First Person. Valerie Knowles
but we refair it to your Makers providence and to your own mind as wishing it to be guided by him and we trust that yourself hath made up your mind as considering a measure of both kingdoms.
...P.S. We are regrating that you did not enlarge more how do you spend the Sabath or is there a sound preacher among you all.6
Clearly, the “Dr. Child” had joined the burgeoning ranks of other Scots, who were then carving out a commanding position in the economic life of Canada. Nowhere was the leadership of these men in the Canadian business world more conspicuous than in Montreal, a city where Scots not only dominated business but also played a prominent role in the founding of institutions, the building of churches and the launching of commercial organizations. Although he could not have known it in 1832, Joseph too would eventually become a prominent member of this group of self-made tycoons.
Joseph Mackay, Great-Uncle of Cairine Wilson.
No doubt impressed by his brother Joseph’s rising fortunes, Edward Mackay emigrated to Canada in 1840 and, after spending six months in Kingston, Ontario, settled in Montreal where he became a clerk in Joseph’s wholesale drygoods firm. By 1850, he had demonstrated such industry and business acumen that Joseph took him on as a partner, the firm becoming known in May of that year as Joseph Mackay and Brother. The business grew so quickly that in December 1866 it was reported that the previous year’s sales had been well in excess of one million dollars and that the two bachelor brothers were “wealthy.”7
By then, Joseph had anticipated a trend on the part of the fashionable in Montreal by moving his place of residence from St. Antoine Street, not far from the harbour, north towards the slopes of Mount Royal. There, on Sherbrooke Street at the corner of Redpath, just below the mountain, he had purchased several lots from the estate of the late S.G. Smith and had proceeded in 1857 to build a stone mansion, which he named Kildonan Hall after his birthplace in Sutherlandshire.8 Before it was razed in 1930 to make way for the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, Kildonan, as it was known, was one of the most striking on a wide avenue of impressive mansions. As the historian and journalist, Edgar Andrew Collard, has observed, Joseph Mackay’s residence would have been imposing even if it had been situated near the sidewalk. But what really made it stand out was its siting in large shady grounds that resembled those of a magnificent country estate.9 Near the southeast corner of the property — adjoining a finely worked wrought-iron fence — stood two stone gateposts, which flanked a curving driveway that swept up to a pillared front porch. To the right of the house, as you faced it, was a porte-cochere, to the left, a large conservatory, which featured the prized marble statue, “Diana,” one of several legacies that Joseph earmarked for his niece, Henrietta Gordon, who lived with her uncles at Kildonan until she died in 1883, shortly after the death of Edward. Still later, after Senator Robert Mackay’s death, the statue would find its way into Cairine Wilson’s possession.
Like most large neo-classical houses designed for the very affluent in Victorian Canada, Kildonan had high ceilings and a square floor plan. Opening off the front door was a spacious, but dark, entrance hall graced by a wide, sweeping, staircase. Overlooking this — and bearing mute testimony to Joseph’s Scottish origins — was an impressive stained glass window depicting Sir Walter Scott’s narrative poem, “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.”10
Kildonan was not only architecturally imposing — with its Italianate touches and large size — it was also richly furnished with art work and heavy furniture, much of which had been purchased by Joseph on his overseas buying trips. The result was an exceedingly gloomy house that bespoke a certain Scottish dourness and fervency of purpose.
Another Montreal landmark closely identified with Joseph Mackay was the Mackay Institution for Protestant Deaf-Mutes, located on the west side of Decarie Road, now Decarie Boulevard. The Montreal merchant first became involved with handicapped children in 1874 when a struggling institution, known as the Protestant Institution for Deaf-Mutes and for the Blind, approached him for financial assistance. A kind man, who was keenly interested in the welfare of the deaf child, Mackay became a governor of the institution and then, in 1876, when larger premises were urgently required, he donated both the property on Decarie Road and a four-storey building where classes could be held. He also assumed the presidency of the school, which in 1878 was renamed the Mackay Institution for Protestant Deaf-Mutes in his honour.11
In a speech on the occasion of the laying of the building’s cornerstone Joseph Mackay waxed eloquent with the hope that “for years and generations to come the Institution may, through Divine favour, prove a source of manifold blessings to the afflicted classes whose good it seeks, and may never lack warm-hearted and generous friends and wise and godly instructors to carry on the work.”12 The wealthy Montreal merchant would have been gratified to know that members of succeeding generations of Mackays, Cairine Wilson among them, would play a leading role in the school’s affairs.
“Kildonan.” Mackay family home on Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal. This site is currently occupied by St Andrew’s and St Paul’s Presbyterian Church. Its church hall is called Kildonan Hall after the original house.
In addition to the role that he played in the Mackay Institution for Protestant Deaf-Mutes, Joseph could also take great satisfaction and pride in the contributions that he was making to his church. A devout Presbyterian, who was deeply conscious of the obligations of God’s blessings, Joseph gave generously to the church. He also became actively involved in its work, helping to establish the Presbyterian College of Montreal, which opened in 1867, and serving for a number of years on its board of managers. While travelling on business in the provinces, he kept “his eyes open to the spiritual state of those with whom he came in contact” and when he detected a need for additional Presbyterian ministers, he arranged for Scottish clergymen to come to this country. All told, he brought out ten to twelve ministers of the Free Church of Scotland at his own expense.13 Following his retirement from business, he became interested in the missionary work of the church and whenever he travelled in Canada or overseas, he made a point of visiting missionaries.14
Joseph Mackay died in 1881, but not before sending a last message to his minister. Asked if he had anything he wanted to convey to this pious gentleman, Joseph pondered and then said, “Just this: ‘Do good as you have opportunity.”15 Two years later Edward died, still a bachelor. By now, however, the flourishing drygoods business had been turned over to the brothers’ three nephews, Hugh, James and Robert, sons of their sister Euphemia and her husband, Angus Mackay, of Lybster, Caithness and nearby Roster.
The youngest of the brothers was Robert, Cairine’s father. Born in Lybster, Caithness, he had followed Hugh and James to Montreal in 1855 when he was only sixteen. Once arrived in Canada, he had demonstrated his Scots faith in education by taking up bookkeeping and commercial studies. In a letter to a friend in Scotland, written in 1858, he noted that he had begun bookkeeping. Then he went on to observe, “for a time at least I intend to follow commercial pursuits and, if successful, I ultimately hope to return to the land of my fathers and settle down in rural life as a quiet useful farmer.”16 But not alone it seems. In the draft of a letter intended for his cherished friend Catherine Macdonald he enlarges upon this dream, voicing sentiments that hint at some of the qualities that helped to shape his remarkable career:
I was also glad, for certain reasons, to hear that some of the folk in Newlands have not yet got married as it permits me to hope, that, should my plans for the future be crowned by a kind Providence with success — should I by honest persevering industry and prudent economy gather enough of this world’s gear to buy me a snug little farm in dear auld Scotia and enable me to settle down in quiet independence with the beloved object of my fond affection, I might win her consent to share it with me.17
Robert never realized his youthful dream to marry his beloved and to settle down in Scotland as “a quiet useful farmer.” But he did fulfill his ambition to succeed in the field of commerce. Shrewd, able and industrious, he personified those traits