Cameron

(from Beers)

Donald Cameron was one year old, the youngest of the three children of George Cameron (1791–1869) and Isabella Ross (1799–1884), when the family emigrated to Hastings County, Canada from Scotland in 1832. The family grew by four more children in the ensuing years.

Donald remained on the home farm until he became a teacher. His first school was in Hay Bay, Lennox County, where his salary was $18 per month, plus board. Then he came to Middlesex County, where he served for two years. After a brief period in the United States, he returned to Canada and taught at a school in Strathroy.

After a brief spell in Frontenac County, Donald Cameron and his brother George entered into a general store business in Watford. Donald left the business in charge of his brother and went to seek gold in Montana in 1869, for three years.

Upon his return, he embarked in the milling business, purchasing the Rock Glen Flour Mill and putting up the first circular sawmill erected in Arkona. However, after two years, he sold his mills and moved to Petrolia, where he engaged in the business of producing crude oil. Donald Cameron remained there until his retirement in 1903.

Cameron married in 1860, and had a family of two daughters.

Donald Cameron served both the municipal council and the public school board at various times. He was a staunch believer in Canada for the Canadians, and favoured a tariff that would protect home industries. He was an imperialist who favoured preferential trade with Great Britain and various ports of the British Empire.

In addition to his business career, Donald Cameron was a writer of both prose and poetry. In the poem The Land We Live in he wrote:

We hail our fair Canadian home,
Its hills and dales and prairie;
Where sparkling streams bound and foam,
And hearts are true and cheery.

From Atlantic shore to the golden reef,
The star of Empire's shining,
And the Union Jack and Maple Leaf,
On every sea are twining.

Chapter 24 of 25 - Cameron

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