Merchant, municipal official.
Born at Gatehouse of Fleet, Scotland on 5 June 1836, he moved to Liverpool, England with his parents, completing his education there. He emigrated to Seaforth, Canada West (now Ontario) in 1857, where he operating a cheese business and general store. He married twice, his second wife (married 5 February 1879) being Nellie Jones of Seaforth. He had ten children, including William Harkness McDougall. He moved to Manitoba in 1882, building the first store and house at Virden, and a farm two miles south of town. He served as the first Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Wallace, Secretary-Treasurer of Virden and the Dennis County Agricultural Society, a Police Magistrate at Virden, and was a member of the IOOF, AF and AM, AOUW, St. Andrew’s Society, and Orange Order. He ran as a Conservative candidate for the Dennis constituency in the 1888 provincial general election but was defeated by Daniel McLean. He died at Virden on 29 April 1907 and was buried in the Virden Cemetery.
Death registration, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“Funeral of the pioneer of Virden,” Manitoba Free Press, 4 May 1907, page 8.
Pioneers and Early Citizens of Manitoba, Winnipeg: Manitoba Library Association, 1971.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 3 October 2018
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