====== Macdonald, Antoine Eustache DeBellefeuille ====== (10 Aug. 1824-1894), farmer. (A. E. DeBellefeuille Macdonald, De B. Macdonald, DeBellefeuille Macdonald) Born with twin brother Duncan, perhaps at Grays Creek to John Mcdonald of Garth and his second (non-country) wife Amelia (McGillis?) of Williamstown. John McDonald of Garth (d. 1866) left his estate at Grays Creek to DeBellefeuille. In the years following, DeBellefeuille was a farmer at Grays Creek, east of Cornwall, in the extreme southwest corner of GC. The farm, or part of it, was on Lot 18 of the 1st and 2nd Concession of Indian Lands. In 1867, he established on his farm at Grays Creek a cheese factory which appears to have been the first cheese factory in GC. The Cornwall //Freeholder// of 5 July 1867 reported that it was then in operation, and a writer in the //Freeholder// of 12 July defined it as “the first establishment of the kind which has been started in the large and wealthy section of country formerly called the Eastern District.” P. A. Nolan in the well-known Cornwall Cheese and Butter Board history of 1920, compiled at a time when the traditions of the early cheese industry in GC were relatively fresh in mind, supports this claim to priority, remembering the date correctly as 1867, and calling it “the first factory started in this section of the province,” though noting that cheese had been made earlier at the Fraserfield estate “on quite a large scale.” David M. MacPherson’s manufacture of cheese commercially dates from a few years after the Grays Creek venture. Thus the Grays Creek factory stands at the beginning of the fateful and troubled involvement, which lasted nearly a century, of the Glengarrians with the cheese factory system. In an early notice of the Grays Creek venture, the Cornwall //Freeholder// of 8 Feb. 1867 had reported that a cheese factory was to be operated at Grays Creek the following summer, but at this time it gave the name of the proprietor as Duncan Macdonald, presumably DeBellefeuille’ s brother of that name. However, in the //Freeholder// of 17 Jan. 1868, it was De B. Macdonald who printed a number of letters (all of them dated at Cornwall) from farmers testifying to their satisfaction with his cheese factory. In 1867 DeBellefeuille mortgaged his estate, which had been financially troubled in his father’s time, and he had lost it by the end of the 1870s. Perhaps drawing on a latter stage of his career, Harkness described him as “a merchant of Montreal.” Le Centre d’histoire La Presqu’île at Vaudreuil-Dorion has a portrait of him as part of the historical collection of his son A. C. de Léry. DeBellefeuille is remembered for having encouraged his father to write his useful memoirs of fur trading days, “Autobiographical Notes.” Judge Rolland Mcdonald and DeBellefeuille were half-brothers. DeBellefeuille Macdonald was married to Marie Louise de Lotbiniere Harwood, who was well connected through the distinguished families of the Harwoods, the Taschereaus and the de Lotbinières. When she died in Montreal on 31 May 1904, having outlived her husband, she was survived by two daughters and by three sons, Alexander John de Lotbiniere Macdonald, C. de Bellefeuille Macdonald, and Archibald Chaussegros de Léry Macdonald. A Montreal obituary noted her distinguished family connections, and praised her interesting conversation, which was strengthened by intimate family information on the early history of Canada. She was president of the Women’s Branch of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society, Montreal. Her religion was Roman Catholic. She was buried at Rigaud, Que. ---- Robert J. Burns, “The Post Fur Trade Career of a North West Company Partner: a Biography of John McDonald of Garth, //Research Bulletin de recherches//, No. 60, Parks Canada (Aug. 1977) * //Belden Atlas// 47 & GC Registry Office abstract index (location of farm) * cf advert //Cornwall Reporter// 21 June 1879 for “Mortgage Sale” of “that magnificent farm known as Grey’s [sic] Creek” * //Dictionary of Canadian Biography// Vol. IX, p. 482 (mentioned in life of his father) * Stiles 41; the statement Innis 48 is presumably from this source * Harkness 395 * MacGillivray & Ross 408 * Rutley 8, 72 * obituary of his daughter Miss Amelia Macdonald (1854-1933), //Glengarry News// 21 July 1933, repr. from //Montreal Gazette// * obituary of his wife, //The Montreal Daily Star//, 31 May 1904; her death remembered, 20 Years Ago column, //CF //29 May 1924 * information kindly supplied by Mr Lyall Manson on “Descendants of John McDonald (Gart)” [<6>]