(fl. 19th, 20th c.), postal worker. (Peter Ferguson, P. A. Ferguson) Born in GC. He was reported in 1929 to be 75 years old, which is consistent with his own statement in June 1927 that he was 72. He is also said to have been employed in the Alexandria Post Office for a total of 43 years. The period of employment, however, was not continuous, since he left the Alexandria job at least once, in 1905 (Glengarry News 13 Oct. 1905) though he seems to have fairly soon returned. He was also at some time employed in postal work at Merrickville, Ont. For many years at Alexandria, he was the subordinate of the postmaster, the formidable Duncan A. Macdonald. Unofficially at least, Ferguson was sometimes referred to as deputy postmaster during this time. On the death of Macdonald, the postmastership of Alexandria remained vacant for a long time, with Ferguson holding the position of acting postmaster of Alexandria, 1921 to 1929. Ferguson submitted his resignation on 9 April 1929, but with the evident acceptance that he would continue to do the job for the time being, for he asked to be relieved “as soon as possible.” He returned to this wish on 12 Aug. 1929, asking this time to be relieved of office about 1 Sept. But in fact, it was not until 28 & 30 Sept. 1929, that the popular and highly competent young Émile Gravel (Rouge Gravel) from Ottawa replaced him as acting postmaster. In later years Gravel (warmly praised by Ostrom) was a district postal inspector, and he remained well and favourably known in Alexandria, which he frequently revisited as inspector.

     Meanwhile, disaster had struck Ferguson. Four Alexandria men were brought before the courts in the SDG county town of Cornwall accused of blackmailing Ferguson, these being Leonard Kemp, 19, Lawrence Proulx, 19, Kemp’s father Thomas, 45, and Osias Sauvé, a lawyer. Leonard was sentenced to six months determinate and six months indeterminate in the Ontario Reformatory on 8 Oct. 1929, while the charges against Proulx and the other Kemp were dismissed or withdrawn. On 12 March 1930, the charges against Sauvé were likewise dismissed. It is not clear how much money Ferguson had paid in “hush money,” as the phrase used at the time was. However, it was probably at least the $2400 estimated in the press. “The old postal employee paid the money, it is claimed, in order to protect his good name on the eve of his retirement on pension.” (Freeholder) What had Ferguson been doing? Evidently, he had been in some way groping the two younger men sexually when they were his subordinates as employees at the post office. Probably he did not go beyond adolescent horseplay, but then, the acting postmaster was not an adolescent. No criminal charges were brought against Ferguson for his conduct, whether any were applicable or not. He can hardly have been the only homosexual in Alexandria, but after the court proceedings his position in the town must have been intolerable. His place and date of death have not been discovered. Some years before, he had relatives in the United States. Possibly, then, that country (perhaps Wisconsin?) was his place of death. Ferguson, a bachelor, was living above the Alexandria post office at the time when the building was destroyed by fire in 1921, and at the time of the final court proceedings in Cornwall he was living at an Alexandria hotel.

     Meanwhile, through the long vacancy in the Alexandria postmastership, a lively struggle took place for the position of postmaster. Ferguson himself was one of the candidates, but seems not to have been taken very seriously as an applicant, perhaps because of his age or lack of good connections. A truly remarkable number of the prominent men of Alexandria applied for the job. Among them, John Angus McMillan, the ex-MLA and ex-MP, had a petition dated 14 Jan. 1922 compiled in Alexandria with many signatures (care was taken to get the signatures of the ex-servicemen among others) in support of his claim to become postmaster. However, he died at the end of that year, and was thus removed from the struggle. Only one woman’s name appeared among the applicants for the postmastership, and it seems to have been unclear whether she was applying on her own behalf or that of her husband. More seriously, the demand began to be heard that given the large number of French Canadians in Alexandria, a bilingual French Canadian should be the new postmaster. The St. Jean Baptiste Society of Glengarry and Alexandria presented requests to this effect in 1927 and 1928. The secretary and lawyer of the society and one of the transmitters of the requests was the same Osias Sauvé soon to be involved in the Ferguson disaster. What the relationship was exactly between the French Canadians’ request and the Ferguson disaster in now unclear. Perhaps they were merely two parallel events.

     In the event, the long vacancy in the postmastership ended when the bilingual Procule Poirier bcame postmaster on 5 Feb. 1930. Poirier seems to have been something of a dark horse among the candidates, in the sense that he was not one of the high profile applicants and perhaps entered the contest rather late. The long delay in filling the position can probably be attributed to, (1) official sloth, (2) the lack of any one candidate of undeniable priority in terms of experience and talent, or political pull, (3) the high importance of this job in an Alexandria which lacked good jobs, (4) the ethnic and language issue, which may even have been the least important. In the end, the public at least won out by getting a capable and hardworking postmaster, able and willing to serve the public interest. After all, it may be that in despair of any other solution, officialdom simply fell back on the expedient of appointing the best candidate.

     And yet, there had been ugly emotions aroused. Archibald J. Macdonald, the local MP, saw himself as having been in the midst of the storm. He wrote on 3 Feb. 1930, on the Poirier appointment that “I sincerely hope the new Postmaster will be blessed with good health and a long life so that both the [postal] Department and the sitting member will be saved a whole lot of unpleasantness.” Macdonald quoted himself in the same letter as having written to the postmaster general a few days earlier, saying “There is considerable racial feeling aroused by reason of the selection of the Commission, but I know of no valid reason that would warrant a rejection under the Act.”

NAC, Inspectors’ Reports and General File for Alexandria Post office, 1921-1935, RG 3, Series D-3, Vols. 3088 & 3089; the material on the struggle for the postmastership, the requests of the St. Jean Baptiste Society, and the letter of Macdonald the MP will all be found in this very rich unpaginated collection, along with much information on the life of Alexandria in these years; the sexual scandal itself is passed over with little fuss * NAC, RG 3 D 3 (post office history cards: Alexandria) * court proceedings: CF 11 Sept. & 9 Oct. 1929, 15 March 1930, Cornwall Standard 12 Sept. 1929 * Ostrom 187 * P. A. Ferguson among those attending comic opera, Glengarry News 4 Nov. 1898 * death of his brother Donald Ferguson in bridge building work, Chicago, GN 15 Oct. 1920