(7 May 1840-7 Sept. 1910), physician and school inspector. Born in Killin, Perthshire, Scotland. Parents: Archibald (Big Archie the Drover) and his wife Mary Brown. Donald MacDiarmid came with his parents to Canada in 1844 or 1845. The family lived for 11 years in the Breadalbane area of Lochiel Township, GC, before moving on to Finch Township. Donald MacDiarmid attended the grammar schools at Vankleek Hill and L’Orignal, and the Toronto Normal School. He was principal of public schools in Seaforth and Cornwall, and it was while he was in Cornwall that he decided to study medicine. He obtained his medical degree from McGill in 1867. The new doctor was in practice briefly in Cornwall with the celebrated Dr Darby Bergin. By June of 1867, he had opened his own practice at Athol, GC. (Cornwall Freeholder 14 June 1867) He continued his practice at Athol till he moved to Maxville in 1892, then he was a physician in Maxville for the remainder of his life.

     He had been involved in the militia in Cornwall since 1862, and not content merely to be a gentleman soldier, he took care to secure his share of the practical military training which the skilled men of the British Army in Canada were offering at that time to interested members of the miliita. As a young physician at Athol, he became captain in 1868 of a militia company newly formed at Dunvegan in response to the Fenian threat. He had played a major part in the recruitment of the company. It was remembered (Munro, 1938) that in this company, all the men “spoke the Gaelic with greater fluency than they did the English.” (This was Company No. 7 of the 59th Stormont and Glengarry Battalion of Infantry. Darby Bergin was major of the Battalion.) In late May 1869, the Dunvegan Company was called out to Cornwall, where a Fenian invasion was believed to be imminent. The men travelled to Cornwall in lumber wagons and on horseback, but fortunately there was no fighting, and they were discharged on 31 May. Dr MacDiarmid remained in the militia till 1884, rising to the rank of major.

     For a few months in 1871 he was public school Inspector for GC, then after an interval during which A. W. Ross held the position, Dr MacDiarmid was reappointed, holding the position this time for more than a third of a century, from 1874 to 1910. The position was only part time; the medical practice was his “real” job. The original copies of MacDiarmid’s reports as school inspector may not have survived, but occasional excerpts from them appeared in the published annual reports of the Ontario Dept. of Education, 1877-1888. The Model School (teacher training school) at Martintown is said to have been conducted under his direction (for this school see Alexander Kennedy). In the Ontario Archaeological Report for 1898, Dr MacDiarmid is cited as having contributed to a museum a few stone tools discovered in Indian Lands, GC. These may have been from the Indian grave the finding of which near the Scotch River in the Sinclairs’ neighbourhood is described in Charles Sinclair’s memoirs.

     Also, Dr MacDiarmid was an associate coroner for SDG. Remembered as a generous, undemanding doctor where his professional fees were concerned (Munro, 1938), Dr MacDiarmid died at his home in Maxville. Presbyterian. Mason. Liberal. He was married (1) to Agnes Burton, of Cornwall, who died at Athol 5 Nov. 1880 (five children). She was buried at Cornwall. “Owing to the tremendous windstorm of Sunday,” the Cornwall Reporter stated, “the road between Athol and Cornwall, a distance of some thirty miles, was much obstructed by fallen trees, and the funeral procession was preceded by a number of sturdy Highland friends equipped with axes, for the purpose of clearing away the fallen timber, ” and (2) at Athol, in 1882, to Isabella Cameron (8 Nov. 1852-28 June 1934). (three children) He and his son Dr W. B. MacDiarmid, who followed him in his medical practice in Maxville, make up one of the three remarkable father-son combinations of physicians we find practising in Maxville in this period. (For the others, see J. T. and J. H. Munro, and D. and B. McEwan.) Through his daughter Elizabeth (Mrs T. Fraser McOuat), he was the grandfather of Donald (Don) McOuat (b. Ottawa 1915; d. Liverpool, N. S., 1 Jan. 1984 ), who was archivist of Ontario 1963-1978.

     Dr MacDiarmid of Athol and Maxville must be distinguished from Dr William McDermid, who had a medical practice at Dunvegan at the time when the former had his practice at Athol. Dr McDermid of Dunvegan was called in for consultation at the deathbed of the wife of Dr MacDiarmid of Athol, in 1880. (Cornwall Reporter, 13 Nov. 1880) Dunvegan and Athol are not far apart, and, confusingly, the address always assigned to the Athol doctor’s militia group was Dunvegan. Dr William McDermid was probably the Dr McDiarmid [sic] of Dunvegan who, with Dr Paul Cameron, of Alexandria, was reported in 1880 to have performed a difficult surgical operation (rumoval of a tumour) on Robert Ross of Lochiel (Cornwall Freeholder 13 April 1883). Dr McDermid of Dunvegan received his McGill medical degree in 1875 and he was dead by 1892.

Cornwall Freeholder 9 & 16 Sept. 1910, Glengarry News 16 Sept. 1910 * his gravestone Maxville Cemetery (valuable for full dates) * biog. and character sketch, Munro (T.W.) 13 May 1938 * Belden Atlas 14-15 (biog.with fine portrait) * Cochrane, IV, 232 (with portrait) * Harkness (with two portraits) 340-343 , 455 * Maxville (1991) 227, 620-623 (with portrait) * MacGillivray & Ross 96, 245-246 * biog. sketch of as militia officer, Glengarry Times 29 Oct. 1881 (repr. from Ottawa Free Press) * on history of his militia unit, GN 23 Feb. 1900 * Boss 45-47, 252 * Archaeological Report for 1898, cited in James E. Pendergast, Three Prehistoric Iroquois Components in Eastern Ontario (1966) 43 * Sinclair 11 * information from Ontario Institute for Studies in Education library (school reports) * death of first wife, CF 12 Nov. 1880, Cornwall Reporter 13 Nov. 1880 * remarries, CF 24 Feb. 1882 * daughter Elizabeth marries, CF 3 March 1911 * son John is employed on, returns from Glengarry Ranch, N. W. T. (see Allan B. Macdonald), CF 25 July 1890 cited DTL Standard Freeholder 23 July 1949, Glengarrian 17 Oct. 1890 * son Hugh in Yukon, CF 17 March 1899, Cornwall Standard 19 April 1901, CF 24 June 1904 * death at Winnipeg of son Hugh C., 61, of North West Mounted Police and RCMP, SFH 10 Aug. 1938 * Don McOuat: obituaries Globe and Mail 4 Jan. 1984 &, by Ken MacPherson, Archivaria, No. 19 (Winter 1984-1985) 250-251 with fine portrait * Glengarry Teachers’ Association meets at Alexandria, the president of the Association, Dr MacDiarmid, being in the chair (about 70 teachers attended “from all parts of the County”), CF 11 Feb. 1881; also for these meetings, Cornwall Reporter 15 Oct. 1881 * complaint in Curry Hill news, CF 25 Jan. 1884, that he has neglected his duty as school inspector by not appearing in that district at all in 1883 * Dr MacDiarmid becomes ill (unconscious) in his buggy while driving “to visit a patient near Kirk Hill,” VKHR 25 Sept. 1896 * Dr McDermid of Dunvegan: sources as cited, & Symington 92