(1 Dec. 1855-11 May 1908), farmer. (Andrew McBain, A. R. McBain, Andrew R. McBain) Parents: James Cumming McBain and his wife Annabella Foulds. Andrew McBain had a farm and stone house about a mile and a half west of Williamstown, GC. He was married to Harriet McDougall or McDougald (31 May 1858-30 April 1895). (children surviving him: 3) Gertrude Wood remembered that Andrew was “said to have the cleverest brains in the whole county, but was an alcoholic,” and that the family was ravaged with TB (from which his wife died). He was a member of the SDG Council. His brother, Dr John McBain (father of Georgiana McBain) was living in Montreal at the time of Andrew’s death. Andrew McBain will be remembered for the collection of his papers in the Ontario Archives. The letters contained there written to Andrew in the 1870s and 1880s by the friends of his boyhood and youth give a splendid picture of the ideas and outlook of the young Glengarrians of the time. Sexual topics are treated with some freedom. The letters can be read with almost as much interest as a novel and would make a splendid published collection. See the entries in this dictionary for Archibald Fraser and Patrick Purcell. There is a good representation in the letters of the prominence Purcell had in his day, and one of Andrew’s correspondents was a Purcell employee.
Andrew McBain’s son Alexander McDougall McBain (b. 24 Oct. 1890 at Williamstown; d. 29 Aug. 1981 in Toronto) was a WWI pilot with the Royal Flying Corps (the predecesssor of the RAF) and a Toronto businessman who made a career in the Bank of Nova Scotia and was a director of the CNR.
Cornwall Freeholder 15 May 1908 (two items) * Fraser, Gravestones, I, 147 * Papers of Andrew McBain, Archives of Ontario, Acc. 9333 * MacGillivray & Ross 671 * Wood letters 2 July 1976, 16 April 1977 * president at Williamstown meeting to seek land grants for Fenian Raid veterans, Cornwall Standard 28 April 1905 * Alexander McDougall McBain: article on, Standard Freeholder 11 Feb. 1946; Who’s Who in Canada 1964-65, p. 934 (with portrait); The Canadian Who’s Who 1967-1969 p. 727