(29 Sept. 1838-9 or 10 Jan. 1923), businessman, court clerk. (John A. McDougald) Born near Alexandria, on Lot 5 in the 4th Concession of Kenyon Township, GC, on the farm on which his grandfather, an emigrant in 1790 from Eig, Scotland, had settled. Parents: Angus McDougald, and his wife Grace Cameron. Angus McDougald was a major in the GC militia, and had served on the Crown side in the 1837 Rebellion. Grace Cameron, from Charlottenburgh Township, was of U E Loyalist descent. John A. McDougald was educated in the separate school, Alexandria. He worked with his father on the family farm then took over the farm on his father’s death.

     About the early 1860s he became Division Court clerk. In 1871, he became an employee of D. A. (Sandfield) Macdonald in Alexandria. The Alexandria section of a directory of 1876 lists McDougald as “clerk div’n court” and separately (but presumably it is the same man) as “JP,” and in the same year the Alexandria section of a printed list of the Lochiel Township voters for the Ontario Legislative Assembly describes him as a “Book-keeper.” Very important in McDougald’s rise in the world was the long and close relationship he developed with D. A. Macdonald as Macdonald’s particular man of business. McDougald’s obituary in the Glengarry News, which may be assumed to represent the opinions and probably was in the words of D. A. Macdonald’s son A. G. F. Macdonald, states, “His unimpeachable integrity, his expert bookkeeping and the thorough command he had gained of the business won the confidence of his employer to such an extent that when the Hon. D. A. Macdonald joined the McKenzie Cabinet as Post Master General in 1875 [correctly, 1873], he placed Mr. McDougald in charge of his many and varied interests here.”

     The well known GC genealogist Elizabeth (Lizzie) Blair passed on the report, perhaps never published, that McDougald entered Macdonald’ s employ after Macdonald had forclosed the mortgage on the McDougald farm and took pity on the distressed young farmer. The Registry Office files for McDougald’s farm lot do not record a mortgage at a date early enough to support this story, but there may, of course, have been some unregistered debt or obligation of McDougald’s. Also, McDougald and his wife did mortgage part of the aforementioned Lot 5 on 27 Sept. 1881 to the Hon. D. A. Macdonald for $3100. Then early in 1882 McDougald and his wife appear to have sold that land to Macdonald, who in 1886 sold it back to them. These transactions may be the germ from which the Blair story arose. And see later the present article for more on this subject.

     Anyway, the entry into Macdonald’s office and favour must be taken as the decisive event in the rise of a distinguished Canadian family, who would now for some years grow in the shadow of the Sandfields. As Macdonald’s devoted assistant, McDougald was drawn with Macdonald into the embarrassing affairs of the failure of the Montreal and City of Ottawa Junction Railway and the bitter controversy (which peaked in 1881) relating to the Kenyon and Lochiel Township bonds intended to finance the railway construction.

     About 1881, in what seems on the surface at least–things might seem very different if we knew more about the details–a break with the Hon. D. A. Macdonald, McDougald was in business at Emerson, Man. , with Allan B. Macdonald, who was later manager of the Glengarry Ranch in Alberta. In the spring of 1881, the Glengarry people gave a testimonial dinner at Alexandria for the departing McDougald and Allan B. Macdonald, who were leaving for the West, but by September McDougald was revisiting Alexandria, and by the beginning of 1882 he had property rented at the new station in Alexandria (the Canada Atlantic Railway was just beginning operations), and he was soon reported to be doing a good trade in farm produce from the station. The mortgage of 1881 and the land sale of 1882 already mentioned may have been to provide funds to set McDougald up in business at Alexandria on his return from the West. In May 1881 it was reported that a Mr Finley McDonald had succeeded McDougald “in managing the business of the Hon. D. A. McDonald” (Glengarry Times, 28 May 1881), but if so there may have been no quarrel with D. A. Macdonald, since the Cornwall Freeholder of 23 Dec. 1881 described McDougald as D. A. Macdonald’s “confidential friend.” (In its obituary of the Hon. D. A. Macdonald 15 years later, the same Liberal newspaper described McDougald as Macdonald’s “confidential man of business for many years.” )

     With the important connections he had formed through Macdonald, McDougald was inevitably involved in Liberal electioneering, drawing resentful comments from the Conservative Glengarrian newspaper for his involvement in the Rayside victory of 1886 and the Purcell victory of 1887. (Glengarrian 25 April & 13 June 1890)

     In 1887, McDougald was appointed police magistrate for GC. In 1888, he was appointed clerk of the Second Division Court for SDG.

     When work was undertaken to found a newspaper in Alexandria (the Glengarrian, but known at first as the Glengarry Review) he was elected treasurer of the company at the first meeting of the board of directors. (Cornwall Freeholder 9 Nov. 1883) Intended as a Liberal newspaper, it was soon converted into a Conservative paper (see C. J. Stilwell and R. R. McLennan), and the Glengarry News had to be founded in 1892 to give the Liberals a voice again.

     John A. McDougald served in the militia from 1871 to 1883 reaching the rank of lieutenant, and about 1929 his son Duncan J. McDougald presented a piper’s challenge cup to the SDG Highlanders (as the regiment was then known) in his memory.

     The Ontario Liberal government of Oliver Mowat named him local registrar of the Supreme Court of Ontario, and clerk of the County Court of SDG, the official date for both appointments being 29 May 1891 (Archives of Ontario, Great Seal Books, RG 53-18). He held these offices from 1891 till his death at the age of 84, dying, as he is said to have wished, in office. (His contemporary J. G. Harkness remained crown attorney for SDG into his early 80s). McDougald also had, along with these, the position of registrar of the Surrogate Court of SDG, to which he was appointed in 1899 after the death that year of Helen Macdonald. On taking up the 1891 positions, he moved to Cornwall, which remained his home for the rest of his life. He was for many years a member of the high school board first in Alexandria and then in Cornwall.

     The writer of the Glengarry News obituary, speaking, we may assume, from his own observation, said, “The late Mr. McDougald had been granted many gifts and had one of God’s most precious gifts, good fellowship. Participating in a social function he was the life of the party, possessing as he did a fund of anecdotes and stories pertaining to old Glengarry days, in the relating of which, like old wine, they seemed to improve with age. Certainly his was always an attentive, enthusiastic and appreciative audience.”

     John A. McDougald died unexpectedly at his home in Cornwall, having been in his office earlier that day. (ten children, eight surviving him) Roman Catholic. The funeral service was at St. Finnan’s Cathedral, Alexandria, and he was buried in St. Finnan’s cemetery. The newspapers noted that the cold and snowy weather made access to the funeral difficult.

     He was married 11 Jan. 1863 to Anna (Nancy, Annie) Chisholm (2 May 1843-8 Dec. 1917), born at Fassifern, GC, the daughter of Ranald R. Chisholm. This dictionary includes notices of their sons A. W., A. J., D. J., and Dr W. L. McDougald, their daughter Mrs John McMartin, their daughter-in-law Annie B. McDougald, their grandchildren John A. McDougald and Mrs Kiely, and their sons-in-law John McMartin and A. L. Smith. Another son of this couple, George W. McDougald (1871-1954), remained on the family farm, and a daughter, Miss Katherine McDougald, was living in Cornwall at the time of her father’s death. See also Archibald Duncan MacGillivray.

Cornwall Freeholder 11 & 18 Jan. 1923, “Mr. John A. McDougald, a Leading Figure of Eastern Ontario Passes from Scene,” Glengarry News 19 Jan. 1923 (with portrait); includes informative letter of tribute from Law Association of SDG * Harkness 297, 419 * Woodburn [189] * Belden Atlas 52 * “printed list”: Dunvegan museum * police magistrate, & clerk of Second Division Court, CF 6 May 1887 & CF 7 Sept. 1888 (reporting from Ont. Gazette), cited DTL Standard Freeholder 10 May & 6 Sept. 1947, resp. * Boss 76, 252 * LLC 108-109 * MacGillivray & Ross 177-178, 189 * death of infant son, CF 27 Oct. 1865 * St. Finnan’s CRNI, III, 539 * leaves Alexandria for Manitoba and returns, business at CAR station: CF 13 May, 10 June, 9 Sept. 1881, 20 Jan. & 9 June1882 * on committee of Alexandria’s Mechanics’ Institute, Glengarry Times 20 May 1882 * his surly remark about the Alexandria town band, Glengarrian 10 Oct. 1890 * accused of having changed sides on question of separation of GC from SDG, Glengarrian 9 Dec. 1892 * son Angus A. McDougald, enaged in railway tie business, dies in accident in Colorado, CF 2 June 1893 * Golden Wedding celebrations, CF 10 Jan. 1913 (with portrait, biog. sketch), GN 17 Jan. 1913 * obituary of wife, Cornwall Standard 13 Dec. 1917 * one of signers of address of welcome to Bishop Couturier, Cornwall Standard 1 Sept. 1921 * entertains Crown Attorney Angus McCrimmon, CS 13 July 1922 * & son W. L.’s hospitalities, tour of Montreal Harbour, CS 17 Aug. 1922 * Adrien I. Macdonell succeeds him as local registrar of the Supreme Court of Ontario, and in his other two Cornwall offices, CS 1 Feb. 1923