(12 Feb. 1842-28 July 1923), Indian agent. (James McLaughlin; name used with title Major) Born “of Irish and Scotch ancestry” at or near Avonmore, Ont., which is eight miles west of GC. Parents: Felix McLaughlin and his wife Mary Prince. Almost certainly, James was a brother of John McLaughlin (1849-1911), who was MLA (Conservative) for Stormont 1898-1902. James was a blacksmith in Minnesota, then became overseer and blacksmith at Devils Lake Indian agency in North Dakota (then Dakota Territory), then afterwards was Indian agent at Devils Lake and still later Indian agent at the Standing Rock reservation on the North Dakota-South Dakota border. Sitting Bull in his defeated later years lived at the Standing Rock reservation, and McLaughlin as one of the men in authority was intimately involved in the clash which led to Sitting Bull’s death in 1890. In 1895 McLaughlin declined the federal position of assistant commissioner of Indian affairs, but accepted an inspectorship in Indian matters which involved him in much travel about the United States. He died at Washington, D. C., and is buried at McLaughlin, S. D., which was named after him in 1907, and where he had a home. Roman Catholic. James McLaughlin was the author of a book which is still well regarded as a source of information on Indian life, My Friend the Indian (Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910; pp. [xiv], 1-[417], with a frontispiece portrait of the author). It has been reissued at least three times. McLaughlin spoke Sioux, and his wife, Mary Louise Buisson, was part Sioux. A man of intelligence and character, and of some historical significance, McLaughlin was given an entry in the DAB (the Dictionary of American Biography), but, like Norman Brokenshire, he is omitted from its successor, the American National Biography.

     For the tragedy of Sitting Bull, see also Alexander Roderick Macdonell, a GC native who played in 1881 a decisive role in persuading Sitting Bull to return to the United States from his exile in Canada where he had come following the Battle of the Little Bighorn, or Custer’s Last Stand. For the battle, see also H. F. McLean and E. S. Paxson, and for the general area, Angus J. Mcdonald of Meeteetse. No evidence has come to light to document the tradition that certain Macdonalds or Macdonells from the GC area were among the U. S. servicemen who fought in the battle. Certainly, however, the soldiers did include several men of these surnames, while another soldier, Donald MacIntosh, is believed to have had St. Andrew’s, Ont., family connections, and a grandson of the Civil War soldier Donald MacMillan of GC perished in the battle. For Devils Lake, where McLaughlin was employed, see Donald MacIntosh, for notice of Dr Gustavus MacIntosh, a physician there.

DAB * Louis L. Pfaller, James McLaughlin: the Man with an Indian Heart (1978): copy not seen * Howard R. Lamar, ed., The New Encyclopedia of the American West (1998) 672 (biog. sketch) & index * My Friend the Indian 7 (QF), and R. M. Utley’s introduction to 1989 reissue of this work * New York Times 29 July 1923 * The Story of St. Andrews West as Recorded on the Index Cards of Edwin McDonald, ed. Duncan MacDonald (1987) 2 (family) * John McLaughlin, MLA: Worrall 26; Roderick Lewis; Harkness: index * names of soldiers at Battle of the Little Bighorn: J. M. Carroll & B. Price, Roll Call on the Little Big Horn (1974); L. J. Overfield, The Little Big Horn (1971); B. A. Rosenberg, Custer and the Epic of Defeat (1974) 75; cf Hurtig, III, 2043