(died 6 Feb. 1890, aged 86), businessman, surveyor. Born in Scotland. Parents: Mr and Mrs John McLaurin. Peter McLaurin came to Canada as a child with his family, who settled at Breadalbane, GC. About 1845–or perhaps, as another source says, about 1850–Peter McLaurin went to the place now known as Riceville, and there on the Scotch River in Prescott County he built a sawmill and gristmill, later adding a carding mill and a shingle mill. Earlier, he had been involved in lumbering along the Scotch River, and he had built a sawmill and gristmill near what is now the town of St. Isidore. In 1851, he became the first postmaster of Riceville, remaining postmaster till 1890; also, he had a store at Riceville. Riceville was named after Peter McLaurin’s wife, whose maiden name was Maria Rice. Her father, Dr Abner Rice, an American, is said to have been a physician and gentleman farmer at St. Andrew’s, Ont., or, more likely, at St. Andrew’s, Que. Dr Rice’s wife is said to have been a niece of G. A. Hobart (1844-1899), who was vice-president of the United States 1897-1899. Maria McLaurin (Mrs Peter McLaurin) died 21 Sept. 1862, aged 49, and is buried in the Riceville cemetery. Peter McLaurin was a JP, and served as reeve of South Plantagenet Township. Also, he was a Provincial Land Surveyor (by 1848; later, a Dominion Land Surveyor), with a practice in Prescott and Russell counties and the areas nearby. Around 1861, apparently, he did some surveying in Roxbrough Township. In 1853 Peter McLaurin, “P. L. Surveyor” of South Plantagenet, reported professionally on the value of a Kenyon Township half-lot. His daughter Susannah was married in 1863 to Dr James Ferguson (1838-1921), a native of Caledonia Springs, Ont., who was for many years a physician at Cumberland,Ont. Peter McLaurin died at Cumberland, Ont. (four children) His brother John McLaurin, a practitioner of hydrotherapy, is said to have been an editor of the Bytown Gazette.

     “It would hardly be believed,” James Begg related, “the way we had to live at one time, before we got a mill at the Scotch River which a Mr. McLaren built.” Before this, the settlers in Begg’s area had to take their grain “about 17 miles to Martintown and about half the way was swamp…”

Thomas 656-659 * Belden Atlas 63 (Begg seems to echo this passage) * Parker Fournier 617-618 * Harvey Clemens, “ James Ferguson M.D.,” The Manor Chatter, June-Aug. 1999 * Brault 245, 263 * his wife’s gravestone, Riceville * The Ontario Register, Vol. I, ed. Thomas B. Wilson (1968) 119-120 (gravestone inscriptions) * information from Association of Ontario Land Surveyors * John Williamson, The Story of Riceville (1968; 9 pp.) * Lovell 1857 382 * MacGillivray & Ross 45 (Begg) * “In 1853”: Archives of Ontario-TP (E 1/2 Lot 24:7 Kenyon)