Monroe, Duncan

(19 Dec. 1842-12 Dec. 1936), businessman. Born at MacGillivrays Bridge, GC. Parents: John Monroe (a blacksmith and native of Scotland who lived in the West Indies before coming to Canada) and his wife Catherine McMillan of Lochiel Township. Duncan Monroe was educated in Charlottenburgh Township, at Kirk Hill, and at Lancaster. For some years he worked at Buckingham, Que. He acquired some speaking knowledge of French; he also spoke Gaelic. Monroe went to Cornwall some 73 years before his death, therefore about 1863, and from that time his career was in the rising industrial town of Cornwall. He was an insurance man in Cornwall “and also dealt heavily in real estate and became one of Cornwall’s largest property owners.” (obituary, Standard Freeholder)

A worker in many local activities, he was secretary-treasurer of the Board of Trustees, Cornwall Public School, for 62 years, a supporter also of Cornwall High School, president of the Cornwall Cheese and Butter Board, and active in the militia, and he was also a supporter of a wide variety of sports including lacrosse. Also, he was an Orangeman for 76 years. The Orange lodge in Cornwall was called Monroe lodge (Monroe L.O.L. 880, Monroe Orange Lodge) in his honour. In religion, he was a Presbyterian, and an elder in St. John’s Church, Cornwall. Monroe died at his home, called Cedar Brae, in Cornwall, a week before his 94th birthday. The pallbearers at his funeral included J.G. Harkness and Peter E. Campbell, who were fellow elders in St. John’s Church.

The Glengarry News obituary stated that “Mr. Monroe was a familiar figure throughout Glengarry being frequently seen in Highland garb at our various Scottish gatherings. His genial personality, his kindness and his generosity had won for him a multitude of friends and he was always a welcome visitor at the homes of his numerous intimates. He entertained extensively at his home and his hospitality was a byword throughout the district.” Some years previously, the Maxville correspondent of the Glengarry News, calling him “Cornwall’s Insurance King,” wrote that “This doughty Scot always receives a warm welcome from his many Maxville friends.” (Cornwall Standard 5 Oct. 1922, quoting Glengarry News)

Flamboyant and a figure from the great age of the go-getter salesman, Monroe seems to have “played up” to the role of being a Highland Scotchman and a grand old Scotchman in a way uncommon among the Glengarrians. However, there cannot be the least doubt that he was well liked and well respected; though if two and two make four, it may be guessed also (though the evidence has gone with time) that he had to face his share of GC “begrudging.”

In his later years, the Cornwall press often termed him “Cornwall’s Grand Old Man.” Though a firm Orangeman, he lived amicably with those of other loyalties, as the Orangemen of GC and Stormont County so unfailingly did, and the Standard-Freeholder editorial on his death said that “he numbered among his warmest personal friends” the late Mgr George Corbet.

He was married to Jennie Loney (1843-1921) (children surviving him: 1 daughter). Archibald Monroe, who went to the British Columbia goldfields in 1862 and was drowned in the sinking of the Algoma in Lake Superior in 1885, seems to have been his brother.

Among the many remarkable people who had contacts with him over his long working life, we may note James Alexander Wattie, a wealthy entrepreneur, and former businessman in China, who made a great impression when he revisited Cornwall in 1929. Wattie, who was a former Monroe employee, and son of one of John A. Cariboo Cameron’s British Columbia gold-mining associates, had with him in his Canadian tour “his Indian attendant,” “his private chauffeur,” and his car brought over from his home in England. (Cornwall Standard 1 Aug. 1929) .