(died 16 Oct. 1888), contractor. (D. H. McKenzie) McKenzie features prominently in the printed transcript of the 1888 trial in Cornwall which probed the election irregularities behind Patrick Purcell’s election as GC’s MP in 1887. From this source we learn that McKenzie was at this time about 40 years old, that he was associated as a contractor with Patrick and Michael Purcell and with Timothy (Motty) Rousseau, and that his association was especially close with Patrick, who had provided for his education. He had been associated with Patrick for some 18 years, since McKenzie first began contracting. In giving testimony, McKenzie recalled that his first work in contracting had been “grading the road”, and “the first contract I had” (presumably, the first contract in his own name or right) was in bridge building. At the trial, McKenzie mentioned that a contract which he and Michael Purcell had recently in Algoma had turned out badly. McKenzie, who had been a major activist in the campaign to get Patrick Purcell elected as MP, had been involved in the lending of money on Purcell’s behalf, to create an obligation in voters. Also, he had arranged for men from the construction crew in Algoma to return to GC to vote for Purcell.

     Beyond this, scattered reports on McKenzie’s contracting activities appeared in the contemporary press. In March 1882, D. H. McKenzie, “for many years with Mr. Purcell,” was preparing to leave for British Columbia, where he had a CPR contract, and before leaving he was given a testimonial dinner at Lancaster (at which Patrick Purcell praised him). Whether the contract in B. C. was completed quickly, or some other circumstances intervened, is unclear. But at any rate, only a few months later, in the Cornwall Freeholder of 7 July 1882, “McKenzie & Purcell, Contractors,” were advertising for labourers, masons, stonecutters and carpenters to work on the Ontario and Quebec Railway at Duffins Creek, near Toronto. And one week later the same newspaper reported that on 13 July 75 men obtained by those contractors had left “by the noon train” for the Duffins Creek work. The Cornwall Freeholder in Oct. 1883 thought there would be less crime locally now that 25 of the “great unwashed” had left for D. H. McKenzie’s contract in Algoma. And in Oct. 1884 the Freeholder reported, perhaps not entirely seriously, that McKenzie and one of the Purcells had retired from railway contracting and were going into farming. In the spring of 1887, McKenzie and Michael Purcell were being sued by a certain F. Lizotte for not having taken most of the workmen the latter secured to go to Algoma Mills for them. And McKenzie was reported in Aug. 1887 to have got the contract to build 85 miles of wire fence on the Algoma section of the CPR.

     D. H. McKenzie died at the Glen, Williamstown, in the year of the election trial, a relatively young man. The Rev. Alexander MacGillivray, then living in Brockville, commented in a letter of 30 Oct. 1888 to Big Rory McLennan, “I was very sorry to hear of poor… Mackenzie’s death. I am afraid Purcell’s example did not help him very much.” The allusion was no doubt to Purcell’s drinking. In a hard-drinking society Purcell’s drinking was perhaps not exceptional, but in so rich a man it was fascinating.

     McKenzie was married to Catherine McDonald (1854-1926), of Williamstown. Their daughter Marjorie, born at Port Arthur, Ont., in 1884, married Angus A. Macdonell, and Marjorie’s daughters were the wives of Gerald Mcdonald and Lloyd McHugh.

Cornwall Freeholder 19 Oct. 1888, cited DTL Standard Freeholder 20 Oct. 1945 * Purcell 1887, passim but esp. 31,85, 135 * newspaper reports on his contracting: Glengarry Times 4 & 11 March 1882; Cornwall Reporter 11 March 1882; CF [-5?] Oct. 1883, 17 Oct. 1884, 26 Aug. 1887, cited DTL SFH 2 Oct. 1948, 16 Oct. 1948, 25 Aug. 1945 resp.; Glengarrian 6 May 1887 from Montreal Gazette * Fraser, Gravestones, I, 33 (gravestone of wife, St. Mary’s cemetery, Williamstown) * MacGillivray letter: Archives of Ontario-RRM * death in Lochiel Township of (probably) his sister Miss Annie McKenzie, CF 14 Nov. 1890, cited DTL SFH 12 Nov. 1949 * obituary of his daughter Marjorie, SFH 16 Feb. 1945 * statement, perhaps a newspaper joke, that McKenzie has gone to Australia, Glengarrian 3 June 1887