John Glenn

John Glenn (1833 in County Mayo, Ireland – January 9, 1886, in Calgary, Alberta) was the first documented European to settle in the Calgary, Alberta, Canada area. Glenn was an Irish immigrant who first settled in the United States in 1849 and served in the American Civil War. He would then travel to British Columbia before settling in Calgary in 1873 with his wife Adelaide (née Belcourt), and built a small log cabin near the confluence of Fish Creek and the Bow River - in today's Fish Creek Provincial Park. Early life John Glenn was born in Mayo County, Ireland in 1833. As a young man he left Ireland and travelled to England. He was homesick for his native country so started to travel back home, however he changed his mind just a few miles from his Father's home and turned around and travelled back to England. From Liverpool he took a ship to New York, he was 16 years old. Upon arriving in the United States he decided to travel to Waco, Texas, where he took employment on a ranch. In 1861 he was drafted into the Confederate Army, however, as he did not believe in slavery, he deserted and joined the Northern Federal Army. He served during this period under General William Tecumseh Sherman until the end of the Civil war in 1865. He then travelled around the United States, working in mines and in 1867 he moved to British Columbia and then on to Barkerville (along with James Votier and Sam Livingston - who would later become his neighbours in the Calgary area).