(23 Feb. 1762-19 June 1832), emigration leader, businessman. (Archibald “Murlaggan” McMillan, Archibald McMillan of Murlaggan, himself often called simply “Murlaggan”) Born on Murlaggan farm, Lochaber, Scotland. Parents: Alexander McMillan and his wife Margaret Cameron. Archibald McMillan as a young man lived in London employed in clerical and business work relating to the East India trade, before returning to the Highlands, where he succeeded his father as tacksman of Murlaggan and head of the McMillans of Loch Arkaig. In 1802, as organizer and leader, he brought with him to Canada a group of some 450 Scottish emigrants: MacMillans, MacDonells, Kennedys, Camerons and others. They travelled in three ships, called Friends, Helen and Jane, from Fort William to Montreal, in a journey lasting from July to September. Stuart McCormick’s oil painting of the three ships entering Montreal harbour is reproduced in colour on the cover of the Lochaber Emigrants book of 1994. This emigration is often known simply as the McMillan Emigration or the Lochaber Emigration.

     Many of these emigrants settled in GC and in Finch Township of Stormont County. McMillan struggled for many years to establish a colony of these and other Highland settlers in Lochaber, Grenville and Templeton Twps (all in the County of Argenteuil) on the Ottawa River in Quebec. Some (if not many) of the 1802 emigrants did indeed settle on these Quebec lands, though in the long run McMillan was more important as one of the builders of the “Greater Glengarry,” in the term used to designate the area of Highland settlement not only in but immediately adjacent to GC. McMillan himself, however, did not live in GC. From a short time after his arrival in Canada, McMillan was active as a merchant in Montreal, with a trade that extended into Britain and the West Indies. In 1810 he moved to Grenville, where he occupied himself extensively in the lumber trade, being forced out of it finally in 1827 by economic reverses. He also operated a general store and was postmaster of Grenville, and a JP. During the War of 1812, as a major in the Argenteuil militia, he participated in raids into New York State. He moved to Montreal in 1828, and died there of cholera. He is buried in Montreal. Presbyterian. He was married in 1793 to Isabella Gray. (thirteen children) Their daughter Margaret married William Hamilton of the well known Hawkesbury lumber mill family.

     Among the leaders of immigration to GC, Archibald McMillan is, if we except from consideration Bishop Macdonell whose role at the utmost was only very limited, the one whose life is known in the most detail. There is a long, valuable, and remarkable entry for Archibald McMillan in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. He was a first cousin of the brothers Alexander and Allan McMillan, the latter of which accompanied him on the 1802 emigration voyage to Canada.

Life by James H. Lambert & David S. Macmillan, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol. VI * McLean: index * Fleming * Somerled MacMillan, The Emigration of Lochaber MacMillans to Canada in 1802 (1958) * Somerled MacMillan, Bygone Lochaber Historical and Traditional (1971) * Thomas 367-374 * MacGillivray & Ross 12-13, 681 * Whyte, i, 126, 298