(died 13 Oct. 1855, aged 78), fur trader, clan chief. (Hon. John McGillivray) Born Strathnairn, Scotland. Parents: Farquhar MacGillivray of Dalcrombie and his wife Elizabeth Shaw. The MacGillivrays of Dalcrombie were a family of strong Jacobite connections, and Farquhar is said to have led the survivers of Clan Chattan from the battlefield at Culloden in 1746. John McGillivray grew up speaking Gaelic as well as English. He came to Canada with his brother Duncan, who died soon afterwards. Probably the brothers came to Canada in association, in some way, with their relative, William McGillivray. John McGillivray entered the service of the North West Company as a clerk in 1794. Over a period of nearly a quarter-century, he served the company in northern and western Canada, becoming a partner in 1801, and achieving an important though not first-rank place among its traders, and becoming deeply involved in the contest between the NWC and the Hudson’s Bay Company. He was one of the partners arrested by Lord Selkirk at what is now Thunder Bay, Ont., in 1816, but he was not tried. John McGillivray retired from the fur trade in 1818. In that year he bought from Thomas Munro and his wife Catherine an estate on the Raisin River near Williamstown, at a place later known as MacGillivrays Bridge (MacGillivray Bridge), for the price, a very large sum for the time, of £1450.

     In GC, he was a gentleman farmer and a leading public figure. He was a government land agent over many years. He was also a commissioner of the Court of Requests and a JP. From Dec. 1839 till the termination of the council in Feb. 1841, he was a member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada. He was an elder in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Williamstown. He was a warm personal friend of Bishop Alexander Macdonell. He entertained the bishop at his hospitable home, and helped to collect the money due to the bishop from the parishioners of St. Raphael’s for the building of the great church at St. Raphael’s. He was also the Bishop’s agent for the sale of lands in the Eastern District. (NAC-MD) In his later years, he successfully laid claim in Scotland to the estates of his branch of the MacGillivrays and to the title of chief of the Clan MacGillivray, though it would seem that the claims were not fully cleared till after his death. He ranks as the eleventh chief of the Clan MacGillivray. He was in Scotland in 1852, in his mid-70s, in connection with these claims. He was a member of the Highland Society of Canada. The Cornwall Observer, 12 Dec. 1836, reported that he was in the chair, as president, at a banquet of the Glengarry St. Andrew’s Society held “in the Village.” We read in another newspaper, “The Hon. John M’Gillivray has purchased bills of exchange to the amount of one hundred and twenty-seven pounds sterling, the proceeds of subscriptions by the Highland Society of Canada, and likewise the sum of fifty Pounds sterling from the St. Andrew’s Society of the County of Glengarry, which have been duly remitted by the last mail steamer, to the Chairman of the Central Committee, in Edinburgh, for the purpose of alleviating, in a small degree, the awful state of destitution in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.” (Hamilton Gazette 25 March 1847, based on Niagara Chronicle ) He is described in his obituary as “a perfect gentleman in society.” He died at his home near Williamstown. His wife Isabella outlived him to die on 5 April 1876.

     While a fur trader, he took an Indian wife. (children: at least two) His daughter from this marriage married the fur trader Colin Campbell. From the Campbell marriage there are many descendants of John McGillivray. Rhodes Grant preserves the story, handed down from his grandmother, that one evening during a wild snowstorm an Indian wife arrived at the McGillivray house in GC with two children, and that she remained with the McGillivrays until she returned to the West the following spring. If there is any truth in this story, it may relate to a second Indian wife, not the one already mentioned. There was a report that an Indian son of John McGillivray worked as a clerk at Vankleek Hill. In another marriage, on 23 Feb. 1819, a few months after buying his GC estate, John McGillivray married Isabella McLean, the daughter of Neil McLean. Four daughters born in the years 1819 to 1826 quickly died, but four sons born in the years 1827 to 1837 survived. Two of the sons, Neil John McGillivray, who succeeded his father as chief of the Clan MacGillivray, and George Hopper McGillivray, are separately noticed in this dictionary. Another son, Farquhar (4 Jan. 1833-1907), was clerk of Routine and Records in the House of Commons, Ottawa. And another son, William (29 March 1835-18 July 1915), who left GC in 1864 to join the Cariboo gold rush, quickly moved on from British Columbia to the western United States, and was a sheep farmer at Panoche, Calif., for many years.

     The large house John McGillivray built on his estate near Williamstown was known for many years as Dalcrombie. In recent years, it was restored by Mr and Mrs George van Beek, who carefully preserved its historic character. It is now known as Avondbloem (evening flower). Mrs van Beek (Evelyn van Beek, née Theakston) in a remarkable labour of love over many years exhaustively researched the history and genealogy of this McGillivray family since John McGillivray’s arrival in Canada, and also the history of the estate and house. The entries on the MacGillivrays of Dalcrombie in the present dictionary owe much to her research. Mrs van Beek (1913-5 Feb. 2001) died too late to be herself the subject of a life in this dictionary. She was the granddaughter of the well-known Halifax urban missionary, Major Theakston (1833-1917). The source notes to Theakston’s life in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. XIV, cite her by name for her collection of Theakston family materials. On her death Mrs van Beek left $125,000 to the Glengarry Historical Society.

     Strangely, the McGillivray family had no gravestones in St. Andrew’s cemetery, Williamstown. Finally, in the 1970s with Mrs van Beek again taking a leading part, money was secured and a gravestone was placed.

     John McGillivray’s granddaughter, the novelist Carrie Holmes MacGillivray, gave the family papers to the National Archives of Canada in the 1920s. (Papers of the MacGillivrays of Dalcrombie, or MacGillivrays of MacGillivray’s Bridge) This large collection provides one of the best available bodies of evidence for life in southern GC in the mid to later 19th century. From these papers no very intimate portrait emerges of John McGillivray himself–he may in fact have been a remote and reserved man–but there are many vivid glimpses, some of them very warm and revealing, of the personalities of his sons.

His life by Marianne McLean in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, VIII, 546-547 * Wallace * Mrs van Beek’s research, as described in text above; MS records of her findings are available in NAC, Archives of Ontario, and other public collections and in private ownership * PAC, MacGillivray Papers, as described in text above, a collection abbreviated NAC-MD this dictionary * obituary, Windsor Herald 27 Oct. 1855, based on Cornwall Constitutional of 18 Oct. 1855 * Robert McGillivray and George B. Macgillivray, A History of the Clan MacGillivray (1973) 51-57, 137 * Harkness 397-402 (with portrait), 522 * MDict 511 * Centenary 1912 * Rhodes Grant, i, 126 * Fraser, Gravestones, I, 147 * MacGillivray & Ross 46-53, 62, 193, 671 * gravestone unveiled, Glengarry News 28 Sept. 1972 * preservation and recovery of family Bible, GN 15 Aug. 1974 * three-part article by Nick Wolochatiuk on Avondbloem in Hometown section, Standard Freeholder 6, 13, 20 April 1996 (illustr.) * van Beek bequest, history of Dalcrombie, GN 11 & 25 Feb. 2004, with fine colour photog. of the house * van Beek gravestone, North Branch Cemetery, Martintown, GC