(25 Sept. 1849-?), dentist. (J. T. MacPherson, Joseph T. MacPherson) Born at South Lancaster, in GC. Parents: Rev. Thomas Macpherson and his wife who (if we assume there was only one marriage) was Eliza Marquis Taylor. After early education at South Lancaster and at Williamstown Grammar School, he studied medicine at McGill, and then dentistry in New York and Toronto, obtaining his qualification of L. D. S. in Montreal. He began a dental practice at Huntingdon, Que. While there, he worked vigorously for the Conservative Party. With a printer whose surname was Manson, he founded a newspaper called the Enterprise, at Huntingdon, which promoted the Conservative cause and began publication in May 1890. Manson left the paper in Jan. 1891, and MacPherson left it in May 1892, and the paper itself failed and ceased publication in April 1893. The National Library of Quebec has a microfilm of the newspaper, but many issues are missing. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography’s life of Robert Sellar says that Montreal Conservatives in 1883 and 1890 “tried to ruin him [Sellar] by subsidizing the establishment of rival newspapers in Huntingdon.” But Cochrane’s biographical dictionary of the 1890s, which warmly praises MacPherson’s work as a political activist, saying that “To his efforts is due the resuscitation of Conservatism in Huntingdon County,” takes a favourable attitude also to the newspaper, recording that among other services to Conservatism, “In 1890, he established the Huntingdon Enterprise, and succeeded in doing a noble work through its columns for his party.” Dr MacPherson held the office of license commissioner for Huntingdon County. In 1892 he moved to Montreal and established a dental practice there, described in 1895 (Cochrane) as “one of the most successful practices in the city.” A Presbyterian, he was also a Mason and Orangeman. He was married to Jessie McBain, of Bainsville, Ont. (at least six children) She outlived him, to die in 1918 in Edmonton, where she had been living with one of her daughters. His date of death has not been found.
Cochrane, IV, 296 (biog. sketch, with portrait) * Ross, Lancaster, 213-214 (summary of Cochrane) * Elliott 226 * André Beaulieu & Jean Hamelin, La presse québécois des origines à nos jours (1973-1990), III, 233 * Robert Hill, Voice of the Vanishing Minority: Robert Sellar and the Huntingdon Gleaner 1863-1919 (1998) 185, 196 * death of widow, Cornwall Standard 8 Aug. 1918 from Edmonton Bulletin of 10 July * MacPherson and Manson found Enterprise, Glengarrian 9 May 1890