(7 Feb. 1863-20 June 1921), lumberman, mining man. (Sandy McRae) Born at Dunvegan, GC. Parents: Alexander McRae, later hotel keeper at Dunvegan, and his wife Jane Dey. After a primary school education in GC, he followed lumbering in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, before settling in 1886 at Revelstoke, B. C., which was to be his home for the remainder of his life. He was drawn to British Columbia in the first instance by lumbering, but he also became for some years a prospector there for mines. Throughout the years, he was much involved with both lumbering and mining interests in his adopted province. Among his mining involvements, it may be noted, he had at one time been co-owner of a mine called the Dunvegan Mine. He served as a mining recorder and as a constable, and was chief license inspector for his district. In the British Columbia provincial general election of 1900, he ran as a “Government/Independent” candidate in the West Kootenay-Revelstoke riding, but was defeated by a Conservative opponent. The statement that in 1902 he was appointed postmaster of Revelstoke, and remained postmaster till his death, has appeared so positively in print that it is surprising to find that the Canada Post Office records show he was never postmaster there. One wonders whether there was not, perhaps, some abortive appointment of this capable man with his good political connections which ended before he could take office, or whether an appointment, strongly and publicly promised, did not come through in the end.

     “At the time of his death Mr. McRae was president of the McRae Timber Co.; contractor for CPR ties at Sugar Lake; was connected with the Sumas [i. e., Sugar] Lake Reclamation Scheme; ex-president of the Revelstoke Board of Trade; ex-member of the Revelstoke School Board; was the leading spirit in the International Mining Convention held here two years ago, and of the Associated Boards of Trade of Eastern British Columbia. He was also one of the three members of the Central Executive of the Liberal Association of Canada from B. C.” He died of a heart attack during a bear hunt on a ranch just outside Revelstoke. (six sons surviving him) Presbyterian. Mason. The funeral was one of the largest and most impressive ever held in the area, and was evidence of not only how well and widely he was known generally in British Columbia and Canada, but how well he was connected in the Liberal Party. He was married in 1890 to Miss Annie Richardson.

     His brother Thomas McRae (25 Feb. 1872-10 April 1940) (Tom McRae, Tommy McRae, Tom D. McRae) born at Dunvegan, followed lumbering in Michigan and Wisconsin in early life, then mining and lumbering in B. C., and went to the Yukon early in the gold rush. Tom was one of the Glengarrians at the vigorously celebrated wedding of Neil Stewart (another Dunvegan man) at Dawson in 1902. Later, Tom made his career in Alaska. After a period in mining there, he worked as a bridge carpenter and foreman for the Alaska Road Commission. He spent the last half year of his life in Seattle, where he had gone for medical attention, and he died in a nursing home there. His brother William John McRae (Bill McRae, William J. McRae, William John McRae, W. J. McRae), who had once operated the family hotel in Dunvegan, operated a store in Revelstoke, the town where their brother Alexander lived. In 1939, nearly two decades after Alexander had died, Tom and Bill met for the first time in nearly fifty years, when Tom visited Revelstoke, jokingly beginning his visit by pretending to be a stranger buying a pair of boots at the store. A newspaper report on the meeting identified Tom’s home at the time as Anchorage, Alaska.

     Another brother, Kenneth George McRae (Kenny McRae), who died in 1938 aged 57, was born at Dunvegan. He went to Revelstoke in 1901, then spent several years in mining in the Yukon before returning to Revelstoke, where he was a businessman in men’s goods and car sales. A few years before his death there he sold out his men’s goods business to his brother William J.

Revelstoke Review (QF) 23 & 30 June 1921, both very detailed, with scores of names of people who contributed flowers to the funeral or were otherwise associated with it; former also contains an extract on McRae from R. E. Gosnell’s A History: British Columbia (1906) * obituary Cornwall Freeholder 4 Aug. 1921 * Electoral History of British Columbia, 1871-1986 (Victoria, Elections British Columbia, 1988) 82 * meeting of brothers 1939: Standard Freeholder 17 Feb. 1939, Glengarry News 17 & 24 Feb. 1939 (the latter from Revelstoke Review) * MacGillivray & Ross 138 * obituary of Kenneth George McRae, SFH 22 July 1938, based on obituary Revelstoke Review * obituary of Tom D. McRae, Anchorage Daily Times 12 April 1940 * death of Tommy McRae, SFH 26 April 1940 (Stewart’s Glen column), alleged (incorrectly) to have been the fifth brother of this family to die at Revelstoke * liquor license issued to W. J. McRae, Dunvegan, GN 26 April 1907; re his hotel proprietorship cf anecdote Maxville (1991) 23-24