The Haggarts

Photo by Alan L Brown - June 25, 2004

Plaque Location

The County of Lanark
The Town of Perth
At the south end of Mill Street, south of Gore Street East

Plaque Text

John Haggart, a Scottish stone mason, came to Canada in the 1820s and worked on the Welland and Rideau Canals. In 1832 he purchased this property which included the Perth settlements first mill and established a milling complex. He built this house in 1837, an early hip-roofed Regency design in stone. In 1854 the property passed to his son John Graham Haggart. A vigorous politician, the younger Haggart was mayor of Perth before serving some forty years as Member of Parliament for South Lanark. He was Postmaster-General, 1888-92, Minister of Railways and Canals, 1892-96, leader of the Ontario Conservatives in the House, and a top contender for the party leadership in 1895. He died in Ottawa in 1913.