Francis Clergue

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Francis Hector Clergue (August 28, 1856 - January 19, 1939) was an American businessman who became the leading industrialist of Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario, at the turn of the 20th Century.

Born in Brewer, Maine, Clergue studied law at the University of Maine after which he was involved in a number of business ventures until coming to Ontario. Following the 1895 construction of a new canal and lock, he founded the still-existing pulp mill and paper mill plus Algoma Steel, as well as the Algoma Central Railway for which the city is most noted. By 1903, Clergue had overextended himself and the companies that he had founded continued under new management.

He spent his latter years in Montreal, Quebec, where he died.

Popular Canadian author Alan Sullivan's novel The Rapids (1920) is inspired by Clegue's life. In 1946, Sir James Dunn, the then owner of Algoma Steel, commissioned Sullivan to write Clergue's biography. Provisionally titled Before the Tide, it has never been published.