Ware rode north to what would become Alberta while herding 3,000 head of cattle from Montana in 1882, before settling in the Millarville-area home.

His humble beginnings might have been as a slave in the southern U.S., but renowned cowboy John Ware likely lived a slightly affluent life on a ranch southwest of Calgary.

That’s the preliminary conclusion of a University of Calgary archaeologist who returned to a site near Millarville this summer to unearth more of the life of Ware and his family.

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Small things, like an engraved sewing thimble and a decorative curtain rod uncovered at the site tend to suggest the family lived something more than a strictly hard-scrabbled existence, said Dr. Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer, who spent about a month this summer at the dig.

“There ar

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