(31 Oct. 1845-4 May 1920), soldier. (Sir Donald A. Macdonald, Dan Alex E.) Born in Cornwall, Ont. Parents: Alexander Eugene Macdonald and his wife Grace Mackay Taylor. Alexander Eugene (1806-1891), the father of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Glen Nevis, GC, and lived in Cornwall, where he was deputy clerk of the Crown and registrar of the Surrogate Court. Alexander Eugene was the nephew of Fr Aeneas Macdonald, Fr John Macdonald of St. Raphael’s, and Dr Roderick Mcdonald.

     Beginning as an ensign in a Cornwall rifle company 1863, Donald Alexander rose in the militia, being adjutant of the 59th (Stormont & GC) Battalion in 1869. He served in the Fenian Raids and in the North-West Rebellion of 1870, and during the 1885 Rebellion he was on staff duty in Toronto. From a clerk in militia stores in 1874, he became chief superintendent of militia stores by 1896, and was director general of the Ordnance Stores Corps in 1903 and quartermaster general in 1904, remaining quartermaster general till 31 Oct. 1917. He became a brigadier general in 1908 and a major general in 1912. He was responsible for equipping the Canadian contingents in the Boer War, and likewise the Canadian forces in the earlier part of WWI. In Jan. 1918, he retired from active service, and he was knighted at this time. He died in Ottawa, at the Chateau Laurier where he had been residing.

     He was married in 1876 to Mary Richardson. Her father, Hugh Richardson, was the judge who passed the death sentence on Louis Riel in 1885. D. A. Macdonald and his wife Mary Richardson had one child, a daughter Muriel, who was married to Col. Charles Louis Panet (1870-1955), of the distinguished Panet family. Sir Donald was not a Glengarrian by birth, and presumably was not a resident at any time, but he had close connections. For a man of rather similar career in the militia, see the entry for John Macpherson. Sir Donald was the brother of Helen Macdonald.

Life by William Rawling Dictionary of Canadian Biography, XIV, 685-686, life also of his father-in-law Hugh Richardson same volume * Charlesworth: lives of Macdonald and his son-in-law C. L. Panet, 225, 279 * obituaries CF & Cornwall Standard both 6 May 1920, Glengarry News 7 May 1920 * MDict * Ross, Lancaster, 300-301 * ASC ii, 5: obituary (NP) of his father * Boss 46 (two refs.), 51, 247 * “Panet family,” Hurtig, III, 1611