(May 1845-15 May 1934), craftsman. Born in Dominionville area, GC, probably on his parents’ farm. Parents: James McNaughton and his wife Isabella Robertson. Charles McNaughton worked in sawmills at Dominionville and Greenfield as a young man; then he moved to Maxville about 1885, and built a carding mill there, which he operated for many years. During the last three years of his life, he lived in the Finch area, where he owned a farm, and it was in the Finch area that he died. (one child) Baptist. He was married to Mary Ferguson. Charles McNaughton was a machinist and craftsman, and in his earlier years had a photography business at Dominionville. For the quarter century 1898-1923 he was the postmaster of Maxville (T. W. Munro, who wrote his life in the “I Remember” series, states that the postmastership was a reward for his work as a Liberal), and his brother John R. McNaughton (1839-1919) was postmaster of Dominionville for many years. Also, see the entry for John P. McNaughton for a Peter McNaughton who as postmaster of Notfield was, in effect, postmaster of the future Dominionville.

     Velma Franklin has written about Charles and John R., “it was in woodworking that these men excelled. In homes in the district are their fine old desks, cabinets and chests of drawers, and they were also responsible for the finest examples of decorative graining on doors, window frames and panelling to be seen in the area. They designed a beautiful bannister for their own home and made it from birds’ eye maple–a tree in the neighbourhood they had been keeping an eye on. John R.’s masterpiece was a grandfather clock with a splendid dial carved from a single piece of basswood– numerals, scrollwork and leaves.”

     She states that Charles’s “most impressive memorial is the ceiling in the Anglican church in Maxville,” for which he “used narrow tongue and groove boards in the deceptively simple looking log cabin pattern and finished in plain varnish. The effect is alternating light and dark triangles moving overhead and the eye is led from the first square to larger and larger ones until the pattern seems to ripple across the whole vault.” This church was originally the old Presbyterian church described in The Man from Glengarry. The building was moved to Maxville in 1902 to be the Baptist church there, and it was at this time that Charles McNaughton had the task of refitting the ceiling. It became an Anglican church in 1959.

     Charles’s sister Janet McNaughton (5 July 1842-7 May 1939), who never married, was a seamstress who worked at this occupation in various homes (including that of J. R. Booth in Ottawa), and a practical nurse who worked in the GC area in association with Dr James T. Munro. Her skill in needlework created a close friendship between her and the minister’s wife, Mrs Daniel Gordon, mother of the novelist who wrote under the name of “Ralph Connor.” But more generally, she kept house for her unmarried brother James on their farm near Dominionville and in retirement in Maxville.

     John R.’s son James McNaughton (known as Jimmy John R.) of Dominionville and Maxville was a piper for over a half century; some years ago, a fine cabinet (dresser) in Maxville was attributed to him.

Standard Freeholder 23 May 1934, Glengarry News 25 May 1934 * Maxville (1991) 727-730 (with portraits) * “A Sketch of the Business Men of Dominionville 1884 by Blind Mrs. MacIntyre and Sent to Ida McDiarmid,” and Velma S. Franklin, “Craftsmen in the Old Time Tradition,” both in Glengarry Life (1985) * obituary of Janet McNaughton, GN 12 May 1939 * Munro GN 30 Sept. 1938 * St. Michael and All Angels Anglican Church: Maxville, Ontario (1984?) * old Presbyterian church: Ralph Connor, The Man from Glengarry (new Canadian Library edn.), p. 69 (9th chapter); MacGillivray & Ross 86-87 * MacPhee 15 ff * postmaster: NAC, RG 3 postal history record cards; appointed, retires, GN 14 & 21 Oct. 1898, 30 Nov. 1923 * honoured by community, GN 11 April 1924 * sells carding machinery to R. J. McCormick, GN 4 Feb. 1921 * Ross & Fraser McNaughtons, I, 238 ff