1979

Wellington Barrett | Charles Gauthier | "Big Rory" MacLennan | "Big Alex" MacDonald | Stanley MacDonald

Wellington "Wellie" Barrett

Wellington James Cameron Barrett was born June 10, 1892, to William Barrett and Isabella Cameron. Attending public school at Summerstown Station, his boyhood chums were quick to shorten his name to “Wellie”, a sobriquet that would endure for the rest of his life. A studious youngster, Wellie Barrett quickly waded through Williamstown High School to graduate at the age of 16. He was then off to Queen’s University in Kingston.

Although greatly interested in sports and his studies, his young age handicapped his ability to participate due to his lacking height and weight in high contact games like football and hockey. He settled instead for basketball. By graduation year, however, his situation was different. By now Wellie was a gangling, hefty Golden Gael athlete. He travelled west that summer to reap extra college money as well as wheat, and joined the Norquay ball team in the Saskatchewan basketball league.
Wellie Barrett then joined the high school staff of Wiarton, Ontario. Here he felt quite at home in the traditional counterpart of Glengarry, where there was a classy OHA hockey team in the Northern Division, the Wiarton Redmen. Wellie played defence and was a highly rated leader with the twice-district champions, whose exploits included defeating the Hamilton Tigers the year before their NHL entry.

Back in Williamstown as a valued member of the high school teaching staff, he became a major defence asset to the Williamstown hockey and lacrosse teams in the Roaring Twenties. This was the era of the Williamstown greats, with goaltender Tab Larocque (inducted 1980), fellow defenceman Clarence Cattanach (1984), Tupper McDonald (1983), John Raymond (1985), and the Sullivan brothers Ellis, John, Alex (1986) and Paddy (1981). One notable final series game between Williamstown and Cornwall resulted in Cattanach taking offence to the Cornwall rougness, sending everyone in the arena – players and spectators – into the brawl. Police were needed to restore order, and Williamstown won 4-1.

Wellie was also a renowned track and field athlete, taking three classic championship field days during the 1920s, with Tab Larocque in second. Other accomplishments of his include many years of curling and good fellowship at the Lancaster Curling Club, as well as introducing football to Williamstown High, and his 47 years at the school, including 34 as principal.

After retirement, Wellie Barrett continued living in his village home until his death in 1983.

Charles Gauthier

Father Gauthier’s career as a great athlete, sportsman and dedicated exemplary disciple of Christ began on August 21, 1886. Born a son to Mr. and Mrs. J.N. “Nappie” Gauthier, of the Fourth of Kenyon, he was baptized eight days later at St. Finnan’s as Charles Francis Gauthier. He walked the old Military Road to Alexander separate school then Alexandria High School. Legend goes that his elders detected signs that he would both excel in athletics and follow in the footsteps of his uncle, Charles Hugh Gauthier, archbishop of Kingston and later Ottawa.

By no means a scholar, he worked studiously in school to overcome the hurdles of exams. Though at the time struck by a slight speech impediment, this minor flaw was corrected by his maternal grandmother, who also taught him some Gaelic to complement the French of his father, making him “slightly trilingual”, as he claimed.
By the time he graduated from high school and was off to Ottawa College, Charlie Gauthier was a budding star on and off the soccer and lacrosse fields. He organized a better-than-average soccer team consisting of four sets of neighbourhood brothers. In college, he made a creditable showing playing football. However, it was lacrosse that was Charlie Gauthier’s greatest forte. In 1909, he played with Alexandria in the highly rated Ottawa-Montreal Intermediate League. His rivals rated him as one of Canada’s all-time lacrosse greats, and the team were Lower Ottawa Valley Champions. In 1913, Charlie was expecting to take up the priestly soutane in December, and so it was preferred he forego the game he loved. However, nothing hindered from coaching the Alexandria team. He led them to become Lower Ottawa Valley Champions, and only a lack of funds prevented them from playing the Ontario championship against Brampton. This 1913 team was later inducted in 1989.

Following his ordination just before Christmas 1913, the now Father Gauthier spent the war years providing counsel and leadership to the disrupted community. After the war, he was appointed pastor of St. Finnan’s parish, bubbling with enthusiasm to assist in the reconstruction of his boyhood bailiwick’s sport realm. He was no stranger to the lacrosse field, often showing the way to a new generation of players. Father Gauthier was then transferred to Greenfield, where he contributed to the founding of the Glengarry Soccer League, and inspired the hamlet to enter a team that became an immediate championship contender.

Father Gauthier then moved on to Apple Hill where he was instrumental in founding minor hockey, representing Glengarry on the ODHA executive alongside Doc Gamble. Finally the beloved patriarch was appointed to Lochiel parish. There he arranged for the church’s unused grounds to be leased as a soccer field. On opening night, with the new lights being disconnected by lack of inspection, Father Gauthier simply directed an extension from the church power box to the nearest pole, and the play was begun under lights. Fittingly, the field was named the Father Gauthier Recreational Memorial Centre.

After all those years of parochial church work, Father Gauthier celebrated his Diamond Jubilee of the priesthood. Despite confinement to a wheel chair, once more the venerable Parish Priest of Glengarry sparked sufficient strength to attend mass and accept congratulations from his Bishop and legions of friends. Thereafter the once indomitable light of his distinguished career began to fade and finally went out on May 30, 1976.

Roderick R. "Big Rory" MacLennan

January 1st, 1842 exceeded by a country mile all other New Year’s days in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Roderick MacLennan at their pioneer Glen Donald farm home in Charlottenburgh Township, about six miles west of Williamstown. That was the day Mrs. MacLennan gave birth to a son who was christened Roderick, obviously after his father.

Descended from Farquhar MacLennan of Kintail, Scotland, and Angus Bahn MacDonald of Stoel, Rory inherited the physical stature of his ancestors, measuring 6’6” and weighing 250lbs in adulthood. This gigantic stature motivated his famous lifelong tag – “Big Rory”.
To counterbalance his imposing physical statue, Big Rory acquired no advanced education but that of the self-made man. His lack of a degree did not prevent him from scaling the heights as a successful contractor, banker, army officer, newspaper publisher, community leader, and of course, athlete.

During his early years, Big Rory found time to apply his uncanny strength and physique in developing the art of throwing weights, particularly the hammer. A Scottish tradition practiced by the farm boys in the evenings for entertainment, the highland heavyweights were popular in the area picnics where the young giant’s prowess became known and demanded. Soon knowledge of his abilities trickled to Cornwall, where track and field sponsors invited him to participate in the 1860 Victoria Day competitions. There he promptly set a new record with a throw of 216’ with the 10lb hammer, launching his athletic career.

Over the next five years Big Rory continued to smash records, and his name became known across the country. In 1865, sponsors from Toronto invited Rory to a world championship, pitting him against Scottish world champion Thomas Jermay. With a throw, Big Rory was now champion of the world.

Big Rory defended his title multiple times throughout the years, including twice in 1870 at the Caledonia Games in Toronto.

Sadly, Big Rory’s throwing career ended with tragedy. In 1877, after a five-year absence from the pitch, the giant was drawn out of retirement for a Cornwall field day. Despite insisting he only throw with the condition the crowd be sufficiently cordoned off from any danger, as he made his throw the young Ellen Kavanagh detached herself from the crowd and ran into the hammer’s trajectory. Deeply overcome by the girl’s death, Big Rory never lifted the hammer again.

This was not, however, the end of Big Rory’s story. The giant found work primarily with the rampant railway construction of the era, and scaled the chain of direction until he himself became a railway contractor. Successful contracts with the Canadian Pacific in Ontario and the Maritimes made Big Rory a wealthy man. In 1885 he took up residency in Alexandria and there founded a private bank that would later be sold to the Union Bank. He also purchased the Glengarry Review and the Cornwall Standard (precursor to the Standard-Freeholder). He became a Lieutenant-Colonel with the 59th Regiment, and from 1891 to 1900 served as Glengarry’s Conservative Member of Parliament in Ottawa.

After moving to Cornwall in 1900, Roderick R. “Big Rory” MacLennan passed away on March 8th, 1907. He was interred in Williamstown cemetery.

Alexander John "Big Alex McIsaac" MacDonald

Alexander John MacDonald was born on December 16th, 1865, in the pioneer home of John MacDonald on Lot 29 in the Second of Kenyon, not far from the growing community of Loch Garry and Apple Hill. The youth’s unusually large stature, at 6’6” and near 250lbs, soon brought upon him the moniker of “Big Alex”. By the time he was 20, this young lad from Loch Garry had earned a reputation at throwing the weights and tossing the caber at area field days and picnics.

By 1885, Big Rory MacLennan, having settled in Alexandria and founded a bank there, was drawn to the tales of prowess from the young Loch Garry native. He brought Big Alex to Alexandria, providing him lodging and teaching the basics of tossing the caber and throwing the weights each day after work.
Big Alex continued on working in construction and serving with the 59th Regiment. When World War One broke out, the 154th Battalion succeeded the 59th, but Big Alex was unable to join the Glengarry Company due to his age. His knowledge of construction work and timber processing, however, made him invaluable to the Forestry Corps and the 224th Battalion, who gladly accepted him.

Following preliminary training, the troops were stationed on the Isle of Skye. Big Alex soon endeared himself to the local MacLeods and other clansmen. His Scottish brethren became amazed at his ability to in throwing the weights and the caber as he practiced his skill when time was available in camp.

After the armistice in 1918, steps were taken to compensate for the cancellation of the 1916 Olympics. In 1919, a Highland Games meet was organized at Star Cross, Devon, along the Olympic pattern. Big Alex’s greatest day of glory came in the caber tossing competition, where he defeated Scotland’s champion before the Royal Family. Her majesty Queen Mary, wife of George V, was so impressed with his display of graceful skill and strength that she presented him with a solid gold wrist watch.

Upon his return to Glengarry Big Alex was greeted with a grand reception from the citizens of Apple Hill. In retirement, Big Alex would himself teach others in the art of the caber, among them a young Lloyd Kennedy (inductee 1990), who would reign champion at the Glengarry Highland Games for many years and then himself teach a younger generation to toss. Big Alex died in 1951.

Stanley George McDonald

Born August 11, 1894, to William McDonald and Sarah Dixon on their pioneer home in the Indian Lands near Dominionville, Stanley George McDonald was immediately noted for his tendency towards precision and accuracy. At the age of 12, Stanley and his brother Alex became deeply interested in the mechanics of a new type of threshing machine, and with exact measurements drafted a mini thresher pattern such as would be expected from an expert. In the carriage shed of his father’s farm, this toy thresher was wrought with such exactitude that a dozen or so oats could be fed gently into the cylinder and the oats would be separated and the straw drop out the end just like a real threshing machine in operation. This was the beginning of an interesting and productive life story for Stanley G. McDonald.
Like the many Glengarry farm boys unable to continue their education, Stanley left home to seek employment. Diverging from the tradition of trekking to the mining boom in Northern Ontario, his ambition was instead to develop his knowledge of motors as more automobiles were introduced in the years preceding World War One. His reputation as a budding mechanical genius at Ottawa’s Ketchum Garage didn’t take long to become known. Thomas Ahearn, a capital financial tycoon and sportsman, was the distinguished owner of a Packard twin six, and setting inter-city travel time records was a sport challenge. In Tom Ahearn’s opinion to compete in this new phase of sport the driver of his car had to be Stanley McDonald. He was right.

Stanley and the Ahearn car won several championship races against time that included the Ottawa-Montreal via Point Fortune ferry and the Prescott Wharf to the Capital. Their crowning and most prestigious victory that drew acclaim from both Canada and U.S. sport writers was Stanley’s record-lowering run from New York City to Ottawa. The distance was 460 miles and with two passengers Stanley whipped the twin six along in the remarkable time of 13 hours and 20 minutes.

Now a pedigree sportsman classed as a champion driver, Stanley McDonald left the dusty roads for the rifle ranges for relaxation and diversion from mechanical work. In 1931 he was among the founders of the Ottawa Pistol and Revolver Club. From 1934-36 he won top honours in the service revolver shoots, his 1936 gold medal also carrying a new record score. In the rifle shooting class Stanley won three golds for perfect scores of 300 in each match. Thus it is little wonder that he copped a trap shooting medal at a Maxville sportsman meet and his share of turkeys in the Glengarry gravel pit ranges.

A fire was the ironic twist that brought Stan and Alex working under the same roof again. After the Plaunt Sports Store fire, the Johnson Outboard Motor Company removed their motors from the fire debris to Alex McDonald’s Albert Street garage where salvage work got underway and Stanley was the mechanic. The work took four months, by which time the “bug” of outboard motors had struck Stanley who bid farewell to car motors. In 1945, “Stan’s Outboard Motors” opened on Scott Street in Ottawa, where it experienced immense popularity. The tuning and testing of hydro motors led Stan to regatta racing, where he copied a page from his auto driving record to once again surmount the championships. He became champion driver in three class C categories (service runabout, service hydro, and hydro). Claiming top billing in a Lakeland, Florida regatta, he set a world record in Class C service runabout for five miles at 41.814mph, which still stands.

After having climbed these lofty international heights, Stanley continued spending his time making McDonald motors in his Peter Street home shop, which continue to win awards. Never resting on his laurels, in his 80th year he enrolled in night classes at St. Lawrence College to absorb more knowledge in the operation of shop machines. He continued living in his Peter Street home in Maxville, until his death in 1993, at the age of 99.