| Name |
Peter McLaren |
| Prefix |
Sen. |
| Birth |
22 Sep 1831 |
Lanark Highlands (Lanark), Lanark County, Ontario, Canada  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Occupation |
1844 |
Lanark County, Ontario, Canada |
| Gilles Lumber Company shanty crew on Clyde River |
| Occupation |
Bef 1850 |
| By his mid-teens became a 'timber cruiser' for John Gillies |
- Once a timber site was close to being 'logged out', timber cruisers surveyed un harvested territory to select new job sites. The value of timber, access to streams and rivers and the logistics of purchasing and delivering supplies and other factors could make the difference between profit and loss.
|
| Census-Household Member |
1851 |
Lanark Highlands (Lanark), Lanark County, Ontario, Canada |
| Canada |
|
|
| FamilySearch ID |
LT1W-784 |
| Occupation |
1853 |
Lanark County, Ontario, Canada |
| Partnership, Gillies and McLaren Company was established. |
- "Gillies, in the informal way of the day, told him they would work henceforth as partners, and such was the basis of an agreement on which the Gillies and McLaren Company was founded, and on which a generation later, the adjustment o hundreds of thousands of dollars turned."
A Hundred Years A-Fellin', 1842-1942, edited by Charlotte Whitton (1942).
Peter McLaren was 22 years of age.
|
| Occupation |
Bef 1866 |
Lanark County, Ontario, Canada |
| Winters in the lumber shanties along the Clyde and Mississippi |
- "For 20 years, from the time he first went into the bush in the winter of 1844, Peter McLaren had no permanent residence. Initially he passed his winters in the lumber shanties along the Clyde and Mississippi, and the summer seasons back on the family farm in Lanark township. As he became more deeply involved in the Gillies Lumber Company business, cruising new limits, and then as a partner from 1853, he seemed to have lived periodically at Carleton Place, Lanark, Snow Road, and at the shanties he supervised. In the census of 1851 he was living with his widowed mother and siblings in Lanark township. The census taker af 1861 failed to find him, probably deep in the bush somewhere in the Mississippi River basin."
Mississippi Lumber Baron, Ron Shaw, 2016
|
| Residence |
1870 |
Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada |
| Purchased Nevis Cottage, 61 Drummond Street West and adjoining 400 acre farm of Matthew Bell. |
- Drummond Twp, Concession 2 Lots 3 & 4.
In the 1870s, McLaren made two additions to the house, more than doubling its original size to 7,700 square feet. Main house is stone, additions are of yellow brick, with a turret and copper tile roof. He hired the firm of Jones and Fuller who between 1850 and 1866 had built the centre block of the Canadian Parliament buildings and St. James Anglican Church in Perth.
Ron Shaw
|
| Legal |
1875 |
| Control of river improvements challenged. |
- Until this time lumbermen operating on the upper Mississippi River conceded, without complaint, to Gillies-McLaren, and later to McLaren, the right to control their improvements on the river. Competing companies paid tolls to pass their logs through the slides and channels, or held back their drives until McLaren opened his dams and booms.
In 1875, The Buck and Stewart Company forced its spring drive down river, cutting through the McLaren boom at Ragged Chute in Palmerston Township (Frontenac County) and opened a 20 foot gap in the McLaren dam at High Falls in North Sherbrooke township, Lanark County. McLaren sued for damages but legal action was terminated when company owner Buck was committed to the Ontario Insane Asylum.
Ron Shaw
|
| Legal |
1879 |
| Conflict with the Caldwell Lumber Company |
- In 1878 the Caldwell Lumber Company bought timber limits on the upper Mississippi. The following spring, taking a page from the unfortunate Buck, Caldwell cut McLaren dams and booms and drove his logs, from a timber limit adjacent to Buckshot Creek below Buckshot Lake, through to Carleton Place.
|
| Legal |
1880 |
| Sought injunction against Boyd Caldwell in the Court of Chancery |
- When Boyd Caldwell tried to force another drive through the McLaren works in the spring of 1880, Peter McLaren sought an injunction against Boyd Caldwell." The judicial decisions 'ping ponged' between for and against Caldwell/McLaren. Caldwell moved on to the political front. Caldwell was successful in obtaining rapid legislative action via his hephew, William C. Caldwell, a member of Mowat's Liberal Pary representing South Lanark County. Although McLaren's father-in-law, William Lees, was also a member of the legislature, he was a member of the opposition Conservative Party.
McLaren protested the low toll rates proscribed by the bill and turned to the Federal government of Sir John A. Macdonald who promptly overturned the Ontario Provincial legislation. The two levels of government battled for control through 1882-1883.
In 1882, Caldwell's men cut through McLaren dams blocking a drive at the foot of Long Lake and brought 10,000 logs down river to Carleton Place in 1883.
McLaren took his case to the Supreme Court of Canada who, on 28 November 1882, ruled in his favour.
Caldwell took his case to the highest of all courts, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Britian which ruled in 1884 that all waterways were open to all, although private interests could charge a reasonable amount for the use of any improvements leading to the 'Rivers and Streams Act'.
Ron Shaw
|
| Residence |
1881 |
Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada [1] |
| Residence |
31 Mar 1901 |
Lanark County, Ontario, Canada [1] |
| Hobby |
1908 |
Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada |
| Purchased the first motor car owned by a resident of Perth - a Maxwell touring model |
| Residence |
1911 |
Lanark County (south/sud), Ontario, Canada [1] |
| Residence |
23 May 1919 |
Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada [1] |
| _UID |
62C51BCCCB794997976B28777046B0CB0406 |
| Death |
23 May 1919 |
Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada |
- On Friday, May 23, 1919 Peter McLaren, aged 87 years, died at his Nevis Cottage home in Perth.
"His early years were spent as a boy on the parental farm and later in the lumbering woods, where he became an expert in the occupation which was his special work and occupation in after years, and by which he acquired great wealth and influence.
After the sale of his limits and mills, Mr. McLaren retired from industrial life, and to bear with dignity the honors of new political life, he having been made a member of he Dominion Senate in the year 1890 by the Conservative Government of the day.
The hardships of his youger days in the lumbering and in the drivers' camps entailed intermittent attacks of rheumatism, and these lasted until the end of his life.
His funeral took place on Sunday, May 25th, to Elmwood Cemetery, the Rev. Dr. Scott (Alexander Hugh Scott, grandfather of figure skater, Barbara Ann Scott) of St. Andrew's Church, conducting the service. Pallbearers - David McLaren, nephew (1844-1926 a cousin, not nephew, son of Peter 1813-1890 and Janet Stewart 1802-1896), Drummond; Judge W.S. Senkler (William Stevens), Perth; Dr. Preston, MPP (Richard Franklin), Carleton Place; George Ritchie, Barrister, Toronto; P.J.C. MacDonnell, Manager Bank of Montreal, Perth (Philip John Cotter); W.B. Hart, Perth (William Brown).
From the Canadian Lumerman and Woodworker:
Peter McLaren, of Perth, Ont., a veteran figure in the lumber and legislative world has joined the silent majority. Early in life he entered upon a successful and honorable business career, and he leaves a name and record revered by all and by none more than his fellow residents in Perth, where he spent so many years.
The [McLaren] firm manufactured all kinds of sawn lumber and square timber, the former being for the Canadian and United States, and the latter for the European trade. A few years ago, he retired from active business to enjoy life at his beautiful residence 'Nevis Cottage', Perth, Ont.
For nearly 30 years Mr. McLaren occupied a seat in the Dominion Senate, having been summoned to that distinguished body in 1890. He was a Conservative and a Presbyterian.
|
| Burial |
Elmwood Cemetery, Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada |
| Notes |
- McLAREN, Hon. Senator Peter ? Retired lumberman, Perth, Ont.; owner of 100,000 acres of valuable timber lands in Virginia, upon which are also valuable ore mines. Born in Lanark, Ontario, Sept. 22, 1831, son of the late James McLaren formerly of Perth, Scotland, and the late Margaret McLaren, daughter of the late Peter McLaren, of Lochiels Regiment, which engaged in quelling the Irish Rebellion, 1815. Educated: Public Schools. Began to learn the lumber business, 1844, gaining a thorough knowledge of hauling timber, rafting and milling; a partner, Gillies & McLaren, Carlton Place, 1855, which firm bought out the large Gilmour business, consisting of about three hundred square miles of timber on the Mississippi River, Ont., as well as working the Madawaska limits; became Sole Proprietor, 1890; the firm manufactured all kinds of sawn lumber and square timber, the former being for Canadian and United States markets, and the latter for European trade. Summoned to the Senate, 1890. Married Sophia Lees, daughter of the late William Lees, Lanark, Ont., and Granddaughter of the late Col. Playfair, of the old Canadian Parliament, Nov. 22, 1867; has two sons and three daughters. Conservative; Presbyterian. Residence: "Nevis Cottage," Perth, Ont.
Who's Who and Why
A Biographical Dictionary of Men and Women of Canada and Newfoundland
Volumes 6-7, Page 1319
|
| Person ID |
I13416 |
Lanark County Origins |
| Last Modified |
27 Jan 2024 |
| Family |
Sophia Elizabeth Lees, b. 7 Nov 1845, Tay Valley Twp (Bathurst), Lanark County, Ontario, Canada d. 29 May 1923, Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada (Age 77 years) |
| Marriage |
22 Nov 1867 |
Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada |
| Children |
| | 1. Margaret Elsie McLaren, b. 28 Mar 1869, Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada d. 3 Apr 1954, Oshawa, Durham Regional Municipality, Ontario, Canada (Age 85 years) |
| | 2. Mary Isobel McLaren, b. 6 Feb 1874, Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada d. 17 Apr 1927, York County, York Regional Municipality, Ontario, Canada (Age 53 years) |
| | 3. Annie Kathleen McLaren, b. 9 Nov 1875, Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada d. 31 Jan 1954, Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada (Age 78 years) |
| + | 4. James Lyon Playfair McLaren, b. 29 Dec 1878, Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada d. 14 Sep 1934, Springfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States (Age 55 years) |
| | 5. William Lees McLaren, b. 13 May 1880, Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada d. 2 Sep 1932, Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada (Age 52 years) |
|
| Family ID |
F4110 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
4 Mar 2024 |
1831 - 1919 (87 years)
