(1836-21 March 1884), physician. (P.N. Leclair, P. Napoleon Leclair, Napoleon Leclair, Napoléon Leclair) Born probably at what is now North Lancaster, GC. Parents: Charles Leclair and his first wife Thérèse Guindon. He received his medical degree from McGill University in 1861. He practised medicine at Lancaster in GC (perhaps on two separate occasions), and at Alexandria (from 1865), and perhaps also at North Lancaster, and it is said, at Kirk Hill. He was one of the first trustees of Alexandria High School, and he was coroner for GC. In 1867, as the year of Confederation was drawing to its close, it was Dr Leclair and the future senator Dr Donald McMillan who, at the St. Andrew’s Day celebrations in Alexandria, responded to the toast to the medical profession. (Cornwall Freeholder 6 Dec. 1867) In 1873 Dr Leclair moved to Montreal. He was married (1) in 1859 at St. Raphael’s to Julie Bior or Bayard, and (2) in 1862, again at St. Raphael’s, to Hortense Victoria McDonell, who was the daughter of Caroline McDonell, his father’s second wife. (See Charles Leclair for the probable family connections) Hortense died at North Lancaster 25 June 1881, at the early age of 42. Dr Leclair himself died less than three years later, at the age of only 48, and some two years before his father’s death. (children) Dr Leclair is buried at St. Raphael’s. He was probably the first French Canadian from GC to become a physician, and he was probably the first French Canadian physican practising medicine in GC.

Obituary, The Canada Lancet, XVI, 296 * Dr Norbert Ferré, “The Leclairs of Glengarry,” Glengarry Life (1977) * MacGillivray & Ross 158-161 (portrait) * Harkness: index * his gravestone at St. Raphael’s; Fraser, Gravestones, III, 49 * Symington 98 * graduates from McGill with thesis on syphilitic chancre, The British American Journal[of] Medical and Physical Sciences, II (1861), 231-233 * has begun practice at Alexandria, Cornwall Freeholder 2 June 1865 (his advert. continues in following issues) * “Dr. Napoleon Leclaire [sic]…has removed to Montreal from Lancaster [sic] and commenced practice,” The Canada Medical Record, II (Dec. 1873) p. 119 * death of wife, “Mrs. Dr. Leclair,” CF 1 July 1881, Glengarry Times 2 July 1881 * death in Montreal of their son Henry, CF 26 April 1889, cited DTL, Standard Freeholder 26 April 1947