(March 1804-9 March 1890), farmer and schoolteacher. Born at Carbost, Isle of Skye, Scotland. Parents: Charles Stewart and his wife Effy Morrison. Alexander came with his brother John on the Fanny to Canada, 1832. In Canada in Feb. 1833 he married Mary Stewart (1811-1903), who although a Stewart is believed to have been unrelated to her husband. Alexander Stewart’s reason for coming to Canada is reported to have been to marry her. Mary Stewart’s parents, Murdoch Stewart and Ann MacDonald of Eabost, Isle of Skye, were the first Stewarts to settle at Stewarts Glen, GC. Stewarts Glen is between Dunvegan and Athol, at the western end of the 9th Concession of Kenyon Township. Alexander Stewart had received a competent education in Scotland, with some emphasis on the mastery of commercial skills. He lived for a time in Western Ontario, then settled down for life on his farm (south 1/2 of Lots 35 and 36 in the 9th of Kenyon) at Stewarts Glen. He taught school for 12 years in GC, at places which included Dunvegan, where he is said to have been the first schoolteacher, and Athol. In 1877, he became the recipient of one of the teachers’ pensions which Egerton Ryerson, somewhat ahead of his age in these matters, had established in his founding labours on the Ontario education system.

     GC had over the generations many Protestant clergymen who were natives of Scotland, but Alexander Stewart was one of GC’s surprisingly few Scottish-born schoolteachers. He was in the GC militia at the time of the 1837-1838 Rebellion and and was present at the Battle of the Windmill in 1839. He was an elder at Kenyon Presbyterian Church, Dunvegan, from a date before 1854. Like his son Charles Stewart afterwards, he served as superintendent of the Sunday School at Stewarts Glen connected with Kenyon Presbyterian Church. With his son Charles he built homes, barns and bridges. He was fluent in Gaelic and in English. There survives in manuscript a Gaelic poem or song in 33 lines entitled “Horo tha me muladach [Behold I Am Melancholy],” and described (in English) at the end as being “Composed By Alexander Stewart Elder Kenyon Dunvegan Ontario.” He is buried in Dunvegan cemetery. (nine children)

Date of death from Glengarrian 14 March 1890 and his son Charles’s diary (date 10 March has been also given) * information kindly supplied by his great-granddaughter Mrs Harriet I. MacKinnon * Harriet I. MacKinnon, “A Glengarry Settler,” GHS, Annual Volume 13 (1973): biog. information on Alexander Stewart, some of it in his own words * Campbell (1990), 16-23 (portrait), 76-77 * Elizabeth Blair, “Glengarry: Stones of Remembrance,” Families, 16:3 (1977) 100 * Whyte, i, 400, 404 * MacMillan, Kenyon Presbyterian Church, 45, 65 * H. Russell Ferguson, Historical Sketch of Kenyon Presbyterian Church Sunday Schools (1967)