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Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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MCGRUAR, DANIEL (1815-1902)

MCGRUAR, DANIEL, tailor and customs officer; b. Inverness-shire, Scotland, 29 May 1815; m. 1837, Janet Irving; d. Newcastle, 2 Dec 1902.

Brought to the Miramichi by his family about 1823, Daniel McGruar apprenticed to a tailor and worked in that trade for many years. Soon after Confederation he received an appointment as a customs officer in Newcastle. He remained with the service until 1889, when he retired on a government pension of $372 annually. He then returned to tailoring.

McGruar had an active part to play in the Mechanics' Institute, the Masons, the Orange order, the temperance movement, and the Presbyterian Church. In 1850 he was a founder of the Newcastle Sons of Temperance, of which he and his sons were among the most stalwart supporters during the next fifty years. He was worshipful master of the Masons' Northumberland Lodge in 1864 and the first worshipful master of the "No Surrender" Lodge of Newcastle's Orange Society. He was much respected in the town for the values which he upheld, and because he was, in the words of the Union Advocate, "a fearless speaker in the cause of right and justice" who was possessed of a "strong intelligent mind."

McGruar's wife, Janet Irving, died while still in her thirties, leaving nine children. Five of the nine were still living at home unmarried in 1891. A son, Thomas McGruar, who died in 1896 at age fifty-two, was a clerk in Newcastle, who was also regarded as a model citizen.

Sources

[b] census [m] official records [d] Advocate 3 Dec 1902 / Advance 2 May 1889; Advocate 10 Dec 1902, 3 Mar 1937


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