or Donald (22 March 1822-11 Feb. 1912), clergyman. (Name is given as both Daniel and Donald. Form Donald used in index to his son’s Postscript to Adventure. Daniel and Donald were considered the same name among the Highland Scots) Born at Tummelside, Perthshire, Scotland. Education: Perth Academy, Marischal College, Free Church Assembly Hall, Aberden, and New College, Edinburgh. When he was a student at the Perth Academy he was converted under the preaching of William Chalmers Burns, and at the age of 16 he “travelled for a time, from place to place, with Mr. Burns.” (MacKay 353, 368) Daniel Gordon, who had associated himself strongly with the Free Church, came to Canada, July 1849, or a few weeks later. He was ordained 17 Oct. 1849 as a missionary at Lingwick in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.

     In 1851 he was married to to Mary Robertson (see Mrs Mary Gordon). On 17 Aug. 1853 he was inducted as minister of Indian Lands, Kenyon and Roxborough. The Indian Lands church was in the 17th Concession of Indian Lands, GC, a little south of the present-day village of Maxville. At this time Maxville, a product of the building of the Canada Atlantic Railway at the beginning of the 1880s, did not exist. Gordon remained responsible for the Kenyon congregation, at Dunvegan, till 1856, when it became a separate congregation (with its own settled minister in 1858). Gordon and his Free Church followers were challenged by the adherents of the Church of Scotland on the issue of which group owned the church in the 17th Concession of Indian Lands. The result was that Gordon and his followers built a new church in the 19th Concession of Indian Lands. This church is the fine brick building which is a striking feature today on the hill at St. Elmo, visible from as far away as Maxville and standing against the blue line of the Laurentians. (The name of St. Elmo for the tiny hamlet at this country crossroads dates from 1880.) Work on the church began in 1863, and it was officially opened for services on 20 July 1864. The inscription over the door calls it the “Gordon Free Church.” The manse had been situated at this location from an earlier date, so the Gordons now had their church and manse much closer to each other than had previously been the case.

     For more than a year following the beginning of services in the new church, it was the scene of a religious revival. This was the Great Revival of 1864-1865, which is described in Ralph Connor’s novels. Gordon left for Scotland in Aug. 1865, and did not return till the following year. The reasons for the journey were that he had been in ill health, and wished to gather money in Scotland to help pay the church debt. Mrs Gordon remained at home in GC. The Bethel Hill Seminary was established at St. Elmo under his supervision to give young men educational preparation for the ministry, or if they wished for other occupations.

     In the spring of 1871 Gordon accepted a call from the Presbyterian congregation at Harrington, at Zorra, in Oxford County, Ont., and the Gordons, including the future novelist “Ralph Connor,” left GC. (Sir Edward Peacock, son of the Congregationalist minister of the log church across the road from the Gordon Church, was born at St. Elmo later that summer.) The Rev. Daniel Gordon was inducted as minister of the Harrington congregation on 4 July 1871. He resigned his Harrington pastorate in 1891, following the death of his wife in 1890, and being himself in poor health. According to his obituary in the Globe, he spent the twenty years of his retirement “quietly, partly in visits to Scotland and partly with his sons in Canada.” The obituary adds that “Of late years he was a familiar figure in Winnipeg,” where he lived with his son the Rev. Charles W. Gordon. Winnipeg residence brought him back into contact with Glengarrians: residents or visitors in the city (see the note in the life of his son). The Rev. Daniel Gordon died at the Winnipeg home of Rev. C.W. Gordon. He was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, beside his wife. In Harrington as well as in GC, he preached in both Gaelic and English. A man of force and character, he left a deep impression on many of the Glengarrians who knew him, perhaps especially on those who had been influenced by the Great Revival. Many striking anecdotes survive relating to him. He was the original of the Rev. Alexander Murray in his son’s Glengarry novels. He was skilled in the bagpipes, and Charles Sinclair has left a memorable description of a Glengarry wedding in which Gordon took his turn on the pipes.

     The Rev. John King, who was a Baptist, in his manuscript journal described Gordon as being “somewhat of a bold, and violent nature,” and complained of his prejudice against the Baptists and his uncompromising rule over his congregation, who “like slaves yielded to his sway.” Sir Edward Peacock, in his unpublished autobiography, tells the story of how his grandfather MacDougall publicly remonstrated with Gordon when the latter was savagely denouncing a Baptist minister (unnamed in the autobiography, but probably the Rev. John King or Rev. E. R. Rainboth). Gordon burst into years and admitted that he had behaved unacceptably.

     The best known of his children, of course, was Charles, the novelist “Ralph Connor.” Two other sons Dr Andrew R. Gordon and Dr Gilbert Gordon were physicians in Toronto. Another son, Dr H.F. Gordon, born at Harrington, was a physician in Winnipeg, and died one day before Charles. See separate entry for another son, James Robertson Gordon.

Cornwall Freeholder, Cornwall Standard, Glengarry News all 16 Feb. 1912 (Cornwall Freeholder mostly from J.A. MacDonald’s obit. of “this rare old Highlander” in Toronto Globe) * MacMillan, Kirk, is the single best source * C.W. Gordon, Postscript to Adventure (1938) * MacMillan, Kenyon Presbyterian Church * W. A. MacKay, Pioneer Life in Zorra (1899) Chapter XXII: important, with fine portraits of Mr & Mrs Gordon * W.A. Ross, One Hundred Years in the Harrington Presbyterian Church 1857-1957 (1957?) 6-9 * King, Peacock: for source cited, see notes to their lives, this dictionary * Harkness: index * MacGillivray & Ross: index * Sinclair (recollections of building the Gordon Church and of meeting, at Winnipeg, the Rev. Daniel Gordon who was “in his 87th year”) * MacMillan diary, entry 5 June 1871: “Mr Gordon go to Harrington” * bagpipes: Sinclair 5; MacMillan, Kirk, 380; MacKay * death of Dr H. F. Gordon (in obituary of “Ralph Connor”), Standard Freeholder 1 Nov. 1937 * Rev. Mr Gordon is given gifts by his congregation, CF 12 March 1869 * his body brought to Toronto for burial, GN 16 Feb. 1912