A bust in the front hall at John McGregor secondary school portrays him as a military man.

In my columns on the Kent Historical Society book Kentiana, I generally riff on the topics presented there, after summarizing the article itself. These riffs generally let me tell you more about the topic based on new information I have received.

This week, we zero in on the two John McGregors, one of whom was connected to early Wallaceburg. For Jim and I, this story has been personal and has created confusion for us.

For many years, we have played the characters of John and Martha McGregor at various local events. Even today, if people greet us as John and Martha, we answer in character.

When we started doing this in the late 1980s, we researched them to portray them accurately. What we found – mostly about John, not much about Martha (so what else is new?) – told us John was a merchant who bought the mill at the Forks (as Chatham was known unofficially in the early days) from Thomas Clark in 1801. Because of this, McGregor’s Creek was named after........

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