| (c. 1848-?), newspaperman. (J. C. McNeil) McNeil was a Nova Scotian, though exactly where he was born (which may not, of course, have been in Canada) is not known. He began work about 1863, at the age of fifteeen, as a clerk in a general store in Nova Scotia. He worked afterwards for three years in a customs house, and was a schoolteacher, and for a time he prospered in real estate in Boston. Moreover, he appears also to have been on the staff of the Montreal //Post//, probably not long before coming to GC. J. C. McNeil published a weekly newspaper called //The Glengarry Times// at Lancaster, GC. (For the economic buoyancy of Lancaster at this time, see the entry for Donald McNaughton) The first issue was dated 24 Dec. 1880. Thereafter, apart from missing some weeks of publication in its first winter, the paper ran till June or July 1882, when, //The Cornwall Reporter// of 15 July 1882 said, it “succumbed to the Sheriff.” //The Glengarry Times// reappeared briefly in the summer of 1883, then was gone forever. | (c. 1848-?), newspaperman. (J. C. McNeil) McNeil was a Nova Scotian, though exactly where he was born (which may not, of course, have been in Canada) is not known. He began work about 1863, at the age of fifteeen, as a clerk in a general store in Nova Scotia. He worked afterwards for three years in a customs house, and was a schoolteacher, and for a time he prospered in real estate in Boston. Moreover, he appears also to have been on the staff of the Montreal //Post//, probably not long before coming to GC. J. C. McNeil published a weekly newspaper called //The Glengarry Times// at Lancaster, GC. (For the economic buoyancy of Lancaster at this time, see the entry for [[mcnaughton_donald|Donald McNaughton]]) The first issue was dated 24 Dec. 1880. Thereafter, apart from missing some weeks of publication in its first winter, the paper ran till June or July 1882, when, //The Cornwall Reporter// of 15 July 1882 said, it “succumbed to the Sheriff.” //The Glengarry Times// reappeared briefly in the summer of 1883, then was gone forever. |
| <tab>This was the first newspaper published in GC, and the only one ever published at Lancaster (unless some of the recent free circulation publications are an exception). The newspaper’s office was at Lancaster, but at first the printing was done in Montreal. It was not until it had been in publication for about a half-year that its own press was installed at Lancaster. The //Glengarry Times// was a well-prepared, interesting, fact filled newspaper, which gives a vivid picture of the GC life of the day. An almost complete file of the issues which survives in the National Library in Ottawa is a valuable source for GC history. The newspaper began as politically independent, though it had taken up Conservative loyalties by the time publication was suspended in 1882. Almost certainly, a major reason why the paper did not prove viable was its failure to obtain one of those rewarding political alliances normally found necessary by the weeklies of the small-town Eastern Ontario of the time. | <tab>This was the first newspaper published in GC, and the only one ever published at Lancaster (unless some of the recent free circulation publications are an exception). The newspaper’s office was at Lancaster, but at first the printing was done in Montreal. It was not until it had been in publication for about a half-year that its own press was installed at Lancaster. The //Glengarry Times// was a well-prepared, interesting, fact filled newspaper, which gives a vivid picture of the GC life of the day. An almost complete file of the issues which survives in the National Library in Ottawa is a valuable source for GC history. The newspaper began as politically independent, though it had taken up Conservative loyalties by the time publication was suspended in 1882. Almost certainly, a major reason why the paper did not prove viable was its failure to obtain one of those rewarding political alliances normally found necessary by the weeklies of the small-town Eastern Ontario of the time. |
