as a Democrat amongst an electorate that was strongly Republican.
Two years later Greene was superintendent of the Lake Superior division, but resigned from the Northern Pacific within a year.
At the age of 46 Frank Greene left a solid middle management position to embark on fresh ventures at Spokane, Washington. He dabbled in wholesaling and real estate, but in 1897 he returned to railroading as superintendent of the Montana Railroad at Lombard, Montana.
Two years later Greene switched careers again. This time he joined the newly-organized Pacific Coast Company, which had taken over the assets of the bankrupt Oregon Improvement Company.
The Pacific Coast Company was a major factor in the settlement and development of the west coast. It had operations from San Diego to Alaska, operating supply posts, coastal navigation, railways into the interior to bring out timber, coal mines, and dealing in real estate.
The company assigned Greene to duties as assistant superintendent of rail operations at Anacortes, then Port Townsend, and finally at Seattle.
Promotion came in 1903, when he became the company’s general land and tax agent. His final promotion was in 1912, when Pacific Coast transferred him to Los Angeles as manager of the company’s harbour facilities.
Like most of the Wellington County expatriates, Frank Greene maintained contacts with friends and family back home, but he did not return home for a visit for 61 years. In September 1924, at the age of 77, he undertook the long train ride back home. He spent most of his short visit with a cousin, Peter Greene. He barely recognized downtown Fergus, so great were the changes and new buildings constructed over the previous six decades. Everyone he met on the street was a rank stranger.
By then the ties to the old home had grown exceedingly thin. Greene’s wife died in 1918, and never saw Fergus. His focus was directed at his own children, to whom Fergus was but a word on a map. His three daughters were married and living in North Dakota and Spokane; both sons had careers in Los Angeles.
Frank Greene, in his lengthy absence from the old home town, was not unusual among the Wellington County expatriates. Few of them were drawn back for frequent visits, and the single return trip, such as Greene made in 1924, was typical. Even railroad employees, who could ride all or part of the way on passes, showed no enthusiasm to return frequently.
Some never came back at all. Such was the case of James J. Hill, who, it appears, never returned to Rockwood after he left as a teenager, though many family members remained in the area. Hill was a notoriously hard-nosed and unsentimental character, but in old age he did support some charitable causes in Guelph and area.
The “don’t look back” attitude of those who left Wellington County in the nineteenth century was also characteristic of those who came here from the British Isles. Most of those people maintained contact with those back home by mail, though usually sporadically. Few ever returned for a visit, though it must be acknowledged that a transatlantic fare a century ago far exceeded a railway ticket from a distant part of Canada or the United States.
It is only in the past couple of decades, with the growth of interest in genealogy, that descendants of those old Wellington County expatriates are tracing the old lines back home. Most of those oldtimers lived productive but unexciting lives in their new homes. But there are more than a few who, like Frank Greene, achieved distinction, status, and a degree of renown in far away fields.