Robert Perves McLennan (1861 – 1927)
Robert McLennan was born in Pictou, Nova Scotia the seventh of ten children born to James Purves and Eliza Anne Harrington McLennan. Robert apprenticed in the tinsmith trade and hardware business and opened a shop in Victoria in 1884 to make iron cornices and install tin roofing. Edward John McFeely joined the company as a partner in 1885 and they expanded to Vancouver in 1886. Over the years they added hardware and home furnishing lines and advertised as general roofers, plumbers, and gas fitters. In the early 1890s, the firm concentrated on wholesale and retail activities. In 1891, McLennan had thirteen people employed in Victoria and McFeely had seventeen people employed in Vancouver. During an economic slump in Victoria in 1893, they sold that business and McLennan and his family moved to Vancouver. McFeely was named president of the firm and McLennan became the vice-president when the business was incorporated in 1895.1)
In 1898, McLennan took merchandise to Dawson and he remained as a resident for five years. The business was successful despite losing a building worth $12k and stock valued as $6k in the 1899 fire. In 1899 and 1900, the firm had branches in Atlin and Bennett. In 1900, over 800 tons of merchandise worth $200k was shipped north costing $115k in freight charges. In Dawson, McLennan was the principle shareholder of the Ridge Cable Company with partner Hill M. Henning who managed the operation. [Cable system for moving freight from Bonanza Creek to the Hunker Summit?] McLennan was president of the Dawson City Water and Power Company. In 1902, McLennan and McFeely sold their Dawson retail hardware business to the Yukon Hardware Company, and McLennan concentrated on wholesale trade.2) He may have owned the sternwheeler Mona.( (W.D. McBride, “Saga of Famed Packets and other Steamboats of Mighty Yukon River.” Caribou & Northwest Digest, Spring 1949: 100.))
The firm of McLennan and McFeely held a mortgage on the steamers Mona and Glenora when they burned in July 1902. They had been warned by an anonymous letter that the vessels would be destroyed. The boats’ caretaker was taken into custody but in the end the owner, Joseph Genelle, was charged and sent to jail for ten years as he profited from the insurance. 3)
Before Dawson’s second municipal election, McLennan received a petition with several hundred signatures asking him to run for mayor.4) McLennan was elected as the second mayor of Dawson in 1903 and served one term but did not seek re-election. He left Dawson in early 1904 and the company continued operating without him. 5)
McLennan and McFeely purchased land on Cordova Street in Vancouver and in 1928, after the partners’ deaths, the firm became known as McLennan, McFeely and Prior Ltd. The building remained a landmark for Vancouver residents into the 1960s.6)