(1862-29 Oct. 1913), blind lawyer of Lancaster, GC. (Blind Willie Stewart) Born at Lancaster, GC. Parents: Ranald Stewart and his wife Elizabeth McLennan (sister of Justice James Maclennan). He attended Williamstown High School and Queen’s University. About the time he completed his studies at Queen’s he contracted smallpox and became completely blind. He is believed to have caught the smallpox while visiting an aunt in Montreal. Thereafter, he became for a few years an itinerant piano and organ tuner in GC and Winnipeg, travelling with horse and buggy. He next attended the Brantford School for the Blind. There he successfully led a student rebellion against the principal, and afterwards he successfully defended himself in law against a lawsuit the principal brought against him. Stewart studied law at Osgood Hall, and is said to have been the first blind person to graduate from Osgoode Hall. He was called to the bar in 1891, and in 1894 opened a law office at Lancaster (Glengarry News 20 July 1894), where a successful practice followed. He was one of the founders of the Lancaster Library (see entry for John D. Ross), and also acted as librarian “for nearly twenty years,” but presumably the position was part-time and voluntary, and in no way offered a regular occupation. (For another blind librarian of Lancaster, see Mrs Whyte-Edgar.) Politically, Stewart “was a consistent Liberal.” He was a friend of the Ostrom family of Alexandria. J.G. Harkness, who knew him, includes a few vivid recollections of him, and pays tribute to his high intelligence, and to his extraordinary skills in making his way about in a world he could not see.

     At the beginning of his fifties, early in life for a professional career, Stewart died at Lancaster. He was married to Minnie Webster (1873-1964). (seven children) He was the great-nephew of Neil Stewart of Vankleek Hill and William Stewart of Bytown. SDG had another blind lawyer in the person of Lorne W.R. Mulloy (d. 1932), called Trooper Mulloy, a native of Dundas County who was blinded in the South African War, was called to the bar in 1909, and practised law at Iroquois.

Glengarry News 31 Oct. & 7 Nov. 1913 (QF) * Campbell (1990), 169-174 * Fraser, Gravestones, II, 81 * Harkness, 437-438 * Dumbrille, B, 18, 30-31 * Ross, Lancaster, 221, 277, 389 * called to bar: Law Society of Upper Canada Archives * Trooper Mulloy: Harkness 444; dies, Cornwall Freeholder 24 Feb. & 2 March 1932