Brandon pioneer remembered by a book, but not by a street

One hundred years ago, an early Brandon pioneer wrote a book about life in the city. Printed by a major publisher, the book painted a vivid picture of Brandon’s beginnings. The author was a leading citizen and prominent businessman. A few decades after his death, Brandon City Council named a street after him. But that street naming was bungled. Today, he is almost forgotten.

Who was he? Beecham Trotter was born in Ontario in 1860. He came to the West as a young man, first working to install telegraph lines for the CPR. In 1883, he settled in Brandon and participated in the excitement and energy of a new city.

Becoming a horse dealer and livery stable operator, he teamed up with his cousin, Alec Trotter. They styled their enterprise as Trotter & Trotter and located at 145 Sixth St.

Trotter married Mary Scott in 1887. In 1893, the couple built a home at 326 Sixth St. They called it Tintern, after the Trotter ancestral home in Ireland. They had four children: Wilbert born in 1893, Mary in 1897, Edyth in 1898 and Marjorie in 1903.

Tragedy struck the family in October 1898 when daughters Mary and Edyth, both younger than two, died within days of each other. A brief story in The Brandon Sun reported the deaths and that “the remaining child, Wilbert, is better today.” The deaths were likely the result of an infectious disease such as diphtheria. But as no death certificates were issued, the definitive cause is lost to history.

Over the years, Trotter & Trotter bought and sold tens of thousands of horses and exchanged millions of dollars. The Trotter cousins were also civic leaders, both serving as Brandon city councillors.

In 1925, Trotter enlisted the assistance of Ontario journalist Arthur Hawkes and penned a book about the life and the horse business of early Brandon. Published by Macmillan, the title was “A Horseman and the West.” His observations were told in folksy prose with dashes of wry humour. “This doesn’t pretend to be a history,” Trotter wrote in the book’s introduction. “I trust it isn’t dry enough, as certainly it isn’t long enough, for that.”

Beecham Trotter died at age 73 in 1934. He was buried in the Brandon Municipal Cemetery in the family plot next to his daughters who had died 35 years earlier. Mary died in 1948 and was buried beside her husband.

In 1967, Canada’s 100th year, Brandon City Council bestowed names on streets and a new subdivision in the southwest of the city. The subdivision was named Centennial. Streets commemorated business pioneers like school supplier E.L. Christie, coal merchant T.E. Elviss and hardware store proprietor P.C. Mitchell. Horse dealers Beecham Trotter and Alec Trotter were remembered by an extension of Park Avenue west of 26th Street, which was named Trotter Avenue.

After the announcement of the new street name, Beecham’s daughter Marjorie Trotter wrote to Brandon Sun editor Fred McGuinness. He published her letter under his pseudonym F.A. Rosser in his column, “Sun Beams.”

“I wish to express grateful appreciation to Alderman Flora Cowan and her committee for naming Trotter Avenue after my father and his cousin and partner Alec Trotter,” Marjorie’s letter began. She recalled that their house on Sixth Street was the first in Brandon to have running water. And she added a note about a brick fence post at the south end of the property. Her father had placed in it a container with newspapers and a record of those who had lived on the 300 block in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Trotter Avenue existed for five years. Then, in 1972, city council unceremoniously dumped the Trotter designation and renamed the thoroughfare west of 26th Street as a continuation of Park Avenue.

When Brandon celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2007, “A Horseman and the West” was reprinted. Local publisher T. Keith Edmunds brought Trotter’s book back to life in a new edition as a project for the quasquicentennial.

The life of Beecham Trotter embodied a bygone era. A time when a city was beginning and filled with exuberance. A time when horses were the main mode of transportation and the care and feeding of the animals — and the buying and selling of them — was a big concern. And a time before many vaccines when deadly diseases struck down young children.

Today, there are some traces of Beecham Trotter. There is the original property at 326 Sixth St. with the brick post bearing the name “Tintern.” The book “A Horseman and the West” is available for sale at the Daly House Museum and for borrowing at the Brandon Public Library.

But there is no Trotter Avenue.