(25 May 1887-16 July1966), manufacturer. (Donald S. Ferguson, Dan Ferguson, Dan S. Ferguson) Parents: James Ferguson and his wife Catherine Sinclair. Dan Ferguson operated as a well driller in the Ormstown and Huntingdon area of Quebec in his earlier years. Afterwards he worked with his father in the manufacture of threshing machines at Maxville, and he continued the Ferguson Thresher Company after his father’s death in 1933. In the Depression years when sales were poor a part of the factory was converted into Ferguson’s Hall, opened officially in 1934. By 1935 the company had 16 of its machines on Canadian experimental farms. (Glengarry News 6 Sept. 1935) In 1938 the GN reported that “the plant’s output of twenty-two big machines” had been sold out at an early date and that Dan Ferguson was planning a larger output for 1939. (GN 26 Aug. 1938) For a few years beginning in 1949 rubber-tired farm wagons were also manufactured. With the growth in use of combines the manufacture of threshing machines by the company ceased in 1954.The Ferguson Thresher Company made large machines but it was always a small operation in other senses. During the 1920s and 1930s it supported a workforce of about six. With increased demand in the 1940s, the workforce was about 10. The threshers were built outdoors and there were fewer employees during the winter months. Donald S. Ferguson was married on 11 Oct. 1921 to Mabel MacRae of Stewart’s Glen, the sister of Norman Alexander MacRae the scientist. Dan Ferguson died at the Cornwall General Hospital .(three children)

Glengarry News 28 July 1966 * Maxville (1991) 305, 312, 553-555 * notice of the company and picture of Dan Ferguson carrying his father’s working model of a threshing machine, Ottawa Evening Citizen 11 July 1952, No. 4 in Fred Inglis’ articles on Maxville in his Valley Towns series * GN 27 April 1934, report on conversion of part of plant to hall * GN 12 April 1962, current use of Ferguson plant building, Maxville * death 16 Feb. 2001 of his son James Rae Ferguson (Rae Ferguson) , who also worked for the family company: GN 21 Feb. (two notices), 7 March & 11 April 2001 * private information