====== McCuaig, Donald B. ====== (died 30 March 1908, aged “upwards of 85”), salesman. Born west of Glen Sandfield, GC, on Lot 12, in 4th Concession of Lochiel Township. “After receiving a common school education, while yet a very young man, he engaged in storekeeping at Mongenais, Que. Several years later he went into lumbering and for a number of years carried on that pursuit with reasonable success. To Glengarry people, however, he was more familiarly known as ‘Agent’ for Sewing Machines, Books, Etc. placing hundreds of the former in the county.” He was well known throughout GC because, in his role as an agent or salesman, “during a number of years he had periodically visited every section.” At the time of his death, “Having attained that ripe age that justly entitled him to rest and comfort the deceased had of late been residing with friends in Glen Sandfield.” However, his actual home remained in Glen Robertson. His story hints at a decline in the world from a businessman to the normally ill-rewarded activity of being an itinerant salesman in rural Ontario. It is not clear whether, as a salesman, he retained the status of a businessman of sorts, or whether, like many of the itinerant salesmen, he was little more than a beggar, reliant on the pity of the people. However, the //Glengarry News// obituarist (perhaps Col. A. G. F. Macdonald?) sternly repels the notion that drink may have had something to do with it all: “He was a sober, industrious man and respected by all who knew him,” he was “a most respected resident of Glen Robertson.” McCuaig was struck and killed by a Hawkesbury-bound passenger train one morning, when walking on the Grand Trunk Railway track between Glen Sandfield and Dalkeith, his head being “completely severed from the body,” and the body “terribly mangled.” It was thought that he had stopped to let the train pass and lost his balance. The next day the coroner, Dr Archibald L. Macdonald of Alexandria went to Dalkeith, and met the relatives and “viewed the remains and thoroughly investigated matters and the conclusion arrived at was that an inquest was unnecessary.” As a sewing-machine saleman he was obviously important in shaping the domestic work of GC housewives. We may guess that despite a variation of the name he was the man named by the Glen Robertson columnist in the //Glengarrian// of 22 Nov. 1889: “Daniel McCuaig has been appointed local agent for the Singer sewing machine in this place. They can be bought on monthly payments.” As a book agent, he would have been one of the few people selling books in the county. Here, it may be suspected that he had a hard job making sales, or that people bought because they were sorry for him. The Glengarrians enjoyed reading but disliked paying for books. The few books other than religious in GC homes were likely bought from itinerant merchants such as McCuaig. It is not clear from the obituaries how late in life McCuaig continued his sales work, or whether he was even in the spring of his death, as a very old man, preparing for another summer season on the roads. The obituarist seems to hint he was familiarly known by the name of “Agent,” a name also found among a family of the Macdonells. ---- //Glengarry News// (QF) and //Cornwall Freeholder// both 3 April 1908 [<6>]