Peter MacDougall (1774-1861)

He was born in Scotland and may have been a brother of Dugald MacDougall, a farmer and grazier in Dundarave on Loch Fyne whose brother 'Patrick' (1761-1851) - a school teacher at Stirling - was better known as 'Peter' to avoid him being mistaken for an Irishman. In 1798, at the late age of 24, he was commissioned as an Ensign into the 32nd Regiment of Foot. In 1812, he transferred to the 25th Foot and while still serving with that regiment was promoted to Major in 1826, age-52. He retired with his second wife to Chase Gate in Totnes and then Shaldon, both in her native county of Devon, before emigrating to Montreal in 1855 to join his eldest son, Lorn MacDougall, who had won success there as a stockbroker. He married his first wife, Eliza Julianna Sheridan, at Dublin in 1807. In 1835, the year after she died, he married Elizabeth, daughter of John Stancombe, Yeoman Farmer, of Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon. He had 16-children and died at Outremont where he had been an active member of the Montreal Hunt.