(19 Aug. 1834-26 June 1918), businessman, also known as Daniel Ross Cameron. (D. R. Cameron, Daniel R. Cameron) (date of birth 1836 also found) Born at Summerstown, GC. Parents: Daniel (Donald?) Cameron and his wife Isabella Ross. Donald Ross Cameron attended high school at Williamstown, where one of his fellow pupils was the future Sir James Grant. Cameron taught school for 2 years near Fort Covington, N.Y., till he was 18, then worked in the grocery and dry goods business at Fort Covington before going into business (presumably at Fort Covington) with his brother in a drygoods firm they began, called J. and D. R. Cameron. In 1863, Donald Cameron moved to the rising city of Chicago, where he found employment, for some years, as a commercial traveller in the stationery business. Afterwards, having formed a business partnership with W. A. Amberg, he helped to built up the thriving wholesale stationery, printing and bookbinding firm, Cameron, Amberg & Co., of Chicago, which eventually had branches in New York and London. Cameron was cited in 1907 as “one of the largest wholesale stationers of Chicago.” (Cornwall Standard 18 Oct. 1907) Cameron liked to remember that the firm, unlike many others, chose to pay 100 cents on the dollar on its debts even after the disaster of the Great Chicago Fire, 1871. Except for one interval of 2 years, he was a member of the Chicago Board of Education, 1890-1914. Deeply involved with its work, he served twice as its president, and had also been its vice-president.

     He acquired a property in Altadena, Calif., formerly owned by the newspaper publisher Joseph Medill, and on it, an article of 1915 says, he built “a handsome residence, one of the show places of Southern California.” In 1908, the beauty of his California home, the location of which was given as Glengarry Ranch, Altadena, Calif., was noted in the press. (Cornwall Freeholder 17 April 1908) He used his Altadena home for a time as a winter refuge, but from about 1913 was a permanent resident. Cameron, a widower, died at Altadena. He was a Mason.

State of California death certificate (18 021199) * Morgan (1912) 185 * Vankleek Hill Review 10 May 1895 * detailed biog. sketch, Pasadena Star News 13 Sept. 1915 (QF) * Pasadena city directories (which include Altadena residents) 1915-1919 * Cameron house, Altadena: picture, Sunset Magazine, Nov. 1904 p. 36 * information ksb Pasadena Public Library and Altadena Historical Society