(15 June 1839-23 Dec. 1911), political figure. (D. C. McRae, Duncan C. McRae) Born on a farm in Lancaster Township, GC. Parents: Donald McRae and his wife Isabella Cameron. He grew up on a farm in GC. About 1865 he obtained some army training at Kingston, in one of the militia training schools set up to improve Canadian defence capacities in the latter stages of the American Civil War. Besides being a farmer in GC, he engaged in lumbering, at one stage in the Georgian Bay area, but also, presumably, in GC itself. He served as deputy reeve and reeve of Lancaster Township, and he was warden of SDG for the year 1898. He was a J P for many years, and also served as clerk of Lancaster Township, and from 1887 to 1911 as Division Court Clerk. In 1892, when the first attempt was made to separate GC from its union with SDG, McRae played a prominent part among the opponents of separation. In 1892 also, with other GC businessmen and men of prominence, he was one of the founders of the Glengarry News, a Liberal newspaper. When the Patrons of Industry movement arose in GC in the 1890s, he was active in it, as were so many other prominent Glengarrians of the time. He served as county president for the Patrons movement in GC in 1894 and 1895.

     As the Ontario general election of 1898 approached, D. M. Macpherson, who was the incumbent GC MLA, sought the Liberal nomination. He had been elected in 1894 as the Patrons candidate, but the Patrons movement, so vigorous for a few years in GC, was now in deep decline there. Rejecting Macpherson, the Liberals instead chose D. C. McRae as their candidate. (Glengarry News 29 Oct. 1897, The Weekly Sun 11 Nov. & 23 Dec. 1897, Cornwall Freeholder 31 Dec. 1897) In the end, with the support of what remained of the Patrons’ movement in GC, Macpherson was nominated as the Independent or Patrons candidate (either term seems applicable) for the forthcoming election. At the election, which was on 1 March 1898, McRae faced Macpherson and his own cousin the Conservative candidate and prominent contractor D. R. Mcdonald, McDonald being the victor. McRae was mentioned in 1901 as one of the “leading Liberals of Glengarry.” (Cornwall Standard 23 Aug. 1901)

     D. C. McRae was married on 17 July 1876 to Margaret McRae (same surname as himself), who died 18 July 1886, aged 41. McRae died at Bridge End, GC, at his home which was on Lot 13, 6th Concession of Lancaster Township. He was a Roman Catholic. Burial was at St. Margaret’s cemetery, Glen Nevis. (seven children, three surviving him) It was stated at the time of D. C. McRae’s death that his son Duncan was “now engaged in railway contracting at Lindsay, Ont.” An obituary writer suggested that “recent distressing circumstances” hastened D. C. McRae’s death. The allusion is evidently to the disaster which overwhelmed his brother, the unfortunate Farquhar D. McRae. These brothers had many distinguished GC family connections. An obituary writer on D. C. McRae noted his family connections “among the railroad builders and contractors, not only of North and South America, but of Africa and even of far away and troubled China.”

Glengarry News & Cornwall Freeholder (with portrait) & Cornwall Standard all 29 Dec. 1911 (QF Cornwall Freeholder, Cornwall Standard) * St. Raphael’s baptismal records * gravestone, Glen Nevis * Cochrane, IV, 252 (with portrait) * Roderick Lewis, 94 * Harkness: index (portrait) * Ross, Lancaster, 164, 234 * GHS Newsletter Nov. 1996 (on separation) * association with Patrons: The Canada Farmers’ Sun, 27 June 1893, 20 Feb. 1894, 9 Jan. & 13 Feb. 1895 * article on founders of GN, in GN 100th Anniversary Edition 8 July 1992