(13 July 1849-30 Jan. 1943), clergyman. (D. D. McArthur) Born at Breadlbane, GC. Parents: Donald McArthur and his wife Jennie Campbell. Attended primary school. He came to Fort Garry, Man., by the Dawson Route in 1872, worked in surveying east of Fort Garry, and returned to Ontario, probably 1873. In Sept. 1874 he began studies at the Canadian Literary Institute, Woodstock, Ont. He was married in 1880 to Emily May Vining of Thorndale, Ont. In 1912 they were described as having 7 sons and 7 daughters. His first pastorate as a Baptist minister was the united charge of Notfield (Dominionville) and Roxborough, on the GC-Stormont border. He held this pastorate from May 1880 till 1883 or 1884, during which time his congregation gave him leave and continued his salary while he studied at the Baptist college in Toronto for six months beginning in Sept. 1882. From 1883 or 1884 to 1889, he was Baptist pastor of the united charge of South Gower and Kemptville, Ont.

     In 1887 he visited his brother Peter, who was farming in Manitoba. D. D. McArthur wrote that “From this time on my heart was in the West.” He moved to Manitoba in 1889, and was pastor there of churches in Manitou and Hartney. When typhoid fever undermined his health, he decided to give up the active pastorate for farm life. In 1912 he was living at Lauder, Man. (near Hartney), and was described as having been farming for 13 years. At this time he was a director of the Manitoba Grain Growers’ Association, and was president of the local branch of the Grain Growers’ Association. He appears in the minute books of the executive of the United Grain Growers (which in 1920 became the United Farmers of Manitoba), 1911-1919. From Lauder, perhaps in 1915 when he sold his Lauder farm properties, he moved to Winnipeg, where except for two years in farming at Rosser, Man., he lived for the rest of his life. For some four years from 1920, he was again pastor of a Baptist church. In 1924, a widower, he married Bertha Quaskenbush. As long as his health permitted, he was an active participant in Baptist worship. He died at his residence in Winnipeg, aged 93.

     In 1938, when he was in his late 80s and living in Winnipeg, he published a 5-part article in The Canadian Baptist on the history of the Breadalbane Church and of the Baptist congregations of which he had been pastor in Ontario. Among his sources, he mentions the Rev. George W. Allen.

Winnipeg Free Press, 1 Feb. 1943 (death notice only) * obituary (NP, ND), Canadian Baptist Archives * his life in Parker (1912) 375 * minute books: information kindly supplied by Provincial Archives of Manitoba * The Rise and Fall of a Prairie Town: a History of Lauder Manitoba and the Surrounding District, Vol. 5 (1978) 537-538 &c.: location of farm properties, brief biog. outlines of thirteen children * Rev. D. D. McArthur, “Yester Years,” The Canadian Baptist, 30 June, 25 Aug., 8, 15, 22 Sept. 1938