====== McDonald, Finlay J. ====== 
 (25 April 1859-5 March 1911), miner, sheriff. Born in GC, probably at his parents’ home on Lot 9 of the 3rd Concession of Kenyon Township, near Alexandria. Parents: John Roy McDonald or McDonell, and his wife Margaret McPherson. He grew up on a farm, and attended school at Alexandria. Seeking like so many of his GC generation his livelihood or his fortune in the US, he worked in lumbering at Saginaw, Mich., and Chippewa Falls, Wisc., and in mining at Leadville, Colo. Having returned to GC, either with intentions to reside there, or for effecting his marriage, he was married at St. Finnan’s in Alexandria to Mary McDonald (b. GC, 15 or 16 April 1861 on Lot 8 in the 3rd of Kenyon; d. 4 July 1927 at Philipsburg, Mont.). They settled in Butte, Mont., at a date given as 1885, then about two years later they moved to Granite County, Mont., near Butte. In 1888 McDonald was chosen the first president of the Granite Miners’ Union. He remained a member of the union till his death, with the union members turning out in numbers at the funeral to show their support and approval. By occupation, he was a “mine foreman and contractor.” Elected sheriff of Granite County in 1896, 1900 and 1902, he was said to have been, up to the time of his death, the only sheriff of the county to hold the position three times. Among his activities, he probably operated a hotel in Philipsburg, Mont., where his home at the end of his life was at the Stephens Hotel. He died after two years as an invalid. (one child) Roman Catholic. The burial was at Philipsburg, which is in Granite County. The reports on his death in the Philipsburg //Mail// paint a portrait of a tall, rugged, affable man of strong character, who was genuinely highly respected and liked in his town, and who in being praised in his passing was not merely being given conventional obituary tributes. One obituary tribute lamenting him as a “big-hearted, genial frontier sheriff” noted that “wealth he had not.”


----
<fs small>Philipsburg //Mail// (Mont.) 10 March 1911 (QF), //GN// 24 March 1911 (gives surname as Macdonell), //Cornwall Standard //5 May 1911 (from //GN//) * obituary of his wife, //GN// 22 July 1927, repr. Fraser //Obits.// 162 * //St. Finnan’s CRNI//, II, 375, 467 (Baptisms of him and his wife; his family name is given as McDonell)
</fs>
[<6>]