McMillan, John Angus

(11 June 1874-23 Dec. 1922), political figure. (Johnny Angus McMillan, J. A. McMillan, John A. McMillan) Born in Alexandria, GC. Parents: Duncan D. McMillan, who operated a carriage-making business in Alexandria, and his wife Julia Campbell. He attended the separate school and high school at Alexandria. Later, settled down in the world of work, he was a manufacturers’ agent in his home town selling products which included Munro and McIntosh carriages. Adept at showmanship, and no enemy to salesmanship, in 1902 and 1903 McMillan staged impressive piper-led parades in Alexandria featuring newly-purchased Massey-Harris farm machinery, with dinner at the Commercial Hotel for the farmer purchasers, and in 1903 also we find him auctioning horses at Mill Square, Alexandria. The Glengarry News obituary states–or at least broadly hints–that the contacts he made throughout GC as a salesman were helpful to his political career, and adds that he had a great memory for names and faces. In 1907 McMillan, who had gone into the furniture business about a year and a half earlier, added an undertaking parlour, and ordered a $1000 hearse from Munro and McIntosh. There was nothing remarkable about this combination of businesses: locally, at this time, furniture and undertaking were often connected. Later, he was a partner with J. J. Morris in both businesses, and in 1909, they were reported to have bought at Monkland a fine pair of black horses for their hearse. In 1913 McMillan became an agent for the sale of Ford cars.

At the early age of thirty, he was elected Liberal MLA for GC at the Ontario general election of 25 Jan. 1905, defeating W. D. McLeod, the Conservative candidate. McMillan was not a candidate at the Ontario general election of 8 June 1908, at which Donald R. Mcdonald was elected Conservative MLA for GC. However, later that year, at the federal general election on 26 Oct. 1908, McMillan was elected Liberal MP for GC, defeating John F. McGregor, the Conservative candidate. McMillan was re-elected in 1911, defeating Duncan McMartin, the Conservative candidate. During the campaign Sir Wilfrid Laurier visited Alexandria on 4 Sept. 1911, in support of McMillan. (See entry for Dr D. D. Macdonald) At the federal general election of 17 Dec. 1917 McMillan was not a candidate for the seat, which by now had become Glengarry-Stormont. The Cornwall Freeholder, a Liberal newspaper, later observed, “In 1917 Mr. McMillan differed from many of his party on the issue of conscription, and though he could probably have carried the constituency on his personality, he gave way on behalf of the late John McMartin [John McMartin, the Liberal brother of Duncan], and assisted him in his election.”

John Angus McMillan was one of the people who contributed to the purchase of bells for the Sacré-Coeur Church in Alexandria.

Following several years of illness, John Angus McMillan died at his home in Alexandria, at the age of only 48. (one daughter) Roman Catholic. He was buried at St. Finnan’s cemetery. At the chapel of St. Margaret’s Convent, Alexandria, on 31 Oct. 1906, while he was already an MLA, he was married to Flora Ann Macdonell of Alexandria. (Glengarry News 2 Nov. 1906). She was a niece of the first bishop of Alexandria. She later remarried to E. J. Darragh of Pendleton, Ont., and died 13 April 1951 at the home of her daughter in North Hollywood, Calif. Clarence Ostrom speaks of John Angus McMillan with the utmost contempt, describing him as an ignorant barroom bruiser, and drawing a contrast between his bad character and the outstandingly good character of his father. The Freeholder obituary, however, represents John Angus McMillan in the strongest terms as genial and popular, while the Glengarry News obituary, warm in its praise, remembered his “rare charm of manner” and “captivating personality.” His sister Julia was married in 1906 to Dr James A. Garland, an Alexandria dentist (born at Vankleek Hill) who seems to have made a great and most favourable impression of the Alexandria people before he died 17 Sept. 1908, of typhoid fever at the early age of 31.