(1858-20 Sept. 1914), manufacturer. Born at Apple Hill, GC. Parents: Mr and Mrs Duncan McIntosh. He was trained as a wheelwright and, presumably, given the related nature of the occupations, as a blacksmith. In 1880 he entered into partnership in Alexandria with his first cousin Hugh Munro. He had been Munro’s employee since 1878. Together they built up the celebrated Munro and McIntosh carriage factory–GC’s greatest manufacturing enterprise ever, and celebrated in GC legend. For a more extended history and description of the firm, see the entry for Hugh Munro. The division of labour between McIntosh and Munro as they found themselves managing a large enterprise became, in general, that McIntosh had charge of the manufacturing side of the firm, while Munro dealt with sales. McIntosh seems to have been a more private and withdrawn man than Munro, but he was, like Munro, a member of the Alexandria town council. There is no mention of his sharing Munro’s interests in history and writing. In 1892, McIntosh was one of the local men who founded the Glengarry News. (Glengarry News Centennial issue, 8 July 1992) This journal was intended, of course, to provide GC-area support for the Liberal Party. Apart from this, there is little evidence of his political interests. When the new Presbyterian Church was built in Alexandria in 1911-1912, he and Munro paid 2/3 of the cost, on the understanding that the congregation would pay the remaining 1/3. (GN 3 Feb. 1911, 9 Aug. 1912) In 1913 McIntosh and his wife visited Cuba, in what is reported to have been the first long holiday of his life. He died, aged only 56, but after being in failing health for two years, at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, “from an acute attack of Bright’s disease.”
The time was the opening weeks of WWI. The future for the Munro and McIntosh carriage plant still looked bright, but the automobile was already cutting into the carriage-manufacturing industry (McIntosh had himself become a car owner before the end of his life), and in fact, from now on the story of the firm was to be one of decay and disintegration. John D. McIntosh was married in 1886 to Lovena McCracken (1859-1939), of Farran’s Point, Ont. She and the wife of his business partner, Hugh Munro, were probably close relatives, but it has not been determined that they were sisters. She died on 6 Nov. 1939 at her home in Alexandria, the year after the buildings of the carriage factory were torn down, and on the evening preceding the day on which Hugh Munro died in Edmonton. There were no children. A graceful obituary in the Glengarry News of 10 Nov. 1939 evokes the portrait of a kindly, well liked, rather retiring woman. She had a sister married to Peter Leslie, and the sister’s daughter was married to Will J. Simpson. John D. McIntosh and his wife have the largest stone in the Protestant Cemetery, Alexandria, but their names appear in modest inscriptions on the side.
Glengarry News 25 Sept. 1914 (with portrait) (QF); the list of people attending the funeral offers interesting data on the business connections of the Munro & McIntosh firm * MacGillivray & Ross 469 (portraittrait) and Chapter XV * sources, as for entry for Hugh Munro * wife’s Christian name: spelling Lovena has been taken here from gravestone, but variant spellings have been found * John D. McIntosh on Board of Directors of Canadian branch, Alexandria, of Bond Hanger Co., GN 3 Dec. 1909 * builds garage for his car, GN 9 June 1911