(1825-21 Nov. 1899), businessman. Born in GC. Parents: John (Squire) McLennan, a native of Scotland, and his first wife Margaret Mackenzie, who was of U E Loyalist descent. Hugh McLennan received basic schooling in GC, then at the age of 17 began to work as a purser on steamers operating between Montreal and Kingston. In 1853 he and his brother John McLennan, who was later MP for GC, founded the grain and shipping company J. and H. McLennan, later known as the Montreal Transportation Company. Hugh was president of the company up to the time of his death. He was also president of the Montreal Elevator Company, described in the Morgan biog. dict. of 1898 as “for long and still the only organization for the transference of grain from the lake and river to the ocean craft in the port of Montreal.” A wealthy and influential businessman, he was active as president or director or in other roles in a number of prominent Canadian businesses. Elected first in 1872, he was was president of the Montreal Board of Trade for four years . (His brother John also held this presidency). He died in Montreal. Presbyterian.

     Interested in educational causes, he was one of the governors of McGill University. The Hugh McLennan Travelling Libraries were established in his memory in 1901 by his family. Headquartered at first at McGill, their management was moved in 1940 to the Macdonald College campus at Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue. The McLennan wing of the Redpath Library at McGill was endowed in the early 1960s from the estate of his daughter, Miss Isabella Christina McLennan, who died in April 1960. The Hugh McLennan Memorial Scholarship at McGill commemorates his grandson of that name (son of Senator John Stewart McLennan), killed at the Battle of Ypres in 1915.

     Hugh McLennan was married to Isabella Stewart, who was the daughter of Neil Stewart of GC and Vankleek Hill. (thirteen or fourteen children) He was the half-brother of Alexander (Squire) McLennan and was the full brother of John McLennan the MP. His son William McLennan, the author, is separately noticed in this dictionary. Another son, Senator John Stewart McLennan (1853-1939), was a highly successful businessman and the author of a history of Louisbourg, and was apparently the author of the privately-published life of his father, Hugh McLennan 1825-1899 (1936). Another son, Col. Bartlett McLennan (1868-1918), a well known Montreal sportsman and businessman, and president like his father of the Montreal Transportation Company, was killed in World War I.

His life by Allan Levine, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol. XII * Cornwall Freeholder 24 Nov. 1899 * Dumbrille, B, 32-43 * Morgan (1898) 750 * Hugh McLennan 1825-1899 (1936): see note above * Senator John Stewart McLennan: MDict, Johnson (1968), Who’s Who and Why [Canada] 1921 (has portrait) * Bartlett McLennan: Morgan (1912) 782, 1211; Who Was Who [U.K.], 1916-1928 p. 681; Who’s Who and Why [Canada] 1921 p. 1156; Dumbrille, B, 42-43 * Campbell, Tannis, & Stewart, MacDougalls, 179-185 * Reid 205 * Fraser (1959) 244 * private information