(5 March 1835-26 July 1914), physician, political figure. (Dr McMillan, Senator McMillan) Born presumably on his parents’ farm, which was on West 1/2 of Lot 28, in the 8th Concession of Lochiel Township, GC. Parents: Duncan McMillan and his wife Mary McDonald (Mary Oig or Ogg McDonald, from Gaelic “òg,” meaning “young;” MacDonell is also found for her surname). Donald McMillan was educated in the GC-area schools and is said (the information presumably comes from himself) to have been educated by “private tuition.” He is said to have been a schoolteacher at Dunvegan in his early days. (Glengarry Life 1989 p. 13) He was married at St. Thomas, Ont., on 16 or 17 Nov. 1857 to Amy Ann Lewis (1 Jan. 1837-11 Oct. 1916), of Aylmer, Ont. At one time a merchant in Southwestern Ontario, he studied medicine at Victoria University (Cobourg, Ont.), which is now a part of the University of Toronto, receiving his medical degree in 1865. By 1866 he was practising medicine in Alexandria, where he was to be a physician for many years. At the St. Andrew’s Day celebrations at Alexandria a few months after Confederation, it was Dr Leclair and Dr McMillan who responded to the toast to the medical profession. (Cornwall Freeholder 6 Dec. 1867)
Dr McMillan became one of the most active and successful organizers and promoters in GC for the Conservative Party. He himself stood as the Conservative candidate in the GC by-election of 7 July 1875 (the by-election necessitated by the decision of D. A. Macdonald to vacate his federal seat in order to become lieutenant-governor of Ontario) but was defeated by Archibald McNab, the Liberal candidate. The Conservatives challenged the election results in the courts, with the result that the results were voided, and another by-election took place in 1876. This time, however, Dr McMillan declined to be a candidate, and John McLennan (later to be the GC MP) opposed McNab, unsuccessfully. In January 1884, Dr McMillan was called to the Canadian Senate. The prospects of his being appointed had been under discussion in the press from at least as early as 1881. Essentially, the appointment was a reward for a dedicated party worker who had played a giant’s part in driving back the influence of the Sandfield Macdonalds in GC, and as a way of ensuring the continuing strength of the Conservatives in GC. Informed contemporaries saw McMillan’s merits as large, but looking back on the appointment over more than a century, it seems remarkable that a village doctor, who had never sat in any parliament or taken any great part in the world of business or political affairs, should be so rewarded. In truth, Dr McMillan made the reward even greater through his longevity, for he was a senator for more than 30 years, thereby effectively denying his seat to successive governments as a piece of patronage that could be given to someone else.
He was reported to be the only Roman Catholic senator to vote in 1890 for the second reading of the bill to incorporate the Orange Order. (Gleaner, 27 March 1890, which prints also his defense of his action) The Orange lodges at Pine Grove and Dunvegan in GC passed resolutions of thanks to McMillan for his stand on the Orange incorporation bill. (Glengarrian 25 April & 23 May 1890)
As a senator, he continued to live in Alexandria and to practice medicine. He was one of the most prominent men of Alexandria in what may fairly be regarded as the golden years of the town, which extended from the coming in of the Canada Atlantic Railway to the beginning of the First World War, and saw Alexandria, already the home of a former lieutenant governor, become the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese, and the home of two newspapers and a senator, and of the thriving Munro and McIntosh plant and the Schell industries.
When the Scottish journalist Alexander Mackenzie during his tour of 1879 was entertained by some 45 gentlemen “as the guest of the Highlanders of Alexandria” to a supper in that town, Dr McMillan, who earlier presided at one of Mackenzie’s lectures, “added much to our entertainment by his singing in fine voice and spirit some excellent Gaelic songs.” The Glen Sandfield columnist in the Glengarrian of 1 Aug. 1890, in a graphic account of how a little boy was injured by a mower, noted “Drs. D. D. McDonald [Donald Duncan Macdonald] and Senator McMillan were sent for,” and on arriving began the grim task of caring for the lad. When the future George V (at that time the Duke of Cornwall) stopped at Alexandria during his tour of 1901, Senator McMillan was in the delegation that met him.
Business interests seem to have been minor in his career, but in the 1870s he was a representative in the GC area of the Western Loan and Saving Company, which dealt in mortgages. This is an interesting connection, given the role that moneylending played in the political careers of GC at this time; see the note in the entry for R. R. McLennan. At some stage McMillan had interests, as did so many of his GC contemporaries, in lumbering and sawmills. He is listed also in various contemporary sources as having associations of the directorate kind with several business companies.
He was also on the Alexandria Council and the SDG Council. At a meeting in Alexandria on 15 March 1881 he was made president of the newly-founded Medical Society of the County of Glengarry. (The Canada Lancet, Vol. 13 p. 305)
Dr McMillan died at his home in Alexandria, after “a long and painful ilness,” a few days before the First World War began. (twelve children, 5 surviving him) His funeral at St. Finnan’s and the blessing of the new bells of the Sacré-Coeur Church, both on Wednesday 29 July, were the two last great Alexandria public events of the years of peace. He was buried in St. Finnan’s cemetery.
His obituary in the Glengarry News reported that “He was a man of most retentive memory, a good story teller and conversationalist, widely read and at all times hospitality itself to friends and neighbours. An enthusiastic Highland Scotchman he delighted in speaking and writing Gaelic, was the composer of a number of Gaelic songs and was elected an honorary member of the Celtic and Highland Societies of Montreal.” An anonymous writer for a Conservative newspaper, The Cornwall Reporter, 15 Oct. 1881, describing a tour through GC on the Canada Atlantic Railway then just beginning operations, found that Dr McMillan in Alexandria “is, as usual, happy, smiling and hard-worked.” But Clarence Ostrom, who detested him, wrote in his typescript history of Alexandria that McMillan was unpopular, and hard on the poor.
The following statement can hardly be documented today, when an older generation has gone, and deals with matters not readily “proven” at any time, yet it can hardly be doubted that Dr McMillan’s long tenure of his senatorship gave rise to a belief, or half belief, lingering on in the town for several decades after his death, that the small, proud, and at one time enviably-successful Alexandria was by some unwritten rule of politics “entitled” to a senatorship.
Dr McMillan had a son, Dr Duncan L. McMillan, a McGill graduate in medicine, who died at Alexandria on 30 Sept. 1889, aged 29. St. Finnan’s Cathedral has a window, donated by his widow, in the young man’s memory. Another son of Senator McMillan, Fr Donald D. McMillan (24 Sept. 1869-1933), was pastor of St. Alexander’s Parish, Lochiel, from 1903 to 1920. Senator McMillan also had a brother, Dr Alexander McMillan, described as a “brilliant physician” (Lochinvar to Skye), who practised in Lansing, Michigan.
Senator McMillan was the father-in-law of Samuel Macdonell of Alexandria, also of James MacPhee (10 Oct. 1844-12 Dec. 1928) a well-known merchant and drover of Alexandria, who was thought at the end of his life to have been the oldest resident of Alexandria actually to have been born in the town. James MacPhee, who was a brother of Archibald D. McPhee, was married in 1877 to Mary Isabella McMillan (d. 16 June 1919).
Glengarry News 31 July 1914 (with portrait; repr. Fraser Obits. 248-249), Cornwall Standard 30 July & 6 Aug.1914 (partly from GN) * Lochinvar to Skye, 105-106 * Rose, i, 137-138 * Morgan (1912) 787 * Ostrom 243-244 * Harkness (has portrait): index * MacGillivray & Ross (esp. for his political career and the circumstances of his being made senator; has portrait): index * Witness 4 Sept. 1894 (includes line portrait) * described (Gaelic speaker, and singer) in article on historic GC, printed Cornwall Freeholder 1907 from Scottish-Canadian and repr. (undated clipping) about 1927 * The Black Robe’s Vision: a History of St. Albert & District (St. Albert, Alberta, 1985),Vol. I, 292-294 (his sister and brother, settlers in West) * Cornwall Reporter 1 Jan. 1881 (death of his father 23 Dec. 1880?) * Alexander Mackenzie in The Celtic Magazine, V(1880) 157 * son Dr Duncan L. McMillan: marriage, Glengarrian 11 Feb. 1887; death, CF 4 Oct. 1889, cited DTL , Standard Freeholder 1 Oct. 1949 * Fr Donald D. McMillan: St. Finnan’s CRNI, III, 639; obituary GN 14 July 1933; Villeneuve 196 * Dr Alexander McMillan, of Lansing, Michigan: Lochinvar to Skye 105; Chicago Canadian-American on his career, CF 2 April 1887, cited DTL, SFH 21 April 1945 * biog. sketch of Senator McMillan’s son-in-law, surveyor and architect Frederick Henry (1865-1929), OLS No. 50 (1935) 93-94 * many obituary notices over years in GN for Senator McMillan’s descendants, see, e.g. warmly phrased obituaries, tribute, for his grandson Adair Macdonell, a postal train service employee, GN 26 Dec. 1941 * becomes associate coroner for SDG, CF 3 Aug. 1866; to be one of coroners for SDG, Witness 30 March 1868 * wittty, detailed description of his attack in 3/4 hour speech on Hon. D. A. Macdonald at Kenyon Town Hall meeting, on Canada Atlantic Railway issue, Cornwall Reporter 31 Dec. 1881 * press discussion with regard to his prospects of becoming a senator: Alexandria column in CF 23 Sept. 1881, 7 April 1882, 16 June 1882, 16 March 1883, 6 April 1883, 17 Aug. 1883 * Orange incorporation bill: refs. as in text, also Glengarrian 7, 21 & 28 March 1890, 11 April 1890 * GN 23 July 1909 prints English version of Gaelic speech delivered by Senator McMillan * celebrates 50th wedding anniversary, GN 22 Nov. 1907 * his brother Angus McMillan, Vancouver, celebrates 60th wedding anniversary, SFH 20 Nov. 1935 * James MacPhee and wife: obituaries GN 14 & 21 Dec. 1928, 20 June 1919, reproduced in Fraser Obits. 265-267