MacQueen, James Michael | Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada

MacQUEEN, James Michael (1859-1934) of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was originally from Edinburgh, Scotland and was educated at the Edinburgh School of Design and at the James Watt Institute (now Watt Heriot College). He was a pupil of the sculptor Alexander Rhind, then began a course in the study of architecture and engineering under James G. Fairweather, a local engineer in Edinburgh.
In 1883 he left Scotland and moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland where it was recorded that he was “…employed at the English Cathedral during the erection of that edifice”, a reference to the effort to complete the construction of the Anglican Cathedral, begun in 1846-49 and designed by George Gilbert Scott, and completed by his son George Gilbert Scott Jr. in 1881-83. While there, MacQueen exhibited his own architectural drawings in St. John’s in 1884 (Evening Telegram [St. John’s], 8 May 1884, 4). He left Newfoundland in late 1884 and returned to Edinburgh, and in 1885 he went to Bermuda “…to assist in the building of a large church edifice”, likely that for Holy Trinity Church at Hamilton, Bermuda, originally designed by William Hay of Edinburgh in 1848-49, and rebuilt by Hay & Henderson after a fire in 1884.
In April 1886 MacQueen moved to New York City, briefly working there before relocating to Harrisburg, Penn. where he remained for the duration of this career. In 1893 he submitted an ambitious Gothic Revival design for St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church at ST. JOHN’S, NFLD. (American Architect & Building News [New York], xli, 19 Aug. 1893, 119, descrip. & plate illus.). It appears that his proposal may have been part of a competition, but his scheme was passed over in favour of another design prepared by James Wills & Sons, which was later built in 1894-96. In Pennsylvania, MacQueen specialized in ecclesiastical design. His works there include Hummelstown Reformed Church, the Berean Baptist Church at Reading, Penn., and the Fourth Reformed Church in Harrisburg. MacQueen died in Harrisburg, Penn. on 31 January 1934 (death notice Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, 1 Feb. 1934, 29; obit American Architect [New York], cxliv, March 1934, 119; biog. Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, 1896, 412, 415; biog. H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 384-5).