Dictionary of Glengarry Biography

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====== Macpherson, David Murdoch ====== 
 (17 Nov. 1847-4 Feb. 1915), dairyman. (D. M. Macpherson, David M. Macpherson; commonly known as “D. M.”; was given the title of “Cheese King” by his contemporaries; form of name David John Murdock Macpherson also found) Born on his parents’ farm on Lot 15 in the 1st Concession of Lancaster Township, GC. Parents: John McPherson (d. 18 Dec. 1869), a native of Kingussie, Inverness-shire, Scotland, and his wife Catherine Cameron (d. 26 April 1861), the daughter of John Cameron the Rich. D. M. Macpherson’s formal education was limited, but he attended the local schools. His mother died when D. M. Macpherson was 13. The father remarried, some five years later, on 16 March 1866, to Phoebe Marjerrison of Roxborough Township, Stormont County. Tradition reports that it was from Phoebe that the future Cheese King learned the techniques of cheesemaking. After his father’s death, D. M. Macpherson, aged 22, took over the family farm. On 17 Jan. 1871, he married Margaret McBean, the daughter of Duncan McBean of Montreal.

<tab>From the location originally of his family farm (i.e., the farm already mentioned as being on Lot 15 in the 1st Concession of Lancaster Township), known as Allan Grove, he began to build up one of the most remarkable GC ventures of his remarkably successful GC generation, namely his Allan Grove Combination of cheese factories (spelling also Allangrove). He established his first cheese factory on that farm in 1870 or 1871 or 1872. By 1889, he had 78 or 80 cheese factories in GC and adjacent areas of Eastern Ontario, in Huntingdon and Chateauguay counties in Quebec, and in northern New York State. The Allan Grove Combination is said to have been the largest of such cheese factory combinations in Canada by 1874, and to have controlled at one stage one-eighth of the production of cheese in Canada. Some of these factories he actually owned, others he controlled in various arrangements with the owners, who were usually the local farmers who supplied the milk for the factory. Macpherson provided skilful supervision of production, and skilful management of sales, the main market for the cheese being in Britain. An exceptionally fine portrait of Macpherson in J. A. Ruddick’s //An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Dairying Industry in Canada//, which was published by the Dept. of Agriculture, Ottawa, 1911, has a caption describing him–but can this claim be correct?–as “at one time the largest cheese manufacturer in the world.”

<tab>Between 1886 and 1895, Macpherson’s enterprises, in agreement with the contemporary fondness for making giant cheeses (i.e., huge cakes or blocks of cheese) for advertising and publicity purposes, produced over 100 giant cheeses in the 1000-1200 pound range, “all of which were used for show window purposes in the United Kingdom.” (J. A. Ruddick in Innis’ //The Dairy Industry in Canada//, 67; see the entry for [[ruddick_john_archibald|Ruddick]] in the present dictionary for his own involvement in the making of these large cheeses). In 1901, Macpherson shipped two gigantic cheeses, weighing 1000 pounds each, to the Glasgow exhibition. (//Glengarry News// 20 Sept. 1901)

<tab>He and later his son Duncan J. Macpherson were associated with J. T. Schell in the Alexandria firm of McPherson and Schell (Macpherson & Schell), which manufactured along with other wood products the elmwood cheese boxes used for packaging cheese. Like other well-to-do and prominent Glengarrians, D. M. Macpherson, no narrow specialist or victim of tunnel vision, was engaged in a wide range of activities, commercial and otherwise. He was an enterprising and adventurous farmer, and promoter of advanced techniques not just in dairying but in agriculture generally. And for an example of his many lesser involvements in GC affairs, he was one of several local people who provided (relatively small) sums of start-up money for J. C. McNeil’s //Glengarry Times// newspaper. He served as president of the Eastern Ontario Dairymen’s Association and of the Dominion Dairymen’s Association.

<tab>He became a supporter of the farmers’ movement known as the Patrons of Industry when it established itself in GC in the early 1890s. In early October 1893, he was offered the Patrons’ nomination to be their candidate for the GC constituency in the next Ontario election. (J. Lockie Wilson was their choice for federal candidate.) Several weeks went by, however, before Macpherson accepted the offer, causing thereby some dismay among his political supporters. By mid November, however, he had accepted. According to the statement in the Toronto-based newspaper of the Patrons’ movement, //The Canada Farmers’ Sun//, “For a time it was not clear to him that he could neglect his business interests and do justice to his constituents if he consented to run, but these fears have been overcome.” Perhaps he hesitated, also, through loyalty to the old two-party system. As the election grew near, it was stated that “The Liberals and Patrons of Industry in Glengarry and Stormont have made an agreement, by which the former are to vote with the latter on condition that their candidates give an independent support to [Ontario Liberal Premier] Mowat.” (//Gleaner//, 14 June 1894) At any rate, in the Ontario general election of 26 June 1894 he was victorious, defeating G. H. McGillivray. Within a few years, the Patrons’ movement was in ruins. As the next Ontario general election approached, Macpherson sought the Liberal nomination, but unsuccessfully, since the Liberals instead chose D. C. McRae as their candidate. (//Cornwall Freeholder// 31 Dec. 1897) In the end, with what remained of the Patrons’ movement in GC, Macpherson was nominated, on 15 Dec. 1897 in Alexandria, as the Independent or Patrons candidate (either term seems applicable) for the forthcoming Ontario general election. (//Glengarry News// 17 Dec. 1897) At the election, which was on 1 March 1898, he faced McRae and the Conservative candidate, the prominent contractor D. R. Mcdonald, McDonald being the victor. In the Ontario general election of 29 May 1902, Macpherson stood as the Liberal candidate but was defeated by the only other candidate, W. D. McLeod, Conservative, also prominent in the cheese industry and known as the Little Cheese King.

<tab>Despite his foray into the Patrons’ movement, Macpherson was a Liberal, in the virtually organic way in which GC males of his generation were either Liberal or Conservative. (Most women, so far, left these matters to the men.) There were rumours in the spring of 1882 that the Liberals intended to “shelve” James Rayside and make Macpherson their Ontario candidate instead. (//The Cornwall Reporter//, 15 April 1882, and a further comment, 5 Aug. 1882) Looking back on the election of 1894, the Liberal //Freeholder//, of Cornwall, said (8 Nov. 1895), “Mr. Macpherson, though a Patron candidate, is nevertheless a strong Liberal, and owed his election to that cause a good deal more than to his connection with the Patrons of Industry.”

<tab>For the 1898 contest, Mrs Catherine Ferguson wrote a song called “Glengarry’s Best Friend is McPherson,” which her husband Gordon Ferguson sang at one of the election meetings, probably in Greenfield Hall. A literary and political curiosity, it notes that Macpherson, a farmer himself, well knew what a farmer’s cares were, and that he had always striven to have farming put on a level with the other professions.

<tab>As an expert on agriculture, Macpherson provided testimony published in the Ontario Agricultural Commmission //Report// of 1881, Vol. I, pp. 405-411.

<tab>At the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 he was among the people who won awards for cheese.

<tab>Through his work in promoting the GC cheese industry, so long the economic mainstay of GC farmers, D. M. Macpherson had a greater influence on GC economic history than any other man. His cheese factory on his Allan Grove farm was one of the first in the county. In the end, the GC cheese industry outlived Macpherson by only about forty years (a period a little longer, in number of years, than his own active career as a cheeseman), being effectively wound up in the 1950s. His employment served as a valuable “school” to instruct others in the cheese business, and not just in the actual work of making the product, but in the management of the business. For successful former employees, notable in the dairying business, see [[kinsella_john_a|J. A. Kinsella]], [[ruddick_john_archibald|J. A. Ruddick]], [[mcleod_wesley|Wesley McLeod]]. One of his strongest abilities seems to have been that of a picker of talent–a feature notable in his choice of employees. Otherwise, Macpherson himself was clever, thoughtful, innovative and energetic, with a speculative touch, but he seems to have lacked a forceful personality, or at least as forceful a personality as one might expect from the remarkable success he enjoyed for so long–though not, as it turned out, to the end of his life.

<tab>His title of the Cheese King came from the contemporary British and American practice of calling prominent businessmen the “King” of whatever form of commerce they excelled in. References to Macpherson, in whatever context, in the GC and Cornwall press of his time, usually include the title of Cheese King. This helped to distinguish him, of course, from other Macphersons. How widely the title was used by the people in everyday speech, as opposed to the press, we have no way of knowing. And when the term was used by the people, such as the farmers talking with their neighbours at the cheese factory, was it always used by them in the sympathetic way it was used in print? Indeed, how difficult it must have been for the GC Scots of his time, with their biting, mocking Celtic wit, to repeat that title of “Cheese King” without letting their intonation give a satirical edge to the words. Glengarry as much as Ireland had its Celtic “begrudging.” Once multitudes knew the answer to the question of how the populace used the title. Now, with the change of generations, it stands unanswerable.

<tab>Being of an inventive frame of mind, and working in a relatively new field of manufacturing, where much pioneer work remained to be done, he made many improvements in the techniques and the implements of cheesemaking.

<tab>In the years that follow in brackets, D. M. Macpherson took out Canadian patents for inventions or improvements in cheese hoops (1875), curd mills (1884), hand agitators for cheese manufacture (1884), hand trucks for moving cheese boxes (1889), milk purifiers (1889), butter boxes (1896), and hay presses (1902). A spot check of U. S. patents listings did not identify any American patents listed for him. However, it did reveal that his son, Duncan J. Macpherson, took out a U. S. patent in 1906 for a cheese box.

<tab>In 1903, D. M. Macpherson’s combination failed. He became bankrupt, and in 1905 even his personal property was sold by auction. In 1907 he was given a federal appointment as inspector of butter and cheese factories. (//Glengarry News// & //Cornwall Standard //both of 17 May 1907) Perhaps this was a favour, intended to help him at this stage. He died in Montreal General Hospital. (eight children) Burial was at South Lancaster. He was a Presbyterian and a Presbyterian elder. GC was his place of residence throughout his entire life. His wife, who was born in 1852, survived him to die at Utica, N. Y., on 9 Jan. 1937. One of their daughters married A. Stewart McBean, and another married John D. McArthur the lumberman. Two of D. M. Macpherson’s brothers, Donald Andrew and James, are noticed separately in this dictionary. Another brother, Angus McPherson, who died in 1912, was a gold miner at Quesnel, B. C., in Cariboo country.

<tab>The Allan Grove farm has continued to be of importance and distinction in GC agriculture. John F. McRae, a native of the 1st Concession of Lochiel Township, bought the 250-acre Allan Grove Farm at auction in 1904, and it has since been in the ownership of his McRae family (He was the father of Lloyd McRae and Duncan Ross McRae of the present dictionary.) The Allan Grove name, however, seems to have been dropped when Macpherson’s ownership ended.


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<fs small>Life by S. Lynn Campbell and Susan L. Bennett //Dictionary of Canadian Biography// Vol. XIV * //Glengarry News// 12 Feb. 1915 (repr. Fraser //Obits.// 272-273), //Cornwall Freeholder// 4 & 11 Feb. 1915 (with portrait) * Rose i, 728-729 (includes a sketch of his father’s life) * Morgan (1898) 714 * Fraser, //Gravestones//, II,80 * Fraser, //Cameron//: index * biog.sketch by Ewan Ross, //Glengarry Life//, 1976 * MacGillivray & Ross: index (portrait) * Ross, //Lancaster//, various ref., but esp. 253-262 * Fraser (1959): index * //Chicago 1893// 79 * The GC and Cornwall newspapers reported almost weekly over many years on Macpherson and his cheese business. Interesting contributions include the report on the early progress of his cheese factory at Allan Grove, //Cornwall Gazette// 19 Feb. 1873, and “The Allan-Grove Combination Cheese Factory,” //Glengarry Times// 23 July 1881 * //The Dominion Illustrated// (1 March 1890): material on Macpherson and the GC cheese industry; portrait of Macpherson on cover * J.A. Ruddick, “Fifty Years of Dairying,” //The Family Herald and Weekly Star//, 28 Jan. 1931 (Ruddick’s recollections, not wholly sympathetic, of Macpherson, with portraits of Ruddick and Macpherson) * Ruddick in //The Dairy Industry in Canada//, ed. Innis, 67 * //The Canada Farmers’ Sun//, esp. 10 Oct. 1893-20 March 1894, 6 Feb. 1895, and //The Weekly Sun//, 18 Feb. 1897 (portrait in form of drawing), 11 Nov. & 23 Dec. 1897, 21 May 1902 * Rutley * patents: information from Canadian Intellectual Property Office and from United States Dept. of Commerce: Patent and Trademark Office. Patent Nos. for D. M. Macpherson’s Canadian patents follow, with the years in brackets: 5031 (1875), 20463 (1884), 20487 (1884), 30796 (1889), 30930 (1889), 54974 (1896), 74709 (1902). Duncan J. Macpherson’s U. S. patent was No. 830,795, date 11 Sept. 1906 * “Glengarry’s Best Friend is McPherson”: printed in Ross, //Lancaster//, 234-235; photocopy of MS and typescript, with explanatory note by Mrs Ferguson’s daughter Elizabeth (Lizzie) Blair, in present author’s files * patrons of Martintown cheese factory honour Macpherson with a testimonial dinner, //Cornwall Reporter//, 13 Jan. 1883 * quarrels with patrons of his Laggan cheese factory, //Glengarrian// 21 & 28 March 1890 * intends to go into winter dairying on large scale, //Vankleek Hill Review// 6 Nov. 1896 * obituary of his wife, report on her funeral, //Standard Freeholder// 13 & 15 Jan. 1937 * brief obituary of his son, John A., //Glengarry News// 20 Aug. 1953 (repr. Fraser //Obits.// 275) * Angus McPherson dies: 20 Years Ago column, //Standard Freeholder// 19 Oct. 1932 
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