(8 Sept. 1874-10 Sept. 1944), political figure (date of birth 1873 and date of death 11 Sept. also found). Born at Williamstown, GC. Parents: Hugh McGillis and his wife Mary Grant, both of U E Loyalist descent. He attended public school and high school at Williamstown, and worked as a cheesemaker, farmer, drover and livestock dealer. He never married. In the federal election of 29 Oct. 1925 he ran as the Conservative candidate for GC, but was defeated by the Liberal Archibald J. Macdonald. In the Ontario general election of 1 Dec.1926, he was elected MLA for Glengarry as a Conservative, defeating the Liberal James A. Sangster by an impressively large majority. He was described a few years later (MacNicol) as “The only Scottish-Canadian Roman Catholic in the Provincial Parliament of Ontario.” In a return match between McGillis and his former opponent Sangster at the next Ontario general election, on 30 Oct. 1929, just as GC was about to begin its calamitous descent into the Depression, McGillis was defeated by Sangster, though by a narrow margin. Despite this setback, and having now been defeated twice, first federally and then provincially, he was still a force in politics, and at the federal election of 28 July 1930 he was elected MP for GC, defeating the Liberal candidate, J. A. C. Huot of Alexandria, by a large majority. (Glengarry News 1 Aug. 1930) (See Adrien E. Richard) At the next federal general election election, on 14 Oct. 1935, McGillis was defeated by John D. MacRae, the Liberal. It was presumably after this that he was employed by the Dominion Agriculture Department for some five years to demonstrate “scientific dairying methods in the Canadian West.” Angus McGillis died “within a short time” after a heart attack visiting a farm near Summerstown. Roman Catholic. Buried at St. Mary’s cemetery, Williamstown.

Standard Freeholder 11 Sept. 1944 (with portrait) (QF-2), Ottawa Farm Journal 12 Sept. 1944, Glengarry News 15 Sept. 1944 (with portrait) (QF-1) * Harkness 321-329 (with portrait) * Johnson (1968) * biog. entry, portrait, in John R. MacNicol, National Liberal-Conservative Convention Held at Winnipeg… 1927 (Toronto, 1930) 185 * Roderick Lewis, 95 * Fraser, Gravestones, I, 15 * attends Orange Walk at McCrimmon, Cornwall Freeholder 15 July 1931, Cornwall Standard 16 July 1931 * is scheduled to speak at Orange Walk, Apple Hill, but cancels owing to business engagement, SFH 20 July 1932 * what he has done for GC as MP, political advert., GN 20 Sept. 1935 * leaves for six weeks in West Indies, GN 10 Feb. 1928