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| <tab>Dr Grant remains one of the legendary figures of 19th-century GC history. Rhodes Grant preserves a few recollections of Dr Grant, which we may regard as conformable to the spirit of the man, even though Rhodes Grant disturbingly gets his Christian name wrong. Rhodes Grant reports that this pioneer physician was “long remembered for his skill and kindness.” And Rhodes Grant tells the story of how Dr Grant, who was “No puritan,” got his glasses broken in a drunken fight with a boon companion called Duncan McMartin. Rhodes Grant also attempts an explanation of why Grant came to Martintown, and identifies the location of his Martintown home. Dr Grant was one of the guests at the banquet at Fraserfield so memorably described by John Fraser’s //Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches// (p. 117). At one of 19th-century GC’s most memorable celebrations, the great ball and supper held in Alexandria in 1857 on the occasion of the completion of Donald A. (Sandfield) Macdonald’s steam mill, Dr Grant presided at the supper, and from the newspaper report of his remarks we get a valued glimpse of him as a human being–articulate, amiable, convivial, warm natured, easy in company. By his origins and his profession, Dr Grant belonged to the GC social elite of his day, which included the Nor’Westers. (John Rae, who was in many ways a parallel figure, left just before Grant’s arrival.) | <tab>Dr Grant remains one of the legendary figures of 19th-century GC history. Rhodes Grant preserves a few recollections of Dr Grant, which we may regard as conformable to the spirit of the man, even though Rhodes Grant disturbingly gets his Christian name wrong. Rhodes Grant reports that this pioneer physician was “long remembered for his skill and kindness.” And Rhodes Grant tells the story of how Dr Grant, who was “No puritan,” got his glasses broken in a drunken fight with a boon companion called Duncan McMartin. Rhodes Grant also attempts an explanation of why Grant came to Martintown, and identifies the location of his Martintown home. Dr Grant was one of the guests at the banquet at Fraserfield so memorably described by John Fraser’s //Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches// (p. 117). At one of 19th-century GC’s most memorable celebrations, the great ball and supper held in Alexandria in 1857 on the occasion of the completion of Donald A. (Sandfield) Macdonald’s steam mill, Dr Grant presided at the supper, and from the newspaper report of his remarks we get a valued glimpse of him as a human being–articulate, amiable, convivial, warm natured, easy in company. By his origins and his profession, Dr Grant belonged to the GC social elite of his day, which included the Nor’Westers. (John Rae, who was in many ways a parallel figure, left just before Grant’s arrival.) |
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| <tab>An anecdote reports that John Dougall of the Montreal //Witness//, a temperance speaker, urged the public to buy out the liquor on sale at Martintown in the store of Dr Grant, “a politician and a fluent speaker.” The idea was that when the storekeeper had been financially satisfied in this way, the liquor outlet could be permanantly closed. Grant, who had been impressed but not convinced by the speaker, declined to support the project. (//Witness// 4 Sept. 1894, reporting this event years later ) Running a side business, such as a store, would not have been out of order for a poorly paid physician of the era. (See, e. g., Dr D. E. McIntyre for another merchant physician) At some time during the pastorate (begun 1853) of the Rev. Daniel Gordon at St. Elmo, Dr Grant was the physician who attended to the illness of one of the Gordon children, Gilbert, afterwards himself a physician. James Begg, who also lived far away, in Roxborough Township (16 miles from Martintown, as he calculated), remembered that when he was taken seriously ill at time which seems to have been in the 1850s, “Dr. Grant (father of James Grant of Ottawa) bled me until I fainted.” | <tab>An anecdote reports that John Dougall of the Montreal //Witness//, a temperance speaker, urged the public to buy out the liquor on sale at Martintown in the store of Dr Grant, “a politician and a fluent speaker.” The idea was that when the storekeeper had been financially satisfied in this way, the liquor outlet could be permanantly closed. Grant, who had been impressed but not convinced by the speaker, declined to support the project. (//Witness// 4 Sept. 1894, reporting this event years later ) Running a side business, such as a store, would not have been out of order for a poorly paid physician of the era. (See, e. g., [[mcintyre_daniel_eugene|Dr D. E. McIntyre]] for another merchant physician) At some time during the pastorate (begun 1853) of the Rev. Daniel Gordon at St. Elmo, Dr Grant was the physician who attended to the illness of one of the Gordon children, Gilbert, afterwards himself a physician. James Begg, who also lived far away, in Roxborough Township (16 miles from Martintown, as he calculated), remembered that when he was taken seriously ill at time which seems to have been in the 1850s, “Dr. Grant (father of James Grant of Ottawa) bled me until I fainted.” |
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| <tab>Dr Grant of the present article had as his contemporary in Eastern Ontario Dr John Grant, of Dundas County, who was present at the Battle of the Windmill and was at one time coroner of SDG. (Canniff, 400-401). Harkness has noticed a Dr James A. Grant, who was practising at Williamstown in 1853, and who may be different from both Dr Grant and his distinguished son. | <tab>Dr Grant of the present article had as his contemporary in Eastern Ontario Dr John Grant, of Dundas County, who was present at the Battle of the Windmill and was at one time coroner of SDG. (Canniff, 400-401). Harkness has noticed a Dr James A. Grant, who was practising at Williamstown in 1853, and who may be different from both Dr Grant and his distinguished son. |
