(16 March 1852-1 Feb. 1936), electrician. Born at Glen Brook (Glenbrook), GC. Parents: Mr and Mrs John (Roy) MacMillan. In Cornwall, where he went with his parents in his early years, he worked in woollen and cotton mills. When workmen associated with Thomas Edison installed Edison’s newly-invented incandescent light bulbs in the Canada Cottons mill at Cornwall in 1883-1884, in what is believed to have been the first use of this new form of lighting in Canadian industry, John MacMillan was put in charge of one of the generators. Thereafter, he made the new technology of electricity and of electric lighting his life’s work. He installed generators in sugar refineries in Montreal and in the private home of a member of the Redpath sugar family, worked as an assistant in the wiring of the Parliament Buildings in 1886, installed a generator in a nickel mill in Sudbury, and did extensive work in wiring for street lighting and for lighting in private houses and businesses in the Maritimes and Ontario. Later, he operated an electrical shop in Cornwall, and continued to work into his 80s. He died at his home in Cornwall. On 20 April 1881 he was married to Margaret Hughes of Cornwall. (eight children, five surviving him) It is difficult to estimate to what degree he was, variously, a dependable employee, a valued subordinate, an unusual odd-jobs man, a resourceful workman, an ingenious pioneer in the new skills of applied electricity, a business partner, an independent contractor, an employee of contractors, and an independent businessman (of low or middle rank). No doubt he was all of these at different times. Two long, detailed biographical articles on MacMillan, one in the Cornwall Standard-Freeholder’s Down the Lane series, and the other his obituary, which draws on the former but also stands well in its own right, are remarkable, important records of a life in technology.

Standard Freeholder 5 Feb. 1936 (with portrait) * DTL SFH 1 April 1933 * Senior 231 * Karen Carter-Edwards, Cornwall Electric: 100 Years of Service (1987) 9