(Oct. 1844-9 May 1932), teacher. (W. J. Macdonald) He was two weeks and three days old when he was baptized on 21 Oct. 1844. Born probably east of Alexandria, on Lot 24, in the 2nd Concession of Lochiel Township. Parents: John James Macdonald, who was a native of Glen Garry, Scotland, and his wife Flora McRae, who was a native of Kintail, Scotland. He grew up on the family farm. His schooling was limited, but he attended the Christian Brothers school in Alexandria for several years, and “the then existing Grammar School,” Alexandria, for several months. William’s brother, John James Macdonald the author, recalled in his autobiographical notes that in their childhood William took the opportunity to teach the other children of the family arithmetic and geometry while they were at work or play together. Both William and John James were much absorbed by the Roman Catholic newspaper, the True Witness, to which their father subscribed.
A schoolteacher by profession, William J. Macdonald devoted himself in his adult years to the private study of geometry. “Mr. Macdonald’s principal literary work is entitled ‘Euclidean Geometry Amended’, which is ready for publication. He corrected some of Euclid’s illogical demonstrations and proved by the direct method all the propositions which Euclid proved by the indirect method. He finished and copyrighted only three of Euclid’s six books, namely Books 1, 3 and 5. The manuscript of the other three was written only in common scribblers. He became too old to finish it.” It is said that he could read six languages: Gaelic, Greek, Latin, German, French and English. He died in the General Hospital at Fort Macleod, Alberta, aged 87. In 1975, an enquirer was told that Macdonald was “remembered vaguely by an elderly lady as a tall thin man with a beard who was a very devout Catholic.” From the relatively little that is known about his life, his devotion to the Roman Catholic church stands out very strongly.
Obituary Glengarry News 3 June 1932 (QF) * sources as for life of his brother John James, including John James’s autobiographical notes * St. Finnan’s CRNI, II, 520 * private information, 21 March 1975, on Macdonald’s will, other topics