(died 28 May 1917, aged 71), lawyer. (Murdie Munro) Born “at the old family home, North Branch, Martintown,” GC. (obituaries) Parents: Mr and Mrs Donald Colin Munro. He was of U E Loyalist origins. Details of his professional training have not been found. In 1879 he began a law practice in Alexandria, and all his remaining legal career was in Alexandria. He was described in 1903 as being “genial,” and having quickly “built himself an extensive practice” in Alexandria. According to the same source, “he always took and still takes an active interest in literary matters.” No details have come to light about what his literary interests were. He was secretary-treasurer for years of the Glengarry Liberal Association, and was solicitor, evidently up till his death, of the Alexandria branch of the Union Bank of Canada.
Munro succeeded E. H. Tiffany, probably in 1885, as Patrick Purcell’s Alexandria agent for Purcell’s moneylending. The Alexandria columnist in the Cornwall Freeholder of 11 Dec. 1885 wrote, “Mr. M. Munro is doing a very large loan business for P. Purcell, Esq. All parties having loans from Mr. Purcell in this neighborhood can call on Mr. Munro to make their payments…” Also, Munro was Purcell’s election and financial agent in the GC federal election campaign of 1887, in which Purcell defeated Donald (later Sir Donald) MacMaster. Afterwards, Munro was among the people accused and examined at the election trial in Cornwall in 1888, which probed the serious irregularities committed by the Purcell team in the 1887 campaign. Probably the trial did nothing to injure Munro’s reputation with most members of the public. He was only one of many named, and it was, in any case, an age of high tolerance for grave Canadian election campaign abuses, which were hardly seen as involving moral lapses. In the U.S. and Canada, “smart men” did this kind of thing at elections, even if occasionally they sighed a little at the necessity.
Munro died at his home in Alexandria. Presbyterian. Burial was at the North Branch cemetery. He was unmarried. A sister, Miss Christena Munro, taught for several years at the Alexandria Public School and lived, at least during those years, with her brother in Alexandria. (her obituary Glengarry News 18 Feb. 1938) Another sister was married to Charles R. Sinclair. Murdoch Munro belonged to the vibrant, successful Alexandria of the great days of Munro and McIntosh. Ostrom notes with a hint of disparagement that Murdoch Munro’s law office was a local venue for checker playing. Though the professional association may not have lasted long, he appears to have been the law partner in Alexandria, in 1881, of John A. Macdonell (Greenfield), the historian. (Glengarry Times 29 Jan. 1881) Ostrom says that Munro was lame and was believed to be the original of the lame schoolmaster Archie Munro in Glengarry School Days, even though Ralph Connor (C. W. Gordon) had denied the connection. Lockie Wilson, in his unpublished memoirs, stated he knew, in the schoolmaster’s later career as a lawyer, the schoolmaster who appears as Archibald Munro in Glengarry School Days. Wilson or someone else names the lawyer in a handwritten note to the typescript as “Murdie Munro.”
Glengarry News 1 June 1917, Cornwall Freeholder 7 June 1917 * Harkness 435 * “Brief Sketch of Alexandria’s Lawyers,” GN supplement 1903 * Purcell 1887: passim (succeeds Tiffany: 38, 43) * see notes to biog. of Rev. Alexander M. MacGillivray * Ostrom 33, 45