(17 Oct. 1836-7 Oct. 1915), lawyer. (Donald B. Maclennan, D. B. Maclennan; in this name, Ban means fair-haired or fair-complexioned; Q. C. or K. C. commonly used after his surname in press) Born in Charlottenburgh Township, GC. Parents: Farquhar Ban McLennan and his wife Catherine Fraser. He attended Williamstown Grammar School and Queen’s University (B. A., 1857, M. A., 1861), and was headmaster in the grammar schools at Waterdown and Port Dover, Ont., before beginning the study of the law. He studied law in the Cornwall office of John Sandfield Macdonald (where his brother John Ban Maclennan was a law partner), and in the Toronto office of Mowat and Maclennan (see entry for James Maclennan). Called to the bar, 1865, he became immediately afterwards the partner of John Sandfield Macdonald and John Ban Maclennan in the Cornwall law firm. He was married in July 1871 to Elizabeth Margaret Cline (1848-1926), of Cornwall. (eight children, five surviving him ) After the deaths of Macdonald (1872) and John Ban (1873) he was a partner at various times of Henry Sandfield Macdonald, James W. Liddell and C. H. Cline, and of his own son, Frederick John Maclennan. He was made a Q. C. in 1876. For many years, he was one of the leading legal men in SDG. He was one of the three men Patrick Purcell appointed to be executors of his [Purcell’s] will.

     For some 40 years he was a Presbyterian elder. In the 1860s he was a militia lieutenant. He died at his home in Cornwall. The burial was at Woodlawn Cemetery. At the time of Donald Ban’s death his son Frederick John Maclennan, formerly his law partner, was collector of customs at Cornwall, and another son, Frank W., was “manager of extensive copper mines at Miami, Arizona.” Donald Ban Maclennan was described in his Cornwall Freeholder obituary as “a Liberal of the old school.” In the federal elections of 1878, he was a candidate (as a Reformer, or as he later said, on a non-party basis) for the Cornwall constituency, but he was defeated by Dr Darby Bergin. When Bergin’s victory was reversed because of alleged election irregularities, Maclennan again ran against him in the resulting by-election of Jan. 1880, but was again defeated. He was one of John Sandfield Macdonald’s executors, and he was the speakers at the unveiling in Toronto in 1909 of the statue of Macdonald. A story handed down in the Cornwall area states that his family for a time carefully preserved the valuable historical papers of his law firm, which were all the more important because of their association with John Sandfield Macdonald the first premier of Ontario, but that after children created a nuisance by breaking in to secure loot for their stamp collecting, the family disposed of the papers by having a servant throw them down a disused well. His brothers Capt. Alexander B., John Ban and Duncan B. Maclennan also appear in the present dictionary. J. G. Harkness was articled to Maclennan, and was one of the pallbearers at his funeral.

Cornwall Freeholder (QF)& Cornwall Standard both of 14 Oct. 1915 (with tributes, includes repr. of tribute from Toronto Globe) * Fraser, Gravestones, I, 167 (parents) * Harkness: index (portrait) * Rose, i, 769 * Morgan (1898) 707-708 & Morgan (1912) 710 * Boss 49, 248 * Belden Atlas 14-15 (biog. and fine steel-engraved portrait) * Hodgins 120-121 * gravestone, Woodlawn Cemetery, Cornwall * Proceedings at the Unveiling of the Statue of John Sandfield Macdonald (1909); his speech at the unveiling, CS 26 Nov. 1909 * his former employee (coachman, &c.), DTL Standard Freeholder 3 Oct. 1942 * obituary of his son Frank W., mining man, McGill graduate, who died in Los Angeles, SFH 29 Jan. 1947 * well story: present author’s interview with Mary Mack, 27 May 1976; cf biog J. G. Harkness this dictionary