(12 April 1896-24 Feb. 1966), farmer, political figure. (W.J. Major) Born at North Lancaster, GC. Parents: Napoléon Major (1868-1940) and his wife Joséphine Laframboise (1871-1949). Education: at North Lancaster and at International Business College, Montreal, then law school till called into the armed forces in the First World War. After the war he began farming of the mixed farming type, which included the development of an improved dairy herd. About 1922-1925 he began poultry raising and poultry hatching. The Major poultry business which was thus founded at North Lancaster became in time one of GC’s most notable agricultural enterprises. In 1945, he and his son Laurent Major set aside mixed farming to concentrate exclusively on the poultry business. At the time of William J. Major’s death the firm, of which he was then president, was known as Major Poultry Farms and Hatchery. The name of the firm in 1997 was Ferme Avicole Major Ltée.

     Active in farm organizations, William J. Major was secretary-treasurer for many years of the Glengarry Cheese Producers’ Association, and he worked also with the hog producers.

     William J. Major was a councillor, deputy reeve and reeve of Lancaster Township. He was president of the Glengarry Liberal Association from 1936 to 1950. In 1945, he was one of the GC and Cornwall political figures active in putting Mackenzie King into place as MP for GC.

     He was himself King’s successor as MP for GC, and he was GC’s first French Canadian MP. He was elected MP for GC, as a Liberal, on 27 June 1949, defeating John D. MacLeod (Conservative) and J.J. Fitzgerald. In the federal election of 10 Aug. 1953, in the newly enlarged constituency of Glengarry-Prescott, William J. Major ran as an independent Liberal but he was defeated by Raymond Bruneau, the official Liberal candidate. The Glengarry News noted that the heavy vote in the Prescott part of the new riding carried the day for Bruneau, while the GC vote was divided between Major and the Conservative candidate Fernand Guindon. (Glengarry News 13 Aug. 1953 ) Major’s career as a political representative was now over, but he ran unsuccessfully twice, both times as a Liberal, in provincial elections for the Glengarry Electoral District (consisting of GC and part of Prescott County). In the provincial election of 11 June 1959 he was defeated, though very narrowly, by Fernand Guindon, Conservative. In the provincial election of 25 Sept. 1963 he ran against Osie Villeneuve and the CCF candidate Mrs Betty Latreille, but Villeneuve won. William J. Major died in the Hotel Dieu Hospital, Cornwall, Ont. Roman Catholic. Among those who attended his funeral at St. Raphael’s were the minister of public works (G. J. McIlraith), the minister of northern affairs (A. Laing), and the speaker of the House of Commons (L. Lamoureux). William J. Major was married to Gabrielle Denise Besner, who was born in 1898 at Coteau-du-Lac, Que., and who died 27 Nov. 1984, at the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Cornwall. (five children) They are buried at St. Raphael’s.

Glengarry News 3 March 1966 * obituary of his wife, GN 5 Dec. 1984 * Johnson (1968) * biog. outline of William J. Major, as inductee into the Glengarry Agricultural Wall of Fame, GN 21 & 28 Sept. 1994 * Fraser, Gravestones, III, 21 * Major gravestones at St. Margaret’s cemetery, at Glen Nevis, GC * Ross, Lancaster, 383-384 * Roderick Lewis, 96-97 * Ostrom 244 * MacGillivray & Ross 557, 583 (portrait) * “New Man from Glengarry,” on W. J. Major, MP, repr. Standard Freeholder 29 Sept. 1949 from Ottawa Journal * presents statement at meeting, in Peterborough, of Ontario Cheese Producers’ Association on costs of producing cheese factory milk on his own farm, GN 18 Feb. 1938 * Major, Bruneau, nominated candidates (but by different groups of Liberals) for Prescott-Russell, GN 18 June 1953 * obituary, GN 2 Aug. 2006, of his daughter Mrs Marie Claire Pepin