known as Frank B. Villeneuve (18 Feb. 1868-11 Nov. 1940), drover. (Frank Villeneuve) Born at Moose Creek, Ont. Parents: Benjamin Villeneuve and his wife Urtumise Brunet. When Benjamin Villeneuve, who was born at St. Eugene, Ont., but lived for many years at Moose Creek, died 16 April 1932, aged 93, his obituary in the Cornwall Freeholder called him “the oldest of the Moose Creek pioneers.” (Cornwall Freeholder 23 April 1932) It was his son Frank B. Villeneuve, however, the subject of the present entry, who founded the GC branch of the Villeneuve family and was the local progenitor, thereby, of one of the best-known and most-talented families of 20th-century GC. Frank B. Villeneuve was a railway foreman on the Canada Atlantic Railway in his early years, operated a butcher shop at Moose Creek, had a farm at Dyer, west of Maxville, and moved to Maxville in 1907. In Maxville he was the proprietor of the Ottawa House hotel (burned 1931). Going into the cattle business some 32 years before his death, this Maxville resident built up a large business as a drover in GC and adjacent areas, shipping what is remembered to have been an annual average of 250 railway cars of livestock per year to Montreal. “Since his entry into the cattle business he had handled between seven and eight million dollars, and no one had lost a dollar on him–a record to be envied.” He had his own cattle yards near the Maxville railway station. He was a member of Maxville village council, and president of Kenyon Agricultural Society, and a vice-president of the Conservative Association of Glengarry.

     At Embrun, Ont., on 9 Nov. 1891 he was married to Fabiola Marion of Marionville, Ont. She died in Aug. 1948, two months after her son Osie was first elected MLA. They were the parents of Ben F., J. Domina and Osie Villeneuve, and of Mrs A. Gordon Macdonald. Osie Villeneuve remembered that “My father could speak Gaelic, French and English.” Frank B. Villeneuve died at his home in Maxville. Roman Catholic. Burial was at Moose Creek. (twelve children, nine surviving him.)

Glengarry News 15 Nov. 1940 * obituary of his wife, Standard Freeholder 9 Aug. 1948 * Maxville (1991) , 93 (1920 advert. reproduced), 296, 307, 317, 392, 423, 861-882 (with portraits), also many other Villeneuve refs. * his home, the old Ottawa House hotel, Maxville, burns, GN 22 May 1931 * Gaelic: Osie Villeneuve in Legislature of Ontario: Debates 6 May 1980