(18 Feb. 1883-23 April 1961), contractor and figure of legend. (H. F. McLean, Mr X, Harry F. McLean) He was not a Glengarrian, and maintained no connections with the county, but he was of Glengarry County roots. Born at Bismarck, North Dakota. Parents: John A. McLean (15 Sept. 1849-31 July 1916), from Prince Edward Island, and his wife Mary L. Falconer or Falkner (10 May 1857-14 Oct. 1928), who was born at Breadalbane, GC. Previously, John A. McLean had been married to Mary L. Falconer (Falkner)’s sister, who died in 1874. John A. McLean was a prominent merchant and entrepreneur of the Bismarck area. Taking office in May 1875 as the first elected mayor of Bismarck (in succession to an appointed mayor) John A. McLean served for two years. Bismarck, founded about 1873, was the capital of Dakota Territory 1883-1889, and in 1889 it took on its present status as the capital of North Dakota. John A. McLean’s wife is said to have danced with General Custer just before Custer left for the fatal Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, and John A. McLean had a government contract for furnishing supplies for Custer’s expedition. McLean County in North Dakota is named after John A. McLean.
Harry Falconer McLean’s Who’s Who entries over the years continue to record his mother’s GC origins, and her surname was his middle name. Young Harry Falconer McLean attended Bismarck High School and North Dakota Business College. His Who’s Who entries note that he he began his business career as a water boy for a railway construction company. If his family was well do to at this time, the position may have been just the familiar starting out of a privileged young man in the most menial jobs. At any rate, he became a major contractor, working on railways, dams (Abitibi project, and the dam at Grand Falls, N. B.), aqueducts (Montreal), and tunnels (Quebec City, New York City), and he had an important and profitable business as a large-scale supplier of gravel. In WWI, he played an important role in directing the building of railways in war-zone areas of France. In WWII, he was involved in various war projects including building a munitions plant at Valleyfield, Que. (Valleyfield’s industries were important to job-hungry Glengarrians of that era.) He was president from 1920 of Grenville Crushed Rock Co., from 1931 of Dominion Construction Co., and also headed other companies. He was well known for the Abitibi Canyon power development, the Flin Flon Railway, and the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railroad. Choosing to live as a Canadian rather than an American, he made his home in a large stone house at Merrickville, Ont. (Nearby was one of his construction co. quarries.) He was married (1) in 1917 to Irene F. Robertson, who died in 1942, and (2) to Rita Fitzpatrick, of GC connections but not herself a Glengarrian.
Described in the Canadian Encyclopedia article on Merrickville as an “eccentric philanthropist,” Harry Falconer McLean attracted much newspaper attention in the 1940s from his practice of handing out money in 5-dollar bills and other notes to people encountered in public places in various parts of Canada (though never anywhere in the GC-Cornwall area). In late 1943, he was reported to have recently handed out $5000 in 100-dollar bills to nurses and wounded servicemen at a Toronto hospital. (Glengarry News 12 Nov. 1943) In fact, this practice was the “tip of the iceberg” of the wide-ranging generosity of a genuine philanthropist who was always ready more privately to support worthy causes and to aid needy people. The figure of McLean as “the man who gives away money” was deeply imprinted on the minds of Canadians of the 1940s, and remains in the memories of older Canadians as part of the public imagery of what was (the war notwithstanding) a rather grey era. In fact, this hobby need not have been very expensive, considering how much attention a hundred dollars’ worth of five dollar bills would excite. Press reports about money distributed in circumstances of advanced excitement lacked arithmetical exactitude. At first the giver away of money in public was identified in the press only as “Mr X,” but from 1943 at the latest his real name was used.
McLean had a somewhat troubled private life, with problems of alcohol. A free spending, society loving carouser, he was an expert hand at staging noisy, disruptive celebrations in hotels (which at least in retrospect, were regarded by observers with affection and admiration). In his later years, he became a Roman Catholic convert. He died at Merrickville. The burial was in Notre Dame Cemetery, Montreal. As a contractor, he was noted for his concern for the welfare of his workmen. On a number of occasions, he erected cairns at his construction sites commemorating the ordinary labourers. There is a story that he bought Rory Chisholm (father of John James Chisholm) a house to repay early kindnesses, perhaps at the water boy stage of his existence.
Obituary Globe & Mail, 2 May 1961 (with portrait, but with incorrect date of death) * Mike Murphy, My Kind of People (1987) 106-121: biog. sketch, with personal recollections; date of death from this source * Joan Finnegan, Giants of Canada’s Ottawa Valley (1981) 98-121: biog. sketch, illustr. * his entries in Who’s Who in Canada 1925/1926, 1945/1946, 1947/1948, 1956/1957, all with portraits * private information * obituary of his father, John A. McLean, The Bismarck Daily Tribune, 6 Aug. 1916 * North Dakota Centennial Blue Book 1889-1989 (1989) 486 (naming of McLean County) * obituary of Harry Falconer McLean’s mother, Cornwall Standard 25 Oct. 1928 * her GC connections noted, Glengarry News 12 Nov. 1943 * B. H. Bauman and D. J. Jackman, Burleigh County: Prairie Trails to Hi-Ways (1978) 333 (his parents), also elsewhere for members of the Falconer/Falkner family; Bismarck, N. D., is in Burleigh County. * J. T. Saywell, ‘Just Call Me Mitch’: the Life of Mitchell F. Hepburn (1991) 223, 348, 390, 565, and illustr., for McLean and an Ontario premier * a Royal York Hotel employee’s recollections of McLean’s celebrations at that Toronto hotel, reported in Dick Beddoes’ column Globe & Mail 26 Oct. 1976 * gives away money in public, Ottawa Farm Journal 18 Jan. & 4 April 1944, Standard Freeholder 9 & 13 Nov. 1943, 30 March 1944 * said to have “made much of his wealth” by selling crushed stone from a quarry near Merrickville to the CNR and CPR, SFH 12 Nov. 1943 * court action against him by business associates, SFH 4 Aug. 1944 * his future second wife visits her brother Frank at Lancaster, in GC, SFH 7 Aug. 1947 * Teresa Charland, Building an Empire: ‘Big Pants’ Harry F. Mclean and His Sons of Martha (Merrickville, 2007): copy not seen