(1825-8 June 1912), farmer and diarist. (Jim Cameron, James Cameron of Cameron’s Island) He farmed on Cameron’s Island, which is in Lake St. Francis, across from Summerstown, GC. The island has also been known as Cameron Island, Macmaster’s Island, Thompson Island, Sir John’s Island, Sir John’s Big Island, and Big Island. James Cameron kept a massive handwritten diary covering the years 1854-1902. Through the courtesy of the owner, Mrs Mabel MacLean, of Summerstown, there is a photocopy of the diary in the Ontario Archives and a microfilm of it in the collections of the Glengarry Historical Society. In the diary Cameron discusses his farming and small scale fur trading, notices passing ships, and provides many other details from his daily round.

     The enlarged sprawling handwriting of the last diary entries shows that Cameron was now having difficulties with his eyesight. The diary is of great historical value, but is untypical in one respect, namely that Cameron was one of the few GC residents who had his home on an island. As a farmer on this island, Cameron was the tenant of his nephew, Sir Donald Macmaster. Macmaster, a lawyer of high professional reputation, believed himself to be the effective owner of the island. However, after the death of Macmaster the Canadian government denied the validity of this supposed ownership, and successfully reclaimed the island from the Macmaster estate for the Indians of the St. Regis Reservation. Macmaster’s Island, incidentally, is noted for its archaeological finds. James Cameron married Mary Morris, and fathered a large family. He died on his island, and is buried at Summerstown. In Nov. 1938, in an incident that attracted widespread attention, Cameron’s son Capt. Fernandez James Cameron, an elderly farmer who was living on the Cameron homestead on the island, was killed in a violent assault by a distant relative, Dan McDonald. It was later legally determined that the assault did not amount to murder, despite the public impressions based on press reports, and McDonald was sentenced in Oct. 1939 to 10 years for manslaughter.

Cornwall Standard 21 & 28 June 1912 * MacGillivray & Ross 673 (GC diaries) * papers relating to Sir Donald Macmaster and his connection with Macmaster’s Island preserved at the Nor’Westers and Loyalist Museum, Williamstown * report on archaeological work on Cameron’s Island, where human habitation may go back as far as 6000 years, Glengarry News 4 Oct. 1956, 22 May 1958 * Capt. Cameron killing, GN 25 Nov. 1938, 24 Feb. 1939, Standard Freeholder 11 Oct. 1939 * Stiles, 70: James Cameron’s son Leander (b. 1872), who also farmed on Cameron’s Island. * GHS Newsletter April 1995 on receipt of microfilm of the diary