(1798-12 Jan. 1870), newspaperman. Born in Invernesshire, Scotland, in a parish described in print as Chronyardt (probably Knoydart is meant). He moved to Glasgow at the age of five with his family. “In that city he learned the printing business, and in 1815 emigrated to Canada. The family went to Lochiel, in the County of Glengarry, but Mr. McDonald remained in Montreal, working at his trade in the Gazette office, then owned by Mr. Brown. In 1824 he became foreman of the Herald office, then owned by Archibald Ferguson, Esq., and continued to fulfil in a very able manner the duties of that responsible position till Mr. Ferguson sold the establishment in 1834. Mr. McDonald then formed a partnership with Mr. John Lovell and commenced the Transcript, of which he afterwards became sole proprietor, and which he carried on for thirty years. He then, on account of advancing age, disposed of it, and under the name of the Daily News and Weekly Transcript it is still continued by his first partner.” (obit., Montreal Witness) John Lovell (1810-1893) was a distinguished Canadian publisher, a man of no small significance in Canadian intellectual history, and the date at which the Transcript (only one of his many projects) began publication was 1836.
At one of 19th-century GC’s most memorable celebrations, the great ball and supper held in Alexandria,1857, on the occasion of the completion of the Hon. D. A. Macdonald’s steam mill, “Mr. and Mrs. D. McDonald, (Transcript),” were among the guests attending from Montreal.
His obituary (anonymous) in the Montreal Witness was written by someone who knew him well, and who apparently also had some knowledge of the Montreal printing trades. The Witness was an aggressively Protestant paper, but the (evidently) Protestant writer of the obituary warmly praises McDonald, who was a Roman Catholic, for his piety, for his devotion to the Bible, and for being “eminently kind, gentle and generous,” courteous and honest and friendly, and for his unfailing generosity to the poor. To the end of his life, McDonald kept up the genial Scottish habit of New Year’s visits to his friends. His wife, to whom he had been married for some 30 years at his time of death, was a Presbyterian.
Donald McDonald died in Montreal, where he had been a resident for more than half a century. His funeral was at St. Patrick’s Church, Montreal. “The body was afterwards taken to the vault, in the Roman Catholic cemetery, where it is to remain until May next, when it will be removed to Glengarry for interment.”
He has to be distinguished from a newspaperman of somewhat similar name, Ronald Macdonald (1797-1854), born in PEI, who has a life in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Vol. VIII), and was apparently also associated at one time with the Transcript.
Obituary (“The Late Mr. McDonald of the Transcript”), with death notices and brief report on funeral, Witness 12-14 Jan. 1870 * André Beaulieu & Jean Hamelin, La presse québécois des origines à nos jours (1973-1990), Vol. I, pp. 90-91 * Dictionary of Canadian Biography, XII, 569 (in life of John Lovell) * MacGillivray & Ross 112 * 1857 ball and supper: Montreal Evening Pilot, 17 Jan. 1857, repr. Glengarry News 16 Aug. 1935 (condensed by Ottawa Citizen) and 9 Aug. 1946