(9 Aug. 1882-19 June 1942), businessman. (Dr W. L. McDougald, Senator McDougald) Born in Alexandria, GC. Parents: John A. McDougald and his wife Annie (Nancy) Chisholm. He was educated at the separate schools in Alexandria and Cornwall, the Cornwall high school, and McGill University and Queen’s University. His medical degree was from Queen’s University, 1907. He practised medicine briefly in Northern Ontario, but while there, as his entry in Who’s Who recorded, he became “interested in commercial and mining pursuits.” Thereafter his life was in business, not medicine. He was in business for a year in New York, then settled in Sept. 1909 in Montreal, the city which was to be his base during the remainder of his business career.

     Becoming “associated” (as the term is in his Who’s Who entry) with the Ogdensburg Coal and Towing Co. (which was owned by his father-in-law), McDougald was its manager at Montreal 1911-1917, and its president from 1917. He was president of the Montreal Harbour Commission from 1921 to 1930. Also, he was chairman of the board of the Beauharnois Power Corp, and a director of the Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines. (For the family connection with the Hollinger interest, see the entries for his sister Mrs McMartin, and for her husband John McMartin and for the younger John A. McDougald. For his other family connections, see the entry for his brother A. W. McDougald.) Likewise, he was a director of Dominion Steel Corp., British Empire Steel and Canada Steamship Lines. He was wealthy enough and socially prominent enough to entertain the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII.

     While rising in business, Dr McDougald was marking himself out also as a dedicated Liberal supporter. In 1922, it was rumoured that he might be made the first Canadian ambassador to the United States. (Cornwall Freeholder 14 Dec. 1922) In 1930 these speculations were renewed in the form of a rumour that he might succeed Vincent Massey as the first Canadian minister to Washington. (FH 7 May 1930 ) It was probably because of his growing friendship with Mackenzie King that King, who was prime minister at the time, sent both a message of sympathy to the family and a spray of flowers when Dr McDougald’s father, John A. McDougald, died in 1923. (Glengarry News 19 Jan. 1923) Less than two months later, it was reported that Dr McDougald had been offered the post of minister of railways in the King cabinet. (Cornwall Standard 8 March 1923) In 1926, Dr McDougald was called to the Canadian Senate. Six years later, however, in 1932, after he had been implicated in the Beauharnois scandal, he was forced to resign from the Senate. He had carefully cultivated the friendship of Mackenzie King, and through the Beauharnois involvement, he had endangered King’s own political career. Only two native Glengarrians have been members of the Senate, both physicians, Dr McDougald and his fellow townsman, Dr Donald McMillan, who died 12 years before Dr McDougald entered the Senate.

     Though deprived of his Senate seat, Dr McDougald was not, however, through yet with politics. In 1940, he attempted to secure the federal Liberal nomination for the GC seat. In a hard fight at the Liberal nominating convention in Alexandria on 17 Feb. 1940, he was defeated in the struggle for the nomination, though with much difficulty, by another physician, Dr W. B. MacDiarmid of Maxville. At the convention, the press reported, Dr McDougald described himself as the “notorious Senator McDougald who was chairman of the Beauharnois company.” He reminded his hearers that he was born in Alexandria and stated that he still had “a small farm” in GC. He declared himself to be opposed to conscription. (Standard Freeholder 19 Feb. 1940, Glengarry News 23 Feb. 1940) On 29 Dec. 1941, Dr McDougald was among those who heard Jimmy Gardiner, a prominent minister in the King cabinet, speak at a curling dinner in Alexandria. Six months later, Gardiner was one of the honorary pall bearers at Dr McDougald’s funeral. (Dr McDougald’s nephew John A. McDougald, and N. A. Timmins, Jr., the industrialist whose mining involvements extended to the Hollinger interest, were also honorary pall bearers.)

     Dr McDougald died at his home in Westmount, Que. He was a Roman Catholic. He was married at Ogdensburg, N. Y., in 1908, to Miss Mary Catherine Hannan of Ogdensburg. (two children) Clarence Ostrom recorded a belief, interesting at least as an indication of street opinion in Alexandria, that he had had serious financial reverses at some point and died much less wealthy than he had once been (one would guess 1929, as usual, in these reverses). His son, Wilfred Joseph McDougald (1909-1986), whose gravestone is in St. Finnan’s cemetery, was a lt.-col. of the Blackwatch (RHR) of Canada.

     In the 1970s, Dr McDougald’s papers were donated to the National Archives in Ottawa by an anonymous member of the family, resident in Florida. The opening of the papers to researchers sparked lively and, by Canadian standards of decorum, indeed somewhat intemperate debate in the Globe and Mail (7-26 Jan. 1977) on the question of whether or not the papers contained evidence that Dr McDougald had bribed Mackenzie King.

     Regarding to the problem of Dr McDougald’s name, Clarence Ostrom, who identifies the house in which the future senator was born in Alexandria, says that his name was originally Wilfred Lachlan McDougald (though Ostrom was uncertain about the spelling of Lachlan). The name at baptism was recorded as Wilfred McDougald in the St. Finnan’s records. The birth seems not to have been registered with the Province of Ontario. Printed sources during McDougald’s life give the date of birth as 9 Aug. 1881 (reflecting, presumably, his own statements about the date), but the St. Finnan’s records say he was born on 9 Aug. 1882. At some stage in his mature years, McDougald altered his name to Wilfrid Laurier McDougald as a tribute to Prime Minister Laurier. Like so many of his generation, he preferred, in practice, to use just initials for his Christian names. But the full name Wilfrid Laurier McDougald can be found, for example, in his letter of resignation from the Senate, addressed to the governor general.

Glengarry News 19 & 26 June 1942, Standard Freeholder 20 & 23 June 1942, * Ostrom 131 (a fine sketch, splendidly characteristic of its author, and indicative of how Dr McDougald must have been seen by the sceptical, critical, Alexandria townsfolk), 132 * Johnson (1968) * biog. sketch in Prominent People of the Province of Quebec 1923-24 (Montreal 1924?) * Who’s Who and Why [Canada]1921 p. 1483 & Who’s Who in Canada 1930-1931 p. 2093, both with portraits * H. Blair Neatby, William Lyon Mackenzie King: 1924-1932: the Lonely Heights (1963) * T. D. Regehr, The Beauharnois Scandal (1990) * MacGillivray & Ross 177-178, 541-542 * Edward S. St. John, “Mackenzie King and Glengarry,” Glengarry Highland Games, 1997 Souvenir Program * Prince of Wales: Cornwall Standard 28 July 1927, Globe & Mail 7 Jan. 1977 * St. Finnan’s CRNI, III, 569 * birth records, Office of the Registrar General (Ont.), enquiry made 1978 by present author * marriage, Cornwall Freeholder & GN both 16 Oct. 1908 * entertains large number of men from GC and Stormont in Montreal, shows them harbour, Cornwall Standard 17 Aug. 1922 (with list of those present) * speaks at Canadian Club, Montreal, CF 31 Jan. 1924 * appointed senator, GN 2 July 1926 * honoured at banquet in Montreal, CF 3 Feb. 1927 & GN 4 Feb. 1927 (both from Montreal Gazette 2 Feb.) * at Alexandria celebration to honour Judge Costello, CF 2 Oct. 1929 * secures 1930 renovation of Lancaster wharf as local political boon?, Ross, Lancaster, 318 * resigns from Senate: Debates of the Senate of the Dominion of Canada, 3 May 1932 (includes text of his two letters of resignation); GN 6 May 1932 * marriages of his two sons, GN 17 July 1936 & 22 Sept. 1939