(died 18 March 1924, aged 84), farmer, canal paymaster. Born on the family homestead on the Front of Charlottenburgh Township, at Flanagan’s Point, GC. Parents: John Flanagan (d. 15 Aug. 1862, aged 50), who was a JP, and his wife Ann Colquhoun (d. 14 Sept. 1892, aged 74). The Flanagans were among the earliest settlers of this area. Robert Flanagan is said in his obituaries to have been a nephew of Dr Darby Bergin, MP. The kinship certainly existed, but it seems likely that it was not as close as that of nephew. (However, Bergin’s mother was a Flanagan: Dictionary of Canadian Biography XII, 94) Robert Flanagan, who was in his early 20s when his father John Flanagan died, had difficulty as a young farmer when it was discovered that his late father’s property of some 300 acres had been left burdened with debt and that the deceased’s will was insufficient to deal with the consequent financial problems. In 1871 a private act of the Ontario Legislature had to be passed to give Robert the legal facilities he needed to deal with the property’s financial problems. Robert farmed his large farm property, and in his earlier years he attracted attention as a grower of hops, an unusual crop in Eastern Ontario. In Belden’s Illustrated Historical Atlas of 1879 for SDG Robert Flanagan is marked as the owner of a 293-acre property in the 1st Concession of Indian Lands and the Broken Front, Charlottenburgh

     In a new career, he was paymaster for the Cornwall Canal for nearly 40 years. This was a position in the government service. He was superannuated from this position three years before his death. He was fluent in French as well as English. He died in Cornwall. Roman Catholic. He was married to Cecilia or Cecelia Knight, daughter of Caleb or Kaleb Knight. They had no children. His brother Henry J. Flanagan, also born on the Front of Charlottenburgh, who died at his home in Brooklyn, N.Y. on 17 April 1913, aged 57 years, was reported to have been for many years secretary-treasurer of the Rothschild Syndicate in New York, and left a widow and grown children.

Cornwall Freeholder & Cornwall Standard both 20 March 1924, Glengarry News 21 March 1924 * family gravestone, Precious Blood Cemetery, Flanagan’s Point * death notice of his father, John Flanagan, True Witness 19 Sept. 1862 * ”An Act for the Relief of the Estate of the Late John Flanagan…,” Ontario 34 Vic. c. 101 * Jerry Tyo’s recollections of Robert Flanagan, DTL, Standard Freeholder 3 Oct. 1942 * Henry J. Flanagan: obituary Cornwall Freeholder 25 April 1913