(31 Jan. 1863-6 Dec. 1949), businessman. (Farquhar D. McLennan, F. D. McLennan) (date of death 7 Dec. also found) Born at Williamstown, GC. Parents: Duncan F. McLennan and his wife Christina Brown. He obtained a public school and high school education at Williamstown. He followed teaching for a time, and was principal of Williamstown High School in 1882. For at least a few years, he was employed on construction work (railways and other public works) in Ontario, Quebec Province, Florida and Mexico. Near the end of 1900, he returned to Williamstown from Sault Ste. Marie, where he had been in charge of Donald Robert McDonald’s construction work, and almost immediately left for Cuba for similar work there. (Glengarry News 28 Dec. 1900)

     He was, in his own statement, “for years the bookkeeper” for R. R. (Big Rory) McLennan (sworn inventory and valuation, 29 March 1907, Estate of R. R. McLennan, SDG Surrogate Court files). Subsequently, he was one of the executors of the estate of Big Rory, and he was the manager, over many years, of the estate. The work of this very extensive estate seems to have been the main business concern of his life, but he was also a director of the Palace Amusement Co. of Cornwall, which operated local theatres. He was active in the affairs of the local Conservative Party, was a member of the board and board president of the Board of Trustees of the Cornwall Collegiate Institute (later the Cornwall Collegiate and Vocational School), was president and one of the directors of the Children’s Aid Society of SDG, was on the local executive of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and served on the Cornwall branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society. United Church elder. Mason. He was married 8 June 1909 to Jean Elizabeth Oman (d. 2 Jan. 1939), a native of Scotland. (possibly children, but none surviving him)

     J. G. Harkness described him as “well skilled in the lore of old Glengarry.” McLennan was involved in local historical activities, and published a short article on David Thompson and St. Andrew’s Church, Williamstown, in the Canadian Historical Review of Dec. 1928 (repr. Cornwall Standard 10 Jan. 1929). He contributed information to W. S. Wallace’s biographical sketches of the Nor’Westers (abbreviated Wallace in the notes to the present dictionary), and letters he wrote to Wallace survive in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library of the University of Toronto. He died in Cornwall General Hospital after a long illness, which included in its later stage two years of hospitalization. At his death he was described (Standard-Freeholder) as “one of the best known men in Stormont and Glengarry Counties.” He had been a resident of Cornwall for some 40 years. He is buried at St. Andrew’s cemetery, Williamstown. See the entry for his brother Dr D. R. (Randy) McLennan for the family background and connections; he was the brother also of Capt. J. A. B. McLennan.

Standard Freeholder 7-9 Dec. 1949 (with portrait, editorial of tribute) * J. R. MacNicol, National Liberal-Conservative Convention (1930) 239: biog. notice, with portrait * Fraser, Gravestones, I, 162 * Harkness 82 * Wallace 469 * text of his lecture on Year without a Summer (i. e., 1816), SFH 13 May 1936 * Cornwall Freeholder 18 Dec. 1908 has brief notices of death of another Farquhar D. McLennan, of Charlottenburgh Township