(9 Sept. 1845-1 Feb. 1914), contractor. (evidently known to his friends and family as D.W. rather than by his full name) (date of birth 1843 also found; inconsistently with these dates, obit. says aged 78 at death) Perhaps not a Glengarrian by birth. Parents: William Grant and his wife Catherine McDonald. William Grant, a Glengarrian, the father of the subject of the present article, settled on Wolfe Island, near Kingston, and lived later in Ohio. D.W. Grant went to Ohio with his parents when he was 15 and went to Faribault, Minnesota, in 1865. D.W. Grant was involved in contracting with his first cousin Donald Grant of Faribault. By this relationship he was, of course, a first cousin also of John Grant the contractor. D.W. Grant was married on 20 Nov. 1890, at Faribault, to Margaret Parker. (four children) Presumably D.W. Grant was not a contractor himself on a large scale, though John Grant notes that D. W. Grant was associated with some of Donald Grant’s larger contracts. In the story of the great 19th-century Glengarry-born contractors, D.W. Grant probably must be regarded as a fringe figure. Curtiss-Wedge reported in 1910 that Grant owned “10,000 acres of wild land in the United States and Canada,” and that “In times past he has owned over 50,000 acres of land, and has assisted in the development of a considerable portion of it.” Curtiss-Wedge also lists him as the president (1910) of Faribault Co-Operative Creamery Company and as an Investor in bank stock.

     One of D. W. Grant’s brothers, Alexander Grant, (d. 10 June 1901, aged 66), was lost to sight by the family for some 27 years, and was believed by them to have perished in the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857. Almost by chance, however, a brother met him in British Columbia in 1883, and afterwards Alexander rejoined the other Grants in Faribault.

Faribault Republican, 4 Feb. 1914 * Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge, History of Rice and Steele Counties Minnesota (1910), I, 385, 391, 748, and biographical sketch, II, 1317-1318 * refs. in his cousin John Grant’s autobiography and in the 20 file cards of the Rice County Historical Society on his cousin Donald Grant of Faribault (see notes for the lives of these two men) *Alexander Grant: Faribault Republican, 12 Dec. 1883, 12 June 1901