(11 Jan. 1859-7 May 1938), lawyer. (Col. Donald M. Robertson, Col. D. M. Robertson, Donny Robertson) Born on North Branch, Martintown, GC. Parents: Hugh A. Robertson and his wife Flora McLennan, the daughter of Farquhar McLennan. He attended high school at Williamstown and Brantford, and Queen’s University (B.A., 1886), and studied law at Osgoode Hall and under the instruction of Judge James Maclennan and Hon. George Mowat. Robertson was called to the bar in 1889, and practiced law in Toronto for many years. He was one of the three principal founders of the 48th Highlanders regiment of Toronto in 1891. He rose to be lt.-col. of the regiment. Afterwards, he was given the rank of honorary lt.-col., which he held from 1911 till his death. He commanded the regiment at the Quebec Tercentenary celebration in 1908. In 1906 or 1908, he took a detachment of the regiment to England for training at Aldershot. On this occasion, he received the Royal Victorian Order from Edward VII at Buckingham Palace. The M. V. O. sometimes used after Robertson’s name marks this honour. His nephew Capt. A.R. McGregor, a GC native who was killed in the First World War, was an officer in the 48th Highlanders and also a veteran of the South African War.

     Donald M. Robertson owned the Manor House at Williamstown (his brother Farquhar owned the Bethune-Thompson House) and a farm at Williamstown, described at the time of his death as “one of the finest in Eastern Ontario” and “a fine and extensive farm,” and as having been at one time “the largest farm in eastern Ontario.” (Standard Freeholder and Queen’s obituaries) He raised shorthorn cattle and Clydesdale horses on the farm, and also had a dairy herd. His barn at Williamstown was destroyed in Aug. 1907 by a fire set by lightning, and the 1920 Cornwall Cheese and Butter Board history describes and shows in photograph the fine barn Lt. Col. D. M. Robertson, M. V.O., built in 1915 on his “Manor Farm of 600 acres at Williamstown.” Towards the end of the First World War, at a time of exceptional tensions among a war-strained populace, there was some excitement in the GC-Cornwall area over a belief that a letter B appearing on oats blades heralded Britain’s victory in the war, and Col. Robertson’s farm was one of those on which the B was noticed. (Cornwall Standard 1 Aug. 1918 ) Robertson had inherited the Manor House from his uncle Murdoch McLennan in 1897. Besides the law and farming, Robertson had mining and pulp and paper interests.

     At the Ontario general election of 11 Dec. 1911, Robertson ran for the GC seat as a Conservative but was defeated by his Liberal opponent, Hugh Munro of Munro and McIntosh. “Friends of long standing, these two standardbearers conducted one of the most amicable campaigns in the history of the county.” (obituary of Hugh Munro, Glengarry News 10 Nov. 1939–perhaps by Col. A.G.F. Macdonald) Hugh Munro said the year after the election that “The contest between Col. Robertson and myself started in a friendly spirit and ended that way.” (Centenary 1912) In the centenary celebration in 1912 of St. Andrew’s Church, Williamstown, one of the meetings of the celebration was held at the Manor House with Robertson as chairman. Robertson married late in life, on 6 July 1915, to Mrs Bessie G. Shaw, formerly Miss Gibson; her sister was married to General C.L. Hervey. There appear to have been no children to the Robertson marriage. Mrs Robertson died in Toronto on 2 March 1935. (her obituary, Standard Freeholder 6 March 1935) Col. Robertson, who survived his wife by some three years, died at his home in Toronto. Presbyterian. He was survived by 5 brothers and a sister. He was the brother of Farquhar Robertson and Kenneth Robertson and a cousin of F.D. McLennan of Cornwall.

     A promoter of traditional Scottish culture, Col. Robertson was active in the affairs of the Sons of Scotland, which was both a fraternal society and an insurance organization, and he was grand secretary of the Sons of Scotland from 1893. On 1 Sept. 1897, he was one of the speakers at a celebration (a “gathering of the clans”) held on Hamilton’s Island, near Summerstown, by the Sons of Scotland members from GC and Stormont. He was presented with an address of welcome, as the grand secretary, and his speech, in which he summarized the history of the organization and praised the Scots, the French Canadians and the English, is reported at length in The Scottish Canadian of Oct. 1897. He was president of the St. Andrew’s Society of Toronto, 1928-1930, and was president also of the Caledonian Society of Toronto. When he was a provincial candidate for GC in 1911, it was reported that “In Toronto he is known as the ‘Man from Glengarry,’ because of his love for and pride in the ‘old county.’ He is a most ardent Highlander, speaking Gaelic as well as English and French– an ideal combination for a constituency such as Glengarry, where these three elements meet.” (Cornwall Standard 1 Dec. 1911 )

     Col. Donald M. Robertson was one of the best-known Glengarrians of his day and he must have had every reason to find his life a great and enjoyable adventure (whether he did or not), but all the same it is hard not to suspect that he was a man who did not achieve as much in life as might reasonably have been expected of him.

Standard Freeholder 9 May 1938, Glengarry News 13 May 1938, QAR (May 1938) pp. 149-150 * Morgan (1912) 950 * [Can.] Who’s Who and Why 1921 p. 620 * Prominent People of the Province of Ontario (1925) 200 * Williamstown 200 18-19 (with portrait) * Campbell (1990), 684, 699-704 * obituary of his mother, Cornwall Standard 20 Dec. 1907 * histories of the 48th Highlanders, by Alexander Fraser the archivist (1900) and by Kim Beattie (1932), both with portrait * One Hundred Years of History (1936) [history of St. Andrew’s Society, Toronto] * Centenary 1912 24, 46, 48 * Capt. A.R. McGregor: WSC 25 (reported missing; portrait), name among dead on cenotaph, Alexandria * barn: GN 23 Aug. 1907; old time column, SFH 16 Aug. 1937; Stiles 225 * letter B on oats: see also Rhodes Grant, ii, 117-118; cf SFH 19 & 20 Aug. 1941 for V found on produce in WWII * takes part with detachment of 48th in military tournament at New York, GN 13 May 1904 * nominated as Conservative candidate, GN 1 Dec. 1911 * donates silver medal for school sports, GN 3 April 1914 * speaks with vigour at poorly-attended “Patriotism and Production” meeting at Cornwall, Cornwall Freeholder & CS 25 Feb. 1915 * re-elected grand chief, Sons of Scotland (Cornwall Standard 2 July 1925 ) * known in Toronto as “Col. ‘Donny’ Robertson,” CS 21 Nov. 1929 * Col. and Mrs Robertson arrive to spend summer at Manor, Williamstown, GN 14 July 1933 * Sue Harrington, “European Deer Adjusting Well to Glengarry,” GN 18 Feb. 1987 (on Vogel family, present owners of a cattle and deer farm on “the historic ‘Col. Robertson’ farm on the outskirts of Williamstown”