Alexander Farlinger, a prominent business man of Morrisburg, comes from a United Empire Loyalist family, his grandfather, Nicholas Farlinger, leaving the Mohawk valley, New York, about the time of the American revolution, and settling at Cornwall, Ontario. His father, James Farlinger, a farmer, was living in Dundee, county of Huntington, Province of Quebec, when Alexander was born, June 1, 1824. He had three years’ public schooling, which he supplemented with private study, and acquired a good English education, farming until nineteen years of age. At that period he went to Montreal, and solicited the privilege of working in a warehouse for three months at $8 per month. He repeated the same offer at the same salary for the same parties the next year, and when paid off received $50 per month instead of $8. The third season he was paid $70 per month. He was then promoted and paid $1,000 for six months, the parties for whom he worked being McPherson, Crane and Co., and Hooker and Walton, joint owners of a mail line of steamers running between Kingston and Montreal.
In 1854 Mr. Farlinger started the forwarding and mercantile business at Prescott, investing there at the same time in real estate, and operating there for three or four years. On the first of June of that year he married Isabella F. Kyle, daughter of the late Capt. W. Kyle, of Morrisburg, and has since that date made this place his residence. He was engaged for several years in wharfage and farming, but still continuing the latter business, being also an extensive produce dealer. His leading business, however, is that of a landlord. Long ago he established a system of farm tenantry, granting leases running for a term of years. He has more than a hundred tenants, and so satisfactory to all parties has been the arrangement, that many of the tenants have occupied the farms from twenty to twenty-five years, and others, through Mrs. Farlinger, for more than thirty-five years. Besides his farms in Dundas, he has 8,000 acres in the counties of Russell and Prescott. The homestead farm of 280 acres, adjoining Morrisburg, he has had surveyed and laid out in town lots, with streets seventy feet wide, so great is his faith in the future expansion of the village. It is one of the handsomest and most thriving towns of the younger class on the Grand Trunk Railway. Mr. Farlinger has considerable property in different towns and villages, but prides himself on his farm lands. Farlington’s block is a fine brick structure erected in 1870, and adds to the beauty of the east end. of the main business street. One half of his block is occupied by a branch of the Molson bank, which came here through his influence.
When the “Trent affair” occurred in 1861, Mr. Farlinger raised a company of volunteers, and had command of it, but was not called into service. For awhile, many years ago, he had command of a steamboat, running on the St. Lawrence, and hence he has a double claim to the title of Captain, by which name he is known in this vicinity.
Capt. Farlinger is a Conservative in politics, and firm in his principles, but is not an office seeker, and has thus far in life managed to keep in private, and “preserve the even tenor of his way.” He is a member of the Presbyterian church, and active and generous in the support of religious exercises. He is also very kind to the needy, they having no warmer, more liberal friend in Morrisburg than the Captain and his estimable lady. They have nine children, and have lost five.