(died 22 April 1903, aged 80), riverman and police chief. Born at Meadow Bay (between Summerstown and Lancaster), GC. Parents: Angus Cameron and his wife Isabella McDougal. Allan was the younger brother of John A. (“Cariboo”) Cameron. In his younger years Allan was a shantyman, and on 9 separate occasions he took rafts of timber to Quebec City. He served in the GC militia in the Rebellion of 1837-1838. He is said to have been employed in stringing the first telegraph wires eastward from Cornwall.

     He went to the California gold fields in 1854 by way of Panama as a gold miner, spent three years in California, and was shipwrecked on the shore of Cuba on his way home. He became a policeman in Cornwall in 1882. In 1891 he was appointed chief, “though it was in name only.” (Senior 265) Even before this time he seems unofficially to have had the title of chief. In connection with his activities as a policeman he was often mentioned in the Cornwall newspapers of this time. He resigned in 1902, not long before his death. He was therefore a policeman between the ages of about 60 and 80. The occupation of a town policeman at this time in Ontario was of very modest status. He seems thereby not to have lived up to his earlier adventurousness or to the demands of the legend of his brother Cariboo, though the police position for him must be seen as something of an old man’s occupation. He died at Cornwall, and he is buried at Salem cemetery, Summerstown. According to his obituary in the Cornwall Standard he “was a splendid specimen of the sturdy descendants of the Highlanders who came over from Scotland in the early part of the century to make their homes in the Canadian Glengarry… Although not a large man, as Glengarrians of his generation particularly were prone to be, he was gifted with remarkable muscular development, and in his shanty days used to lift a barrel of pork ‘by the hoops,’ a feat which baffled many brawny men of that time.”

     He was the brother of Alexander Cameron, whose wife is in this dictionary as Mrs Alexander Cameron. Another brother, Daniel Cameron (Dan Cameron), died in Feb. 1908 aged about 80. Born at Meadow Bay, GC, Daniel was in the Cariboo gold fields for a few years, but otherwise spent his life at Summerstown and was the last to die of his parents’ ten children. “He was a typical Canadian Highlander, warm-hearted, generous, outspoken and of sterling integrity.” He was married to Emma Nash, of Morrisburg.

Cornwall Standard 24 April 1903, 20 Years Ago column Cornwall Freeholder 26 April 1923 * Senior * MacGillivray & Ross 453 * Harkness 297 (group picture of Glengarrians in Cornwall 1896) * Rose, i, 749 (life of J. Dingwall) * uniform of “Policeman Cameron” is being made, Cornwall Freeholder 4 May 1883 * DTL, Standard Freeholder 5 March 1949, based on CF 6 March 1891, appointed chief of police * identification of location of Meadow Bay, SFH 18 Nov. 1946 * death at Lancaster,1914 of another Cornwall chief of police with a rather similar name, Alexander Cameron: 20 Years Ago column CF 27 Nov. 1934 * Daniel Cameron: CF 21 & 28 Feb. 1908 (QF)