(24 May 1824-27 June 1911), clergyman. Born at Breadalbane, GC. Parents: the Rev. William McKillican and his wife Christian or Christina McNaughtan. He was a student at the Congregational College, Toronto, 1847 to 1851. On 17 Dec. 1851, he was ordained to succeed his deceased father in charge of the latter’s GC congregations. Later, he was a Congregationalist minister at Danville, Que. In May 1860, he became the secretary and travelling agent of the Canada Sunday School Union. From this time, he and his family lived in Montreal. It was said that from the time of his appointment, he “travelled over the length and breadth of Canada, more especially Eastern Ontario and the Province of Quebec, organizing Sunday-schools among destitute and neglected communities. He has never attempted to make more prominent his work by holding meetings in districts already organized, but rather, wherever a settlement was found without preacher or teacher, he has sought to break the bread of life.” He retired about 1891. By this time, he is said to have organized more than a thousand Sunday schools. In 1894 he was described as “so well known in connection with the Canada Sunday-School Union.”

     A strong, vigorous temperance worker, he served on the executive of the Dominion Alliance, the temperance organization. In his obituaries he was praised for his remarkable memory for names and faces. He died at his home in Montreal. (four children) He was married on 19 Oct. 1854 to Miranda Louisa Parker (1833-3 May 1920). This couple is buried in Mount Royal Cemetery, Montreal. He appears, briefly but vividly, as a child in the book about his brother Daniel, A Forest Flower, with a note that he is now a clergyman.

     See the entry for C. G. McKillican, this dictionary, for other family relationships.

Glengarry News 30 June 1911 GN 51 * obituary in Congregational Year Book (ND) repr. Manor Chatter April 2005 * Mackilligin 53-70 * MacMillan, Kirk: index (with portrait) * biog. article on him (with line portrait), undated clipping, probably Witness, perhaps at time of his retirement (QF) * Witness 4 Sept. 1894 (with same line portrait as in undated clipping item of preceding ref.) * difference of sp above between his second name and his mother’s surname is from the sources used