Alexander Duncan McRae
The Honourable General Alexander Duncan McRae | |
---|---|
Member of Parliament | |
In office 1926–1930 | |
Preceded by | Dugald Donaghy |
Succeeded by | Albert Edward Munn |
Constituency | Vancouver North |
Senator | |
In office 1931–1946 | |
Constituency | Vancouver |
Personal details | |
Born | November 17, 1874 Glencoe, Ontario, Canada |
Died | June 26, 1946 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada | (aged 71)
Political party | Conservative Party of Canada |
Spouse(s) | Blaunche Lattimer McRae (Howe), Louise Rhodes |
Children | Blanche (1903-1945), Lucile (1905-1955), Margaret "Peggy" (1906-1972) |
Residence(s) | Vancouver and later Qualicum Beach, British Columbia |
Occupation | Businessman |
Alexander Duncan McRae,
Origins
Alexander Duncan McRae was born and raised on a farm in Ekfrid Township,
Early career
In search of opportunities, at age 18 he went to work for his cousins, the brothers Alexander and Andrew Davidson of Duluth, Minnesota. The Davidsons had started in Little Falls, Minnesota, working for a railway company and moved into banking.[citation needed] Andrew had become mayor and they were involved in the business of buying, marketing and financing railway land to homesteaders. Minnesota made Andrew an honorary colonel. Their banking business spread through the region. In 1892, at 18 Alexander McRae joined them in Duluth and learned under Andrew.[citation needed]
McRae's first business venture on his own account started when his father put up $1,500 and McRae became a partner with the Davidsons in a company that insured grain elevators. The Davidson-McRae company sold fire and liability insurance and surety bonds. By the 1890s they had invested in various businesses and McRae became vice president of First National Bank of Hibbing. By age 25 he had $50,000 of his own earnings accumulated. He invested in other businesses including a granite quarry.[citation needed]
He married Blaunche Latimer Howe, of Pennsylvania who was the daughter of wealthy a forest industry father. They married in
As McRae and the Davidsons saw Minnesota land go up in price and farmers moving west for more land, they realized the Canadian prairies were an opportunity. They formed the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company headquartered in Winnipeg.[citation needed]
Land Speculation in Saskatchewan
Land in Saskatchewan between
In the summer of 1902, Davidson and McRae organized two promotional train tours from Minneapolis through to Prince Albert. Each of these journeys saw eight Pullman cars plus dining and baggage cars traveling through hundreds of miles of unbroken and uninhabited prairie lands. The passengers were wealthy investors from the United States. The promotion was a success. Large tracts were purchased and word spread in the business communities leading to further investment. The company developed a network of land agents to sell land to settlers which advertised and maintained sales offices in many locations. In 1901 the population of the North West Territories (which then included Alberta, Saskatchewan and most of Manitoba) was 158,940. In five years it had grown to 443,175. Under their colonization scheme 50,000 people settled in Saskatchewan.[citation needed]
The purchases of railway reserves required approval of the government. Those approvals and the purchases from the government were negotiated secretly with the Minister of the Interior, Clifford Sifton. A raging controversy arose in the House of Commons but the opposition was unable to make much of it even though McRae and his colleagues made a staggering profit in the transactions because the land had stood empty for years (the railway companies didn't want it), the government had insisted on terms that required the settlement of these vacant lands and overall the effort succeeded in rapidly filling vast areas of vacant land with settlers at a time when there was concern about American expansion into the territory.[2]: 188
Business career in British Columbia
When McRae arrived to live in Vancouver in 1907, he came intending to involve himself in business ventures as an active investor. Even before arriving to live on the west coast, he had invested in Canadian North Pacific Fisheries. In its first year, it made a half million dollars. In its second year the business failed. He moved on to invest in Wallace Fisheries and became its president.[citation needed]
He knew from his business ventures in the prairies that there was a shortage of lumber there for building. Working with his partner, Davidson, Senator Peter Jansen of Nebraska, the Swift Brothers (meat packing), William Mackenzie and Donald Mann, he took over a sawmill and a company town 3 miles (4.8 km) upstream from New Westminster at a place called Millside at Fraser Mills (now part of Coquitlam). Once he persuaded the government to dredge the Fraser River to permit reliable passage of oceangoing freighters to the mill, he reorganized it as Fraser River Mills (after 1910 known as the Canadian Western Lumber Company) with several large investors and a capitalization of $20 million. The plant and its yards covered 80 acres (320,000 m2) and took 1,030 men to run. With an investment of $500,000 in new equipment and the acquisition or formation of related companies such as The Canadian Tugboat Company and the Comox Logging and Railway to transport timber from the 75,000 acres (300 km2) of timber the company controlled between Comox and Campbell River on Vancouver Island, the company became the largest lumber and wood manufacturing company in the world. The normal capacity of the mill was 750,000 board feet (1,800 m3) of lumber a day. In 1912 the mill produced 175,000,000 board feet (410,000 m3) of lumber, enough to fill 42 rail cars a day. The mill ran around the clock. In the years after McRae's involvement, it eventually, in 1954, was acquired by Crown Zellerbach, and, with further acquisitions became Fletcher Challenge Canada Limited in 1987. By 1911 he had purchased canneries on Princess Royal Island, at Rivers Inlet and at Smith's Inlet. He introduced mechanized canning to the fish packing industry.[3]: 357
By 1914, when World War I began, McRae was also president of Anacortes Lumber and Box Company, vice-president of Columbia River Lumber Company Ltd of Golden BC which became a subsidiary of Canadian Western, vice-president of Canadian Collieries (Dunsmuir) Ltd. of Victoria BC and president of Wallace Fisheries.[4]
Military service
In 1912, as a recruit of
He carried on as director of supplies and services and, when Hughes fell into disfavour in 1916, McRae continued to advance. He was promoted the rank of Major General and in 1917, was made a member of the Order of the Bath. Later in the war effort, he was seconded to the British Government to organize Ministry of Information assisting Britain's Minister of Information, Lord Beaverbrook. For his services, it has been said that the British crown offered McRae knighthood, which he declined, although McRae himself never confirmed or denied that this happened.[citation needed]
He left the army in 1918 two months after the end of the war. Afterwards he had little involvement in the military although, in 1934, addressing the Senate, he predicted correctly that another war would erupt in Europe after touring Europe and interviewing various prominent men in France, Germany and Austria. In
Hycroft
After McRae settled in Vancouver in 1907 he proceeded to build a mansion for his family, to become known as Hycroft, in
Political career
British Columbia Provincial Party
In 1923 McRae organized a group of
The party nominated candidates in only one provincial election: the 1924 election. In that election, McRae claimed the Liberal government of John Oliver and the previous administration of Conservative Premier William John Bowser, then the opposition leader, were corrupt. Many of his allegations were related to the funding of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway plan to reach Prince George in the Northern interior of the province which was not achieved until many years later. He claimed that there were kickbacks, patronage and various wrongdoings. His allegations were never proven. He offered to pay for an independent audit of the books of the railway. His offer was declined.[citation needed]
Although the party achieved 24% of the popular vote in the 1924 election and took 3 seats, McRae was not elected. Both Bowser and Oliver lost their seats but Oliver continued to lead his conservative party as Premier of a minority government after the election.[citation needed]
McRae reconciled with his former Conservative allies after the election and went on to federal politics. The Provincial Party disappeared.[citation needed]
Federal politics
McRae ran federally for the
Post-war business career
During his Senate years, he became involved in various business ventures. He was involved in Texas-Canada Oil Company and Pioneer Gold Mine in BC. He was involved in mining in Alaska including the Yukon Charlie mine.[citation needed]
Eaglecrest Lodge
In the early 1930s McRae purchased 260 acres (1.1 km2) of ocean front bluff land in
Sources
- Betty O'Keefe and Ian Macdonald (2001). Merchant Prince. Heritage House: Surrey, BC. ISBN 1-894384-30-X.
- Martin-McGuire, Peggy. "First Nation Land Surrenders on the Prairies 1896-1911" (PDF). Ch 2, Land and Colonization Companies, Indian Claims Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
References
- ^ ISBN 1-55039-101-1.
- ISBN 0-7710-1243-8.
- ISBN 0-7748-0039-9.
- ^ "Canadian Western Lumber Company Archives at the University of British Columbia" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-09-09.
- ^ "University Women's Club - Hycroft". Archived from the original on 30 August 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
- ISBN 0-9696050-1-3.