John McKellar

John McKellar (June 10, 1833 – February 3, 1900) was a mining prospector, landowner and political figure in Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. He was the first mayor of the town of Fort William, Ontario (later part of Thunder Bay), serving from the town's incorporation in 1892 to 1898.

He was born in Mosa Township, London District, Upper Canada, the son of Duncan McKellar (1807-1875) and Margaret Brodie (1812-1890), both Gaelic-speaking immigrants from Scotland, and was schooled at home. The family moved to the mining district of Ontonagon County in 1855 but left Michigan in 1863 during the American Civil War to explore mining opportunities on the north shore of Lake Superior in the Province of Canada. Duncan McKellar and sons John, Peter and Donald laid claim to a number of mining properties; the profitable mines were generally sold to American interests.

Duncan McKellar and sons established a homestead as squatters on disputed land long claimed by the Hudson Bay Company. With the aid of their prominent kinsman, Reform politician Archibald McKellar, Duncan's eldest son John received a mineral patent in 1875 for 173 acres from the Ontario Department of Crown Lands on the Kaministiquia River which became the commercial centre of Fort William after the Canadian Pacific Railway located its new right-of-way and operations on land owned by the McKellar and McVicar families, and Hudson Bay Company in 1883-1884. The family owned all the land from Vickers Street to May Street and from Dease Street to Main. As a result, they were determined to make this land as valuable as possible. Politics was the best way to do so.