Latest instalment in tale of soldiers
The final Stirling resting place of a fourth Cree First Nation soldier has been identified by a city history enthusiast.
The grave of Private Solomon Sutherland – who died in Stirling on February 12, 1919, aged 22 – lies beside those of fellow Canadian Forestry Corps soldiers Private James Keeask and Private Peter Jakozom in Ballengeich Cemetery.
The Raploch history enthusiast, who did not wish to be named, contacted the Observer following recent stories about research carried out by Jim Statter of Bannockburn and Francis Mackay of Cambusbarron.
Mr Statter had been corresponding with Cree author Xavier Kataquapit who told him a story passed down the generations about 24 young men taken from the village of Attawapiskat in north Ontario in the summer of 1917.
One of them, Mr Statter said, was Private Nona Chakasuam who arrived in Stirling in 1917 and worked cutting down trees in Nairnshire and the central belt.
Nona however had contracted logging camp in the Touch Hills. It is most likely all three soldiers served there.
“The James Bay Cree Indians are descended from an American Indian tribe that wandered from its ancestral home on southern Lake Michigan sometime prior to the Indians Appropriations Act of 1851 which created the reservations system.”
According to the Canadian Virtual War Memorial online Peter Jakazom died on February 23, 1919, aged 21, and James Keeask died on February 18, 1919 aged 26.
They are also mentioned on ancestry message boards where it is stated that Peter Jakazom and James Keeask both died at Stirling’s Combination Hospital of TB.
Peter Jakazom is listed as a furrier and private in the 109th Canadian Forestry Corps and James Keeask as a trapper.
The virtual memorial also states that Solomon Sutherland was the son of Jacob Sutherland and his wife Anna Katazuabit.