(16 June 1845-31 July 1931), farmer, author. (date 1852 has also been given, almost certainly incorrectly, for his birth) Born at St. Elmo East, GC, on his parents’ farm, which was on Lot 34 in the 7th of Kenyon. Parents: Donald Sinclair and his wife Ellen Robertson. Charles was converted in 1864 after attending evangelistic services in the Baptist church at Notfield (see life of Rev. E.R. Rainboth). He worked on his father’s farm and brickyard, and operated and (eventually at least) owned a sawmill his father established near Maxville. About 1880-1881 Charles went to Manitoba. There he took part as investor in the Winnipeg land boom, and was associated in Manitoba lumbering with D.C. Cameron (later Sir Douglas Cameron), the Hawkesbury native who became lieutenant governor of Manitoba in 1911. It was probably after the Manitoba stage of his life that Charles R. Sinclair joined a travelling evangelistic group. In this group Sinclair, who was a noted singer, was in charge of the music and singing, but he probably also did some preaching.

     Charles and his son, Dan H. Sinclair, went to the Yukon in 1898 (when Charles was nearing or past the half-century mark) to take part in the gold rush. Once established in the Yukon, however, it was with lumbering rather than mining that Charles occupied himself. Charles returned to GC in the late summer or early fall of 1902. On 3 Feb. 1903 he called at the Glengarry News office in Alexandria to renew acquaintances. (Glengarry News 6 Feb. 1903) In 1906, in a biographical sketch of his father which appeared in the Glengarry News, Charles was described as being “on the homestead” at St. Elmo East. (GN 16 March 1906) In his autobiography he says that he remained “on the old homestead” from his return in 1902 till 1909. In 1908 he visited Alberta and made arrangements to obtain homestead land for himself, his son and his elderly father. The following spring, Charles, in GC, was reported to be loading a railway car with settlers’ effects and lumber for his migration to the West. (GN 12 March 1909) After this, he remained, it would appear, in Alberta for some years, establishing himself in farming. An obituary stated, “In 1908, the wanderer settled in Munson, farming for a number of years there.” Charles himself mentions that he was living at Munson, Alberta, in 1914.

     He returned to GC, however, and there in late 1920 he left his farm at St. Elmo East and moved into Maxville, where he built a house for himself. (GN 3 Dec. 1920) In Aug. and Sept. 1923, he described his Yukon adventures in a five-part article published in the Glengarry News under the title “Incidents by the Way in the Yukon.” In 1923, also, he was in the news for the feat of having cut an entire grain crop with a binder (notorious, among farmers, as a body-punishing piece of farm machinery) on his son’s Alberta farm at the age of 79. (GN 12 Oct. 1923, Cornwall Freeholder 18 Oct. 1923) (In fact, if born in 1845, he would not have been 79 till 1924.) In 1924 he had to make a sudden trip to the West, on being informed that his only son Dan H., a farmer in Alberta, had been killed by a bull. (GN 22 Feb. 1924)

     Charles published an article in the Glengarry News of 23 May 1924 on the Indian Lands Choir. After the death of his third wife in 1925, Charles moved to Calgary, where in 1927, when by the 1845 date of birth he was in his early 80s, he married for a fourth time. He was married (1) in July 1871 to Maggie Christie. She died 17 May 1873, following the birth of her son Dan Hugh on 10 May, (2) on 27 April 1882 in Toronto to a Miss Esson. She died 29 June 1883 in Winnipeg, less than three months after the birth of her daughter Leila on 15 April, (3) on 14 Oct. 1903 to Miss Mary Munro, of the North Branch, Martintown, the sister of Murdoch Munro the lawyer. She died on 17 Feb. 1925, probably at Maxville, and (4) in 1927 to Mrs John D. MacCrimmon, née Jane Logie, of Glen Roy, GC, and of Calgary. She died at Calgary on 23 April 1939, in her 92nd year. (her obituary, GN 5 May 1939) Charles died in a Calgary hospital. (two children, 1 surviving him) Burial was at the Burnsland Cemetery, Calgary. His obituary in the Cornwall Freeholder calls him “one of Glengarry’s most widely known sons” and describes, if somewhat briefly, his adventurous life, but dates his death only as “recent,” and notes that he was aged between 85 and 90.

     He left a valuable and highly interesting manuscript autobiography, which Clark Barrett transcribed and circulated under the title of Stories from the Memory of Charles R. Sinclair of Glengarry (1970, pp. 32). It has been reprinted twice, and is now one of the well-known documents of GC history. The autobiography contains many vivid passages but it does not provide a connected account of his long, varied and somewhat unsettled life. Charles R. Sinclair states that he was 80 years old when he wrote it. The autobiography reveals him as a man of intelligence and powerful personality, and likewise genial in a general and subdued way, but also as aggressive in his opinions and conceited to a degree that cannot just be explained away by the disabilities of old age–if indeed Charles had any disabilities of old age. It may be guessed that he was never a man who tried to “bring himself on” through reading or the systematic mastery of any field of knowledge. A clever and acute observer of the GC scene has said that Charles and his brother Finlay “didn’t amount to too much”–which seems fair as a comment on what they made of their opportunities.

     The autobiography shows Charles’s lifelong interest in singing and music. He studied under a leading Montreal singing teacher whose name is given as DeAngeles and D’Angeles, and he had some contact with the distinguished F.H. Torrington, of Montreal and Toronto. Charles provided the music and C.C.A. Fraser (see Rev. John Fraser) provided the words for “A Christmas Anthem,” published in The Canada Presbyterian of 16 Dec. 1885. Herbert McKillican remembered, “Charles R. Sinclair had a very fine tenor voice in his day. I once heard him sing when he was an old man and long past his best. He raised a few eyebrows when he sang a solo at his third wife’s funeral.” (quoted in Gordon Winter’s column, Glengarry News 12 Jan. 1994)

     Charles was in the St. Elmo-Maxville area throughout the ministry there of the Rev. Daniel Gordon, and his autobiography is invaluable as background material for the reading of the Rev. C.W. Gordon’s (Ralph Connor’s) GC novels. The autobiography also contains a fine report of his interview in Winnipeg with the Rev. Daniel Gordon. Charles was the brother of Finlay D. Sinclair and the brother-in-law of Donald Alexander McRae. The well known GC writer Velma Franklin lives in Charles R. Sinclair’s fine old brick farmhouse at St. Elmo East.

Obituary Cornwall Freeholder 22 Aug. 1931, Glengarry News 28 Aug. 1931 * autobiography, as described above * Campbell (1983), 64-70 (family history), 39-64 (repr. of the autobiography); the autobiography was also reprinted in The Manor Chatter Sept. 1995-Dec. 1996) * Campbell (1990), 708-709 * history of Sinclair family, GN 1 June 1923, 1 Feb. 1924 * biog. sketch of Donald Sinclair (father of Charles), GN 16 March 1906 * Charles’s reminiscences of his schooldays, GN 21 Nov. 1924 * journalist’s article on Sinclair’s Yukon experiences, GN 20 Dec. 1929 * Bibliography of Glengarry: index for more detail on his publications * Maxville (1991) 840-842 * obituary of his brother Peter D. Sinclair of California, Alberta and GC, GN 9 June 1933 * Hugh D. Sinclair of St. Elmo (nephew of Charles R. Sinclair, who is already in the Yukon) leaves for Yukon, writes describing his trip from Maxville to Dawson City, GN 4 May & 13 July 1900 * Charles and his wife return from honeymoon and are given a reception at their home near St. Elmo, GN 23 Oct. 1903 * his barn burns, GN 30 Aug. 1912 * has recently returned from California trip: letter to editor, GN 2 July 1920 (and other letters about this time) * note on his house in Maxville, Winter GN 3 Nov. 1993