William Hilliard Munro (August 7, 1860 – January 17, 1918) was a Canadian politician who was the first mayor of the city of Sault Ste.
He was born August 7, 1860 in Appleton, Ontario (today, Mississippi Mills) the third son of John and Sarah Munro, Lanark County farmers.
For a time he was superintendent of Algoma Iron Works, a foundry and machine shop Clergue established to build equipment for his paper plant and other industries.
Munro flagged down a bus and asked to be taken to the river where a row boat was operating as a ferry over a break in the ice during the winter months.
News of the former mayor’s disappearance was carried through both countries and gripped readers of newspapers in Montreal,[9] Ottawa,[10] Lansing,[11] Battle Creek,[12] Brandon,[13] Kingston,[14] and Moncton.
More than a week after his disappearance, the Edmonton Journal reported that a $100 reward had been posted and that police in the city were looking for Munro, described as “six feet tall, large stature and erect, and wearing a blue suit with a hairline white stripe” covered by a long black chinchilla overcoat and a peaked sealskin cap with ear flaps.
[16] Another area newspaper wildly speculated that “the missing man may have lost his memory, wandered west and became ill from a nervous breakdown.”[17] Three months having passed, in May 1918 the city council declared Munro's ward two seat vacant[18] and elected a replacement to fulfill the remainder of his term.
The coroner, aided by Thomas Simpson, Munro's successor as mayor, and an undertaker himself, positively identified the partially decomposed body from his clothing and effects in his pockets.