(8 March 1900-15 Dec. 1977), author. (Rhodes Grant, Rhodes C. M. Grant) Born at Martintown, GC. Parents: John M. Grant (Johnny the Laird) (1853-1934) and his wife Christy Smith (1858-1954), the daughter of John Rhodes Smith. The Grants of this family, who were of U E Loyalist descent, had the name of the “Laird” Grants because a part of Martintown had been built on their farm, and they had remained the ground landlords of lots used for building purposes. The family was old and prominent in Martintown, but in general, the Laird name had more historic than economic or social significance.
Rhodes Grant was troubled by illness in childhood, probably from allergies. When he was unable to attend primary school because of illness, he was taught at home by his mother and sister. He attended Williamstown High School but only for part of a term. In early years he worked on farms, on telephone line labour, and in a garage, and was a store clerk. In 1925, he went on the harvest excursion. He took over the family farm in 1926, and took over his father’s insurance business in 1934. Thereafter, he followed a career which combined farming and insurance. He sold the insurance business in 1968 to Lloyd Rozon (1944-1998) of Williamstown. In the 1960s he and his brother Charlie began to attract public notice for their woodcarvings. Rhodes Grant said that he became interested in woodcarving when he was convalescing after an operation in a Toronto boarding house run by a relative of the celebrated Sir Sandford Fleming, in which he saw woodcarvings done by Sir Sandford Fleming. (Ottawa Citizen, as in notes) But presently, leaving Charlie to concentrate on the carvings, Rhodes established a career in authorship.
Rhodes Grant wrote a history of Martintown in two remarkable books, The Story of Martintown: a Pioneer Village (1974) and Horse and Buggy Days in Martintown 1900 on (1976). Both volumes were published and sold by the Martintown Horticultural Society. Mrs Onagh Ross, sister-in-law of Ewan Ross, played a prominent role in the success of these histories. Often surprisingly careless about facts, Rhodes Grant was otherwise something of a historian’s historian in his understanding of social forces and social relations. This gifted social historian described the texture of everyday life in Martintown with a fineness of detail that will make his books of lasting value. In his reporting of the harsher aspects of local life, he was candid and outspoken. He also wrote a history of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Martintown, under the title Centennial: 1875 1975 2075: a Story of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church Martintown (1975). After his death the Martintown and District Horticultural Society published in his memory a volume of stories, Fairy Folk: Children’s Stories by Rhodes C.M. Grant (1979).
Rhodes Grant died at his home in Martintown. He was a Presbyterian and a Presbyterian elder. He never married. He was a cheerful, wary, “hardshell,” short and stocky little old man. A plaque in his honour at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Martintown was unveiled in 1996 (Glengarry News 24 April 1996).
His two books on the history of Martintown enjoyed a success unusual among GC local histories. Nevertheless, the present author remembers being told, resentfully, that there were people in Martintown better suited to have written them than Rhodes.
His brother Charles Smith Grant (11 Sept. 1890-4 Oct. 1978), called Charlie Grant, was also born at Martintown, and attended primary school there, with perhaps no further formal education. In the Canadian West, where he went early in his career, he was a rancher, miner, prospector and contractor. He was in Watson, Sask., in 1907. He was a WWI veteran. About the 1950s he resettled in Martintown, where he operated a woodworking shop. At some point, probably when he resettled in Martintown, the middle-aged Charlie was engaged to an 18-year-old girl in the west. With the miles and separation, however, the romance faded. In 1983 a Toronto publisher had in his possession the manuscript of a novel by Charlie Grant, on the subject of ranching in the West. Charlie’s nephew Grant MacGillivray (see the following) thought the novel was written in a manner too juvenile for an adult audience and too adult for a juvenile readership. Charlie Grant, who never married, lived in Martintown with his brother Rhodes, and died in Cornwall. More active than Rhodes in woodcarving, he made wood models of the bridges at Martintown (including the covered bridge), also wooden model pumps that pumped water, and an operating toy bowling alley. There seems no evidence up to the present date that the Grant brothers’ carvings and models have attracted the interest of collectors, or of the students of such works. (For Charlie, see also W. Sylvester)
Rhodes and Charlie Grant were the uncles of a well known Glengarrian, Grant MacGillivray (Major, 6th Hussars, retired), who died at Maxville Manor, 3 Nov. 2002, aged 96. Grant MacGillivray, who was born at Kirk Hill, GC, served in the Black Watch and the 6th Hussars, and was employed by Bell Canada. In his retirement years, he was well known in GC in a wide variety of community services. He spoke warmly of how, as a boy, he had found Rhodes Grant a wonderful uncle, the mere half-dozen years between their ages making them easy companions.
Standard Freeholder 16 & 21 Dec. 1977 (editorial of tribute), 9 Jan. 1978, Glengarry News 21 Dec. 1977, 11 Jan. 1978 *private information * autobiographical notes by Rhodes Grant, GHS, 15th Annual Volume (1976) * Rhodes Grant, “The Grants of Martintown,” Glengarry Life (1978) * family gravestone, Martintown * MacGillivray & Ross 304-305, 564, portrait * “Water Pumps and Bowling Alley That Work, Carved in Wood,” Ottawa Citizen 2 Nov. 1972 , and similar article in SFH (ND, WSC 251), both with good photographs of the brothers and their wood models * review of the Martintown histories, CHR Dec. 1978 * Royce MacGillivray, ”The Historians of Glengarry,” Glengarry Life 1996 * harvest excursion: GN 21Aug. 1925, and Rhodes Grant, ii, Chapter 30 * obituary of John M. Grant (Laird) (father), Standard Freeholder 31 Aug. 1934 * obituary of Mrs Christy Grant (mother), GN 9 Dec. 1954 * obituaries of Lloyd Rozon, Glengarry News 24 June & 8 July 1998 * dinner to honour Rhodes Grant on publication of first vol. Martintown hist., SFH (ND), with fine picture of Rhodes Grant and Onagh Ross * completes course in Montreal, takes garage job in Alexandria, Cornwall Standard 10 April 1924