(1845-18 Nov. 1906), singer. (D. A. McRae, Donald McRae) Born probably in GC, near the present-day village of Maxville. Parents: Alexander McRae (described by Charles Sinclair as a lumberman operating in Victoria County, and having seven sons) and his wife Catherine Munro. The historical record is not wholly satisfactory, but it seems probable that as a young man D. A. McRae taught singing in the (present-day) Maxville area in connection with local church congregations, especially the Presbyterian congregation of the Rev. Daniel Gordon (father of the Rev. C. W. Gordon, the clergyman and novelist who wrote under the pen name of Ralph Connor). More certainly, from an early age McRae acted at times as the precentor (leader of the singing) in the Presbyterian congregation. To improve his mastery of singing skills, he went with Charles Sinclair to Montreal, where they took lessons from a leading Montreal singing teacher whose name Sinclair gives as DeAngeles. They also had some contact with the distinguished F. H. Torrington of Toronto. McRae is said to have next trained at the New England Conservatory of Music, and then in Chicago, where D. L. Moody the evangelist is said to have expressed a wish to recruit him for his missionary team. About 1871, having responded to an advertisement, McRae became the precentor and leader of song at Knox Church, Toronto, remaining there for some 11 years. He afterwards held a similar position at Knox Church, Galt, Ontario. After leaving Galt, he toured Montreal and Eastern Ontario (including GC) with Charles Sinclair, singing in missionary services. He also took part, at some period of his life, in evangelistic tours of wider areas of Canada, and also in the United States. In 1906, the last year of his life, he spent a week or more in Avonmore, near GC, helping conduct the singing at special religious services which were being held. (Glengarry News 23 Feb. 1906) He was married to Mary Sinclair (1842-1889, the sister of Charles and Finlay Sinclair and daughter of Donald Sinclair. (seven children, all daughters) D. A. McRae died in Winnipeg, at the home of a son-in-law.
The Rev. C. W. Gordon, who conducted the funeral services, told a reporter of the Manitoba Free Press at this time that McRae was the original of the precentor who appears in The Man from Glengarry. All the same, the reader who consults the novel will find that the precentor so vividly described there (called Roderick McCuaig, or “Straight Rory”) is an older man who can hardly have been modelled on the youthful McRae. We are told, moreover, in the novel that Straight Rory “was especially opposed to the introduction of those ‘new-fangled ranting’ tunes which were being taught the young people by John ‘Alec’ Fraser in the weekly singing school in the Nineteenth, and which were sung at Mrs. Murray’s Sabbath evening Bible class in the Little Church.” This John ‘Alec’ Fraser, then, was perhaps the character Connor modelled on McRae. Either the reporter misunderstood what he was told, or Gordon himself was mistaken in his recollections of what he wrote. The Rev. Donald MacMillan, who has noticed the difficulty, identifies McRae as the John Alec Fraser of the novel, and calls him the “young precentor.”
Another MacRae of precentor connections, Farquhar J. MacRae, who died at Regina 20 Aug. 1939, aged 80, was a western settler who farmed west of Lumsden, Sask. His obituary, recalling his earlier life in the Maxville-St. Elmo area, states that “As precentor, he led the singing in the Gordon Church for some 30 years.” Farquhar J. MacRae’s wife, Maggie McEwen, was an aunt of Mrs J. G. Gardiner, the agriculture minister.
See the entry for Duncan McLaurin, also said to be the original of the aforementioned John ‘Alec’ Fraser.
“Prototype of the Precentor Is Dead: D. McRae, the Sweet Singer Referred to in the Man from Glengarry Passes Away,” Manitoba Free Press, 22 Nov. 1906, repr. in large part in Hugh P. MacMillan’s column Glengarry News 25 Feb. 1971 * typescript of the Manitoba Free Press article prepared with a few notes by Clark Barrett, & his letter of 25 Nov. 1972 to present author * Sinclair 3, 10-13, 15, 25-26 * Campbell (1983), 66 * MacMillan, Kirk, 383-384 * Ralph Connor, The Man from Glengarry: Chapter 9 (New Canadian Library edn. , 71-73, 80) * Farquhar J. MacRae: his obituary, GN 25 Aug. 1939; MacMillan, Kirk, 384; Campbell, Tannis, & Stewart, MacDougalls, 380, 383 (portrait) * New England Conservatory of Music: it has not been possible to verify his attendance from the institution’s records, but it appears that these are not complete for the period