(died19 Oct. 1854, aged 64) soldier and settler. (Col. Alexander Chisholm, Valentine Alexander Chisholm, Alexander “The Merchant” Chisholm) He was a native of Strathglass, Scotland, and a near relative of the chief of the Chisholm Clan. Parents: Duncan Chisholm and his wife Janet, who was also a Chisholm by birth. Alexander Chisholm became a soldier in the Royal African corps stationed on the coast of Africa (rank attained: ensign 1 Feb. 1810, lieutenant 9 June 1811). He was said by Bishop Macdonell in a letter of 5 July 1817 to have “for several years administered the Government of Goree.” Goree is a tiny African island, much associated with the slave trade, about a mile long and near Dakar. Resigning his commission in 1817, Chisholm was placed on half-pay 25 March 1817, and he remained a half-pay officer in the British army till his death. He emigrated in 1817 to Canada, where he settled at Alexandria in GC. He was granted 500 acres of land in Canada, and was a farmer and a JP. A map of Alexandria dated 1823, which appears to have been drawn by Angus Cattanach, shows what appears to be Chisholm’s house. Chisholm’s father Duncan is said to have followed him to Canada in 1822 and to have lived on a farm called Achagiad, presumably in GC. Lieutenant was Alexander’s highest rank in the British Army and his other, higher military titles (ultimately colonel) were Canadian militia titles.
Chisholm represented GC in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada 1834-1841. He testified against his relative and co-religionist Bishop Macdonell in the Seventh Report on Grievances, of 1835. As this action suggests, Chisholm was sympathetic to the radicals in the years leading up to the rebellion. Chisholm is praised as a political candidate in a letter to the Cornwall Observer of 2 May 1834. In the same newspaper, of 11 July 1836, however, Finnand M’Donell of “Glen,” who may or may not have been the same person as the celebrated fur trader Big Finnan of the Buffalo Mcdonald, wrote bitterly, “That the Glengarrians have pledged themselves to support their Venerable and Right Reverend Bishop, may be judged when Sherriff M’Donell [Donald Macdonell 1788-1861] was 740 votes a-head of the excommunicated O’Grady’s tool Grant [Dr James Grant]; and if our enemy,Chisholm exalted himself in parliamentary honors, it was not by means of the intelligence of Glengarry, but through the dupes into whose heads he has been pouring falsehoods against the Bishop.”
Chisholm remained, however, loyal in 1837. He commanded the 3rd Regiment of the GC militia at the time of the suppression of the 1837-1839 Rebellion. The fine appearance of his militia regiment of Highlanders (which had just appeared in Cornwall) is praised in the Cornwall Observer, 10 Jan. 1839. He does not seem, however, to have been called on to take a part in the more active campaigning of this period. This need not necessarily be taken as an indication of any official doubts as to his political reliability. A more important factor may have been that the authorities preferred to use the militiamen from the southern half of GC, as more readily assembled and moved to the scene of action than Chisholm’s men from the less developed north.
Chisholm signed the address of 1832 from the Chisholms of GC to their chief. Chisholm also prepared a list, which has been variously printed and cited, showing the numbers of different clansmen in GC in 1852. (Pringle 196) Chisholm was married to Janet (Jannett on her gravestone) McDonell, daughter of Alexander Macdonell of the Macdonells of Leek. Their children included Fr James J. Chisholm. Alexander Chisholm died at Alexandria. William Lyon Mackenzie published a warm obituary tribute to him in Mackenzie’s Message praising his devotion to the public interest and praising his support for the temperance cause which had led him to abstain “from intoxicating liquors under every circumstance.” Chisholm’s house (now demolished) was later the home of the artist Stuart McCormick and the Glengarry Golf Club’s club house. When the McCormicks’ woolen mill, Alexandria, burned in 1949, it was estimated that “Part of the structure dated back 123 years to 1826 when Col. Alex (The Merchant) Chisholm erected it.” (Glengarry News 15 July 1949) See also David Tomb.
Scott, ii, 42, Harkness & Johnson: index, MacGillivray & Ross 57-58, 65, Armstrong 97, Senior 146 * his election manifesto, Cornwall Observer 2 May 1834; some of the copies of this newspaper in the National Library are addressed to Col. Chisholm * text of address of 1832 of the GC Chisholms to their chief with annotated list of signatories in Alexander Mackenzie, History of the Chisholms (Inverness, Scotland, 1891) pp. 108-112 * Alexander Chisholm 34-2 Lochiel in 1851-52 Census * McCormicks, 217, 238 * Dumbrille, U, chapter VIII * GHS Newsletter Sept. 1996 on his house * Major J.J. Crooks, Historical Records of the Royal African Corps (Dublin 1925) * Army List 1814 -1854; he appears at first under name Valentine Alexander Chisholm * gravestone in St. Finnan’s cemetery Alexandria * reprint of obituary tribute from Mackenzie’s Message of Nov. 1854, ASC, ii, 105 * mentioned Dictionary of Canadian Biography VII, 549, VIII, 583