(1826 or 1828-22 Oct. 1899), author. (Margaret Dixon MacDougall, Mrs A. MacDougall, Mrs Alexander MacDougall; used pen names “Nora,” “Norah,” “Nora Pembroke”; reasonably well known in her time simply as Nora, under either spelling) Born in Belfast, Ireland. Parents:—Dixon, who died when Margaret was a small child, and his wife Eleanor West. Mrs Dixon remarried, to Thomas Carey, and had children by her new husband. About 1844 the family emigrated to Canada. By 1851, they were living at Breadalbane, in northeastern GC. Margaret’s half brother, the Rev. George M. W. Carey (b. Belfast 10 March 1829; d. Ottawa 16 May 1899), attended grammar school at Vankleek Hill, which is near Breadalbane. A printed genealogy of the family of Archibald McNab (1826-1904), who was the MP for GC in the 1870s, recalls that his sisters “got what education was possible, even having at one time as governess a Mrs. Macdougall, who under the nom de plume of ‘Norah’ wrote later The Days of a Life, an interesting story of the time of the land troubles in Ireland.” The home of the McNabs was at Breadalbane. Since Mrs MacDougall is described as the governess rather than merely a teacher, we may assume she lived in the McNab home. The date is most likely to have been between the Careys’ arrival in the GC area and young Margaret’s marriage on 23 Jan. 1852 to Alexander MacDougall, a lumberman and farmer, who, despite his name and occupation, was not, so far as is known, at any time a Glengarrian.

     Alexander MacDougall’s family had emigrated from Perthshire, Scotland, in 1832 to Russell County, Ont. Margaret and her husband lived in the early years of their marriage in Clarence Township, Russell County. This place is not far from northwestern GC, but if Margaret established any contacts with that part of GC, no record of them is now known. In fact, all of Mrs MacDougall’s known GC-area contacts belong to northeastern GC and its neighbouring town of Vankleek Hill. Later, Alexander and his wife followed the lumber trade to Renfrew County, where they lived in Pembroke and Margaret kept a school, and to Michigan. He died at Oscoda, Mich., in 1877 or 1887, but in any case aged 61.

     After her husband had died and her children reached adulthood, she “tendered her services to the Baptist Home Missionary Society, and for ten years was an active worker in that cause,” and built a Baptist church at West Bay City, Michigan, and “conducted services for several years” in it. Just at the end of her life, she had agreed to “conduct services” in a Presbyterian church at Montesano, Washington state, until a regular pastor could be obtained. It is not clear whether she ceased to be a Baptist in her later years, or whether she saw no difficulty in loyalty to both denominations. It was while attending a Presbyterian church service in Seattle that she was struck with the illness from which she soon after died. At Breadalbane, of course, the Careys lived in a Baptist neighbourhood. Later, she was a charter member of a Baptist church founded at Pembroke in 1873. Her half-brother the Rev. G. W. Carey, who predeceased her by some months, was an eminent Baptist clergyman. He served as a pastor at St. Catharines, Brantford and Ottawa, in Liverpool, Eng., and twice at Saint John, N. B.

     At some stage, she is said to have lived in White River, Ont. When a widow, she lived in Bay City, Mich. Towards the end of her life, she moved to Montesano, Wash., about 80 miles from Seattle. She died when on a visit to Seattle. In moving to Washington state, where she had relatives, she continues a theme of her North American life, so far as her places of residence are known, namely that of living in places where the lumber industry was important. However, research remains to be done to provide a complete list of where Margaret MacDougall lived, before and after she became a widow.

     She was a prolific author, publishing both in journals and books. In 1882, the Montreal Witness sent her to Ireland to report on the virtual guerrilla war which had arisen there over the land question. Her articles were reprinted in book form, The Letters of ‘Norah’ on Her Tour through Ireland: Being a Series of Letters to the Montreal ‘Witness’ as Special Correspondent to Ireland (Montreal, 1882). Later, the Montreal Witness sent her to the U.S. South to report on the status of the ex-slaves. Regrettably, this time the articles were not reprinted as a book.

     She was almost certainly the author of the eloquent 16-page prose life (“By Mrs. A. MacDougall”) of Donald Cattanach of Laggan, GC, published in 1884. The poem in memory of Cattanach (which, so far as is indicated, is by the same author as the biography itself) at the end of the volume is a masterpiece in the difficult genre of funeral tributes: not unmoving in its thoughts, glorious in its language.

     Her verse tribute to Norman Dewar, of GC, who died in 1879 during an epidemic in Memphis, Tenn., is one of the best 19th-century poems on a Glengarry theme.

     She was almost certainly the author of a fine, lively anonymous poem, “Vankleek Hill,” which resurfaced in the Vankleek Hill Review a few years ago. The poem is somewhat sentimental but is of the highest technical proficiency in rhyme and metre and distinguished in its sharp, precise use of words.

     She was a friend of Lt. Col. Thomas Higginson of Vankleek Hill, who died aged 90 on 22 Jan. 1884. One of his last poems was called “Lines to Mrs. Margaret Dixon McDougall.” On his death she hailed his memory in a 65-line poem called “Another Pioneer Gone.” In one of his poems he mentions “printer Dixon,” which may be a reference to some member of Mrs MacDougall’s family.

     This most remarkable woman was eminent enough to get an entry in the Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography but she is not in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. She wrote Verses and Rhymes by the Way (Pembroke, Ont., 1880), which has a photograph of her as frontispiece and includes the Norman Dewar poem. Her numerous writings included also works of fiction called The Lady of the Beacon of Araheera (Quebec, 1857) and The Days of a Life (Almonte, Ont., 1883).

Weekly Vidette (Montesano), 27 Oct. 1899) (QF), with line portrait, Witness 31 Oct. 1899 *Jean S. McGill, Ottawa Branch News (Ottawa Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society, Sept.-Oct. 1999, Jan.-Feb. 2000: valuable biog. detail, with line portrait * Bay City directory, 1887-88, 1891, 1893-94 * collections of Ottawa Valley Historical Society * assistance generously supplied by Mrs Mary A. Croft, Pembroke, Ont. * MDict 504 * McNab genealology in 12-pp. photocopy with no title page but with p. 1 headed “The McNabs,” given to present author in 1970s by Elizabeth Blair * Rev. George M. W. Carey: Morgan (1898) 155; MacMillan, Kirk, 266; obituaries The Baptist Year Book for Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and the North-West Territories 1897-1900 pp. 26-27, Baptist Year Book of the Maritime Provinces of Canada 1896-1900 pp. 112-112A; E. M. Saunders, History of the Baptists of the Maritime Provinces (1902), full page portrait; his life dates given as 1830-6 May 1899 in General Catalogue of the University of Rochester 1850-1928 p. 1856 * Diaries of Thomas Tweed Higginson, ed. Thomas Boyd Higginson (1960) 64, 91 * Thomas Boyd Higginson’s Descendants of the Reverend Thomas Higginson (1958), Sinclair-Higginson (1968) and Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Higginson and Some of His Descendants (1981). The poem “Another Pioneer Gone” is printed in the 1st and 3rd of these. * Watters: index * Bibliography of Glengarry: index * poem “Vankleek Hilll”: printed VKHR 30 July 2003; Royce MacGillivray argued for her being the author, VKHR 3 Sept. 2003