(died 8 Aug. 1844 aged 52), professional soldier. (Col. Carmichael) Born in Parish of Alvie, Invernessshire, Scotland. He entered the British Army 8 June 1809 as an ensign in the 59th Regiment. In the Pensinsular War, Carmichael was one of the officers present at a celebrated scene, the burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna, as commemorated in the poem by the Rev. Charles Wolfe. Carmichael was in charge of the army post at Coteau-du-Lac east of GC after the Rebellion of 1837-1838, and had strong connections with GC at this time. About the beginning of March 1839, Col. Carmichael was present with the officers of the 1st GC Regiment of militia at a “sumptous dinner” at Williamstown. (Montreal Transcript, 5 March 1839). This may have been the banquet at Fraserfield, of which John Fraser (1820-1899), who mentions Col. Carmichael as one the guests, has left a well known description in his Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches, though Fraser recorded the event as being in March 1840.

     Carmichael was responsible for getting the GC militia to build the cairn on the island at South Lancaster as a tribute to the commander-in-chief Sir John Colborne. The cairn remains today as one of GC’s most celebrated monuments. An acute, enquiring, and perhaps daring student of Scottish tradition–a tradition so forcefully brought to the public by the works of Sir Walter Scott–might usefully strive to work out precisely what place cairns were assumed at the time of the building of the Lancaster cairn to have had in the culture, history, ancient values, and lore, of the Highland Scots. Carmichael also sponsored the holding of the first Highland Games in GC. It is said that for long afterwards in GC Highland Games were known as Carmichael’s Games. In 1840, there were Highland athletic competitions on 26 June at Lancaster, “where “The weather was very fine, and the spectators very numerous, many of them dressed in full Highland costume,” the prizes being contributed by Col. Carmichael. The next year there were athletic exercises, evidently already remembered as something Col. Carmichael had revived, at Williamstown at the end of the summer, “in the presence of a large number of highly delighted spectators.” (Cornwall Observer, 28 May & 2 July 1840, 2 Sept. 1841) Col. By of the Rideau Canal is said to have completed the work on the cairn. Carmichael served in Asia as well as Europe and Canada. He died at Forres, Morayshire, Scotland, and is buried at Cromdale in Strathspey, Scotland. The year after his death the Glengarry St. Andrew’s Society placed a tablet to his memory in St. Andrew’s Church, Williamstown. For discussion of a GC poem on the cairn, see Dr D. D. Macdonald.

Centenary 1912 80-81 * Pringle 267-268 * Macdonell, Sketches 314-316 * Ross, Lancaster, 89-91 (includes description of and measurements of cairn) * Mary Masson, “The Cairn,” Women’s Canadian Historical Society of Ottawa, Transactions, 7(1917): 38-41 * Glengarry Life No. 31 (1992) on Carmichael and the cairn * Elinor Senior, “The Glengarry Highlanders and the Suppression of the Rebellions in Lower Canada 1837-38,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research (1978) * Senior, Cornwall, 144, 147 * article in Hometown supplement to Standard Freeholder 8 June 1996 on a South Lancaster house in which Carmichael is said to have lived (illust.) * controversy about proposals to move the cairn, Glengarry News Aug.-Oct. 2002; cf. earlier GN 3 Dec. 1997, 10 Nov. 1999