(3 March 1771-22 Oct. 1869), pioneer. (contemporary spelling John McLaren, but the later family spelling was MacLaurin; John “Craignavie” MacLaurin, John Craignavie) Born in the area of Killin, Breadalbane, Scotland. Parents: Peter MacLaren (or MacLaurin) and his wife Christian Campbell. John MacLaurin learned the stonemason’s trade as apprentice to a stonemason. He was married (1) in 1794 to Isabell Brown, who died in 1799 (one child), and (2) in 1803 to Janet McIntyre, who died in 1832. (seven children) In 1815, the 44-year old John MacLaurin with his wife (who was aged 38) and family emigrated to Canada on the Dorothy under the terms of the Bathurst Proclamation. They spent their first winter in Canada living with relatives at Martintown, then in the following spring took up their land at Breadalbane in northern GC. John MacLaurin settled on the South 1/2 of Lot 9 in the 8th Conc.of Lochiel Township (patent granted to him 16 June 1827), while his brother Alexander settled on the North 1/2 of this lot. Using his stonemason’s skills, John MacLaurin, who called his property Craignavie, built a stone house on it, completed in 1832 (which was the year his second wife died). The house, called Craignavie house or simply Craignavie, is a venerated landmark today, and one of the finest houses surviving from 19th-century GC.

     The last of the MacLaurins left Craignavie in 1932, though ownership of the property remained in the family till the 1970s. John MacLaurin died at Craignavie, aged 98. He was a Presbyterian, but his second wife was a Baptist. John MacLaurin attended the Presbyterian services at Kirk Hill and later the Baptist services at Breadalbane, but he did not himself become a Baptist church member. While still in Scotland he had become a member of the Masonic order. He could speak and read Gaelic. He was the father of the Rev. John MacLaurin and the grandfather of Colin A. MacLaurin. His great-granddaughter Sadie E. MacLaurin (1894-27 Feb. 1976), who was for many years a high school teacher in Ottawa, left a manuscript of “Old Stories and Recollections of My Youth” which contains many valuable recollections of the older rural Glengarry and of the “Craignavie” family, and of other matters of the wider world (she was a student at McMaster University at the time of the 1918 flu epidemic).

Donald A. MacLaurin, Some of the Craignavie MacLaurins (1990); has much well researched biog. material on this pioneer, with E. Bruce Jay’s artist’s sketch of Craignavie house * Dumbrille, U, Chapter 14 (with Stuart McCormick’s sketch of Craignavie house) * Glengarry News (n.d.) c. 1901-1902, article on John’s unmarried son Lawrence (portrait), one of the still surviving early settlers, with some description of the family * MacGillivray & Ross 35-38: 1815 emigration and the Dorothy * Sadie E. MacLaurin, “Old Stories and Recollections of My Youth,” Manor Chatter, Dec. 1991-Aug. 1992; copy in present author’s files of the 27-page typescript from which instalments were printed; Green 17-18