(9 Feb. 1843-28 Oct. 1932), businessman. (A. B. Macdonald, Allan B. Macdonald, title of sheriff often used in connection with his name to identify him) Born at Glen Donald in Charlottenburgh Township, GC. Parents: Alexander Ban McDonald and his wife Catherine McGillis. His formal education was in GC and Cornwall schools. He was first an employee and afterwards a partner in Alexandria of Hon. D. A. Macdonald. For several years he operated the grist mill in Alexandria under the company name of A. B. Macdonald & Co. He was also a partner in Alexandria of John Chisholm, the former American Civil War soldier. Allan B. Macdonald then moved to Manitoba, where in a short-lived venture (about 1881-1882) he was a general merchant at Emerson in partnership with John A. McDougald. It is said that he contracted to provide supplies for the CPR but had his stockpiled supplies destroyed by a flood at Emerson in 1881. In 1882-1883, he had a position, either with the CPR or a private firm, again dealing with CPR supplies. In 1884-1885, he was in charge of stores for R. R. (Big Rory) McLennan’s CPR construction work on the north shore of Lake Superior. He was probably the Allen R. Macdonell (name spelled thus) who is listed for 1886 and 1887 as having the lease of over 20,000 acres of grazing lands (Canadian Sessional Papers 1887 and 1888). This lease, at any rate, was separate from the lease for the Glengarry Ranch, the description of which follows.

     Macdonald was the principal organizer in 1885-1886 of the Glengarry Ranch Co., which in March 1886 obtained the lease of 52,320 acres west of Claresholm in what is today Alberta.The president of the ranch company was John Grant the railway contractor. Macdonald, who was himself one of the owners, was managing director of the ranch. A nephew of Macdonald’s, Duncan S. McIntosh from Martintown, was foreman of the ranch at an early period. The business of the ranch, known as the Glengarry Ranch, was cattle-rearing. Very soon, it had 1200 head of cattle. It got its name from a number of Glengarrians involved in its ownership. However, the GC association did not last long at its full strength, for in 1889 the ranch was sold to the railway contractors Mackenzie and Mann. Macdonald, however, continued as managing director till 1910. His son Allan John Macdonald (d. 1961) came to the West in 1891 to join his father, and was employed at some stage as foreman of the ranch. These Macdonalds continued the GC association of the ranch, but also the GC name has lingered on, the ranch being variously known over the years as the Glengarry Ranch and the “44” or combinations of those names.

     Allan Ban Macdonald was president of the Western Stock Growers’ Association, 1903-1904. In 1906, it was reported in the press that he had been made a senator for the North West, but the announcement was in error or the appointment, somehow, was rescinded. He was the Liberal candidate for the Alberta constituency of Macleod in the federal election of 26 Oct. 1908, but was defeated. In June 1910 he became the superintendent of Rocky Mountains Park (today, after several boundary changes and under a new name, familiar as Banff National Park), and he held the office till August 1912 or March 1913. He was appointed sheriff of Fort Macleod, Alta., on 1 Jan. 1914, and clerk of the Supreme Court of the Judicial District of Fort Macleod on 1 Oct. 1920, and kept both these positions till he retired on 2 Jan. 1923. Allan B. Macdonald died in Calgary at the age of 89. (six children surviving him) Roman Catholic. His long and successful career connects the names of a surprisingly wide range of the eminent natives of 19th-century GC. As a young man, he won a medal in 1864 for the best all round athlete at Caledonian games held at Cornwall. He was married on 4 March 1870 to Elizabeth Anne Harrison, who was the daughter of George Harrison, the “Big Tanner” of Alexandria. Col. S. B. Steele, in his Forty Years in Canada (NY 1915 p. 272), writes with warm appreciation of managing director Macdonald, his wife and family, and their hospitable home at the Glengarry Ranch. “Several of the cowboys on the ranch,” Steele says, “were brought from Mr. Macdonald’s county of Glengarry, a very Highland Scotch corner of Ontario, and under his careful instruction developed into that useful person the Canadian cowboy.” Remarkably, this may be the longest notice in print testifying to the existence of cowboys of GC origin, and is one of the very few such notices that do exist.

     He was the brother of Dr Archibald L. Macdonald.

Standard Freeholder 5 Nov. 1932 & Glengarry News 11 Nov. 1932, the latter repr. with the record of his marriage from St. Finnan’s Church Records, Fraser Obits. 129-130 * obituary of his father, GN 28 Sept. 1900, repr.with additional material, Fraser Obits. 122-123 * mother dies, CF 13 April 1888 cited DTL SFH 13 April 1946 * Fraser, Gravestones, I, 41 (parents) * GN supplement 1903 [ 4, 21] * Parker (1912) 333-334 (with portrait) * Where the Wheatlands Meet the Range (Claresholm, Alberta, 1974) 17, 18, 344-345 (ranch, biog. data, illustr.) * Glenbow Museum of Calgary: typescript history of “The Glengarry ‘44’ Ranch,” written in 1973 by Harry Tatro for Parks Canada * Archives of Ontario-RRM, letters relating to Macdonald’s employment by McLennan and to involvement of Macdonald and McLennan with the Glengarry Ranch * cowboys: see also Bibliography of Glengarry 126; another notice, George D. Weir, The Weir Sept. of Lochiel [Stephens City, Virginia?, 1989] 60 * park superintendency: Canadian Sessional papers 1912-1914 and Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies * senator: 20 Years Ago column, CF 4 March 1926 * meeting in Calgary of Glengarry Ranch Co., John Grant the president in chair, Allan B. Macdonald also present, CF 17 Feb. 1888 cited DTL SFH 22 Feb. 1947 * chosen Liberal candidate, Macleod constituency, CF 3 April 1908 * revisits GC with his brother Dr A. L. Macdonald, GN 5 March 1920, Cornwall Standard 11 March & 13 May 1920