Was
long one of the most active and prosperous farmers of Orford
township. County of Kent. He was born in 1837 at Utica, New
York, and died on the present homestead on Concession 8. Lot 15,
June 1st, 1902, aged sixty-five years. His remains
rest in the Gosnell cemetery.
The parents of the late James R. McDonald were
William and Margaret (Faulkner) McDonald, of Inverness,
Scotland, who came to the United States first, and in 1837
located in the County of Kent. They took up 100 acres of land
in Howard township, and there the father died in 1868, aged 73
years and the mother in 1878, at the same age. They were buried
in the cemetery at Ridgetown. Both were loyal in their devotion
to the faith of their fathers, the Presbyterian religion. They
were the parents of the following children: Donald and John,
both deceased; Isabel, widow of Alexander McKinzie, of Howard
township; Robert, a retired farmer of Howard township; broughton,
a retired farmer of Ridgetown; and William, James R., Hugh and
Alexander, all deceased.
On October 13th, 1856, James R.
McDonald married Ellen R. Gosness, and children as follows were
born to this marriage: Ellen R. who married John Spence, of
Turtle Mountain, Manitoba, and has one child, Nellie; Miss
Margaret, at home; John B., a farmer in ORford, who married
Catherine Murphy, and has four children, Lillie, Anna, Nellie
and James; William, also a farmer of Orford, who married Maggie
Young, and has one child, Ernest; Naomi, wife of Geore Simmpson,
a farmer in Manitoba; Bertha, deceased, wife of John Maxwell;
Ellathea, a school eacher in Manitoba, now the wife of Albert
Dobbyn, a farmer of Melita, Manitoba; James A., a school teacher
in Manitoba, who married Alice Beatle; Ezra, who married Annie
Blum, of Orford township; and Florence, at home. Mrs. Ellen R.
Gosness) McDonald was born July 15th, 1839, in ORford
township, daughter of James and Ann Gosnell, and a sister of
Lawrence J. Gosness.
James R. McDonald remained with his parents on
their farm until he was 18 years of age. He then learned the
carpenter’s trade, and worked at the same until his marriage,
after which he resumed farming. A few years were spent in
Howard township, and then he moved to a farm in ORford township,
living there until he came to the present family home in 1871.
It is difficult to realize, as one views the fine improvements
and the high state of cultivation to which the land has been
brought, that as late as 1871 it was nothing but a wilderness.
Its present condition is a speaking testimony to the energy and
industry of Mr. McDonald. His handsome brick residence was
erected in1886. He was a man of progressive ideas, and was one
of the first in his locality to introduce natural gas into his
fine home ofr heating and lighting. It has been in use for five
years, Mr. McDonald believing in making use of modern methods to
make life comfortable. The family belong to the Methodist
Church. In politics he was a Reformer. He is sadly missed in
the home circle, as well as by hundreds of warm personal
friends.
p.189 – 190
