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McDonald, Herbert Stone,
Woodlawn, Brockville, Judge of the County Court of the United Counties of
Leeds and Grenville, was born on the 23rd February, 1842, at Gananoque,
County of Leeds. He is a son of the Honourable John McDonald, who resided
at Gananoque, and died there in September, 1860, having come to Canada in
1817. John McDonald was called to the Iegislative Council of the former
province of Upper Canada before the union, and again, upon the occasion of
the union of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, to the Legislative
Council of Canada. He was of Scottish ancestry, his father, John McDonald,
and his mother, who as a Cameron, having come to America from Perth-shire,
Scotland, in the year 1787. The mother of our subject was Henrietta Maria
Mallory, who is still living. Her maternal grandmother, Abigail Dayton,
formerly Abigail Coggswell, became the wife of Col. Joel Stone, a U. E.
loyalist, who is considered to have been the founder of Gananoque. Miss
Mallory was an inmate of Col. Stone’s house when John McDonald married
her. Herbert Stone McDonald was educated at the Gananoque Grammar school,
Queen’s College Prepararatory school, and at Queen’s College, Kingston. He
graduated at Queen’s University as B. A. in 1859, and as M.A. in 1861. In
1859 he commenced the study of law with A. N. Richards of Brockville
(since then for some time lieutenant-governor of British Columbia), and
concluded his course as an articled clerk with Richards &.
Jackson, of Toronto. He was called to the bar
in Easter term, 1863, and in the same year commenced the practice of his
profession at Brockville, as a partner of F. W. H. Chambers, then M.P.P.
for Brockville. The partnership was dissolved in 1866, and H S. McDonald
continued to practise in Brockville until appointed to the bench. He was
appointed in 1863 as lieutenant of the Gananoque rifle company; and in
1866 he was on active service at the epoch of the Fenian troubles. In the
same year he was appointed pay-master of the 41st battalion Brockville
rifles, and accompanied that regiment when it was ordered to Cornwall
during the Fenian raid of 1870. Some years afterwards he retired with the
honorary rank of major. In 1863 Mr. McDonald was elected a member of the
first municipal council of the village of Gananoque. He was for some years
a member of the joint Grammar and Common school board of trustees of
Brockville. In 1967 he was appointed deputy-judge of the County Court of
the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, which appointment was revoked
in 1869. In 1870 and 1871 he was a member of the town council of
Brockville; and at the general election of 1871 was elected in the
conservative interest, as member for the South Riding of Leeds, in the
Legislative Assembly of Ontario. His political life ceased upon his
appointment in the autumn of 1873, by the government of Sir John A.
Macdonald, to the. office of junior judge of the County Court of the
united Counties of Leeds and Grenville. The then judge (his Honour R. F
Steele), having died in January, 1875, Mr. McDonald discharged all the
duties of the judgeship until December, 1678, when he was elevated by the
government of Sir John A. Macdonald to the office of judge of the County
Court of the united Counties of Leeds and Grenville. In October, 1885, he
was appointed under the Electoral Franchise Act of the Dominion, the
revising officer for the electoral districts of Brockvifle, South
Grenville, North Leeds and Grenville, and South Leeds. In 1867, Mr.
McDonald became a member of the Loyal Orange Association, and in 1869 was
elected junior deputy grand master of Ontario East; in 1670, he became
senior deputy grand master, and in the same year, after the election of
Mr. (now the Honourable) Mackenzie Bowell, to the grand mastership of
British North America, and his resignation of the grand mastership of
Ontario East, he succeeded to the latter office, to whinch he was
re-elected in 1871, 1872, and 1873. On the 12th July; 1872, Mr. McDonald
laid the corner stone of an Orange hall, or building at Ottawa, upon which
occasion he was presented with. a trowel. In 1873 he had charge, in the
Ontario legislature, of the Orange incorporation bills, which passed the
house, but were reserved by the then lieutenant-governor. In the same
year, in company with D'Arcy
Boulton (now deceased), Mr.
McDonald proceeded to Great Britain as one of the delegates to the
Triennial Orange conference, which met in Glasgow, in July of that year.
He addressed meetings of Orangemen, or in connection with Orangeism, at
Londonderry, Coleraine, Ballymena, Dublin, Portadown, Lurgan, Armagh,
Enniskillen, Birmingham and Liverpool. He ceased active connection with
the Orange Association after his appointment to the bench in 1873, and
subsequently obtained a certificate. At one time he was a member of
Simpson lodge .of A. F. and A . Masons,
of Newboro’, Ontario, and proceeded to the degree of master mason; but he
withdrew from active membership some years ago. Also at different times he
was a member of temperance associations, and at present is connected with
the Trinity Church of England Temperance Society of Brockville. Mr.
McDonald has been an active supporter of prohibition and the Scott Act,
and besides advocating and aiding the passage of that act in the united
counties of Leeds and Grenville, has spoken in behalf of it in the
counties of Dundas, Carleton, Lanark, Hastings, Northumberland and Durham,
and the cities of St. Thomas, Kingston, and St. Catharines. The Honourable
John McDonald was an elder in the Presbyterian church, and in his youth
Judge McDonald attended that church; but when about seventeen years of age
he commenced attending the Church of England, and in 1863 was confirmed in
that church. He is an earnest and zealous member of the Evangelical
school. He has been, since 1867, a member of the diocesan synod, and for
some years has been a delegate to the provincial synod. He is now a member
of the congregation of. St. Paul’s, Brockviile (Rev. Dyson Hague, M.A.,
rector), and a lay delegate from that congregation to the synod of the
diocese of Ontario. He married, on the 15th June, 1864, Emma Matilda,
daughter of David Jones, of Brockville, registrar of the County of Leeds.
Mr. Jones was the son of a U. E. loyalist, and was himself a
barrister-at-law, and at one time a representative of the County of Leeds
in the Upper Canada House of Assembly, and also at one time a Judge of the
District Court of the Eastern District. He resigned the office of county
registrar in 1864, and died at Brockville in 1870. His brother was Sir
Daniel Jones, who was knighted during the reign of King William IV. He
was, we believe, the first native born Canadian who received the honour of
knighthood. Of the children of Judge and Mrs. McDonald two are living,
viz., Katharine Henrietta and John Herbert. Guy Morville died an infant of
one month old and Muriel Adelaide died in September, 1885, aged
within a few days of one year and nine months. |
