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| ====== McDonald, John, of Garth ====== | ====== McDonald, John, of Garth ====== |
| (c. 1771-25 Jan. 1866), fur trader. (known as John McDonald of Garth. Also, among the fur traders he was called Le Bras Croche, from a withered arm.) Born at Garth, a property of his family near Callendar, Perthshire, Scotland. to John McDonald, a captain in the 84th Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment, and his wife Magdeleine Small. John, the subject of the present article, was a fur trader with the North West Company from 1791 (partner 1800). He took command of Astoria in 1813, after its surrender or sale to the Nor’Westers. He retired from the fur trade in the fall of 1814. After a period in Montreal, he bought in 1816 a 750-acre property at Grays Creek a few miles east of Cornwall just on the Stormont side of the Glengarry-Stormont border. This was part of a 1200-acre land grant made to the Loyalist James Gray (see Robert Gray). | (c. 1771-25 Jan. 1866), fur trader. (known as John McDonald of Garth. Also, among the fur traders he was called Le Bras Croche, from a withered arm.) Born at Garth, a property of his family near Callendar, Perthshire, Scotland. to John McDonald, a captain in the 84th Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment, and his wife Magdeleine Small. John, the subject of the present article, was a fur trader with the North West Company from 1791 (partner 1800). He took command of Astoria in 1813, after its surrender or sale to the Nor’Westers. He retired from the fur trade in the fall of 1814. After a period in Montreal, he bought in 1816 a 750-acre property at Grays Creek a few miles east of Cornwall just on the Stormont side of the Glengarry-Stormont border. This was part of a 1200-acre land grant made to the Loyalist James Gray (see [[gray_robert_isaac_dey|Robert Gray]]). |
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| <tab>McDonald operated his Grays Creek estate with the aid of tenant farmers. He also bought land extensively elsewhere, having some 7000 acres in various locations by the 1840s, most of it unimproved land with little likelihood of it yielding immediate revenue except from lumbering. Some of this land was near the Ottawa River, in the Ottawa District. He had modest holdings also in Lancaster and Charlottenburgh Townships. He owned 100 acres in Charlottenburgh immediately adjoining his original Grays Creek estate in Stormont County. | <tab>McDonald operated his Grays Creek estate with the aid of tenant farmers. He also bought land extensively elsewhere, having some 7000 acres in various locations by the 1840s, most of it unimproved land with little likelihood of it yielding immediate revenue except from lumbering. Some of this land was near the Ottawa River, in the Ottawa District. He had modest holdings also in Lancaster and Charlottenburgh Townships. He owned 100 acres in Charlottenburgh immediately adjoining his original Grays Creek estate in Stormont County. |
| <tab>McDonald was a prominent man among the Highlanders and others in Cornwall, Stormont and GC, and was a part of that remarkable group of former Nor’Westers who chose this area of the world for their retirement. He was judge of the Surrogate Court for SDG from 1832 to 1844 and was a JP. The strange story of his two marriages seems not to have damaged his social standing, though one may wonder what people said about it privately, and in particularly what was said by people of the humbler status who were not his intimates and social equals. He was chairman at a meeting held at Williamstown 26 Dec. 1842 to revive the “dormant” Highland Society of Canada. (//Cornwall Observer//, 5 Jan. 1843) | <tab>McDonald was a prominent man among the Highlanders and others in Cornwall, Stormont and GC, and was a part of that remarkable group of former Nor’Westers who chose this area of the world for their retirement. He was judge of the Surrogate Court for SDG from 1832 to 1844 and was a JP. The strange story of his two marriages seems not to have damaged his social standing, though one may wonder what people said about it privately, and in particularly what was said by people of the humbler status who were not his intimates and social equals. He was chairman at a meeting held at Williamstown 26 Dec. 1842 to revive the “dormant” Highland Society of Canada. (//Cornwall Observer//, 5 Jan. 1843) |
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| <tab>John McDonald of Garth died “at his residence Gart Cottage” at Grays Creek more than half a century after his retirement from the fur trade, and being one of the last surviving of the Nor’Westers. (Spelling Gart not Garth was used for the house and estate.) He was buried in a family cemetery on the estate but the bodies from the cemetery were reinterred in a public cemetery in 1970. He was a Presbyterian and a member of St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Cornwall. On his death, a tribute written into the church’s Session Records included appreciation for his role as an early and generous benefactor. He was the father by his first marriage of Rolland Mcdonald and by his second marriage of A. E. DeBellefeuille Macdonald, and he was the grandfather of Alexander John de Lotbiniere Macdonald and Archibald C. de Léry Macdonald. John McDonald of Garth’s sister was married to the Hon. William McGillivray. See also entry for Simon Fraser. | <tab>John McDonald of Garth died “at his residence Gart Cottage” at Grays Creek more than half a century after his retirement from the fur trade, and being one of the last surviving of the Nor’Westers. (Spelling Gart not Garth was used for the house and estate.) He was buried in a family cemetery on the estate but the bodies from the cemetery were reinterred in a public cemetery in 1970. He was a Presbyterian and a member of St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Cornwall. On his death, a tribute written into the church’s Session Records included appreciation for his role as an early and generous benefactor. He was the father by his first marriage of Rolland Mcdonald and by his second marriage of A. E. DeBellefeuille Macdonald, and he was the grandfather of Alexander John de Lotbiniere Macdonald and Archibald C. de Léry Macdonald. John McDonald of Garth’s sister was married to the Hon. William McGillivray. See also entry for [[fraser_simon|Simon Fraser]]. |
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| <tab>He was the author of “Autobiographical Notes,” which were written late in his life at the urging of his son DeBellefeuille and were first published, soon after John’s death, in six instalments in the Cornwall //Freeholder// of 2 March to 6 April 1866. They were later printed in L.R. Masson’s //Les bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest//, of 1889-1890. A preface to a copy of the “Autobiographical Notes” dated 4 Sept. 1920 at Alexandria states that, at the home of John A. Macdonell (Greenfield) of Alexandria, Carrie Holmes MacGillivray, herself the descendant of a Nor’Wester family, has made a typescript from the original text in John McDonald of Garth’s handwriting of the “Autobiographical Notes,” the original being at that time owned by his grandson S. DeLery Macdonald (evidently Archibald C. de Léry Macdonald). | <tab>He was the author of “Autobiographical Notes,” which were written late in his life at the urging of his son DeBellefeuille and were first published, soon after John’s death, in six instalments in the Cornwall //Freeholder// of 2 March to 6 April 1866. They were later printed in L.R. Masson’s //Les bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest//, of 1889-1890. A preface to a copy of the “Autobiographical Notes” dated 4 Sept. 1920 at Alexandria states that, at the home of John A. Macdonell (Greenfield) of Alexandria, Carrie Holmes MacGillivray, herself the descendant of a Nor’Wester family, has made a typescript from the original text in John McDonald of Garth’s handwriting of the “Autobiographical Notes,” the original being at that time owned by his grandson S. DeLery Macdonald (evidently Archibald C. de Léry Macdonald). |
