Recent DNA matching is making a compelling case for identifying two more siblings of Alexander MacDonald, settler at The Falls.

William MacDonald was born in Clyne in 1791 and married Mary Murray of that parish in 1836. They lived at Badnellan near the town of Brora where he died in 1861.

Donald MacDonald was born in 1794. In 1813 he took up duties as a laborer with the Hudson Bay Company at York Factory, Rupert’s land. Two years later he was transferred to the Cumberland House trading post where he served until being transferred to the Edmonton trading post 1816. In 1817 he attempted to board a ship for Britain without leave and was fined 10 pounds. He was dispatched to Fort Carlton thereafter. In 1820 he was back in Fort Edmonton. 

He married a Metis woman by the name of Jean Beaudry in 1840 although they had been together with several children by this point. (Clergy were scarce in the outposts so marriages were legitimized when the couple would return to civilization). They had twelve children who eventually settled in Manitoba.

In 1834, “Big Donald of the Blackfeet” retired from the Hudson Bay Company and took up farming at St. Andrew’s, Lisgar, Manitoba which is in the Red River Settlement.

Mary Elizabeth MacDonald (1832-1914)

Mary Elizabeth, named after both grandmothers, married Donald MacDonald on May 11^th 1855. He was born in 1825 in Achoultiville, Caithness and came to West Earltown with his parents as a young boy.   His mother was Jane Murray “Corrigan” of Rogart whose siblings and parents came to Earltown at various points between 1819 and 1840.   His father was Robert MacDonald of Achoultiville.

Mary and Donald purchased a Sutherland farm¹ on what is now the Peter MacDonald Road overlooking the Matheson Brook valley.  In 1885 Mary was heir to the original Alex MacDonald homestead.  There is no evidence that she and  Donald ever lived there but for many years it was inhabited by their bachelor sons Alex and Robert.

They had a family of 6:

1. Christena who married Dan Henderson of Kavanagh’s Mills and lived in River John.
2. Alexander who lived in the United States in his younger years before taking over is grandfather’s farm at The Falls.   He never married.
3. Robert, never married, lived back and forth between his brothers’ homes and died in 1939.
4. Jane 1864-1934 went to New England as a young woman and married Robert MacCausland
5. Mary Elizabeth 1870-1924, a teacher, was the wife of Alexander S. Douglas, Earltown.
6. Peter 1871-1939 took over the home place.  He married Marion Sutherland “Mighty” of Central Earltown.  They had 7 clever children who went on to succeed in business, teaching, and engineering.

William Baillie MacDonald 1835-1882

William was deeded the north  50 of Alexander MacDonald’s remaining 100 acres.  William established a homestead close to the crossroads at The Falls.  At this point we are uncertain as to whether it was the old house and barn on the Power House Road or the former Stanley Matheson home on the hilltop.

He married a girl three farms upstream.   She was Lillian Sutherland, 1836-1918,  daughter of William Sutherland “Ban” and Marion MacLeod. 

In the early 1870’s, with a growing family consisting of 7 children at that point, they were outgrowing the small acreage.   William acquired a farm at East New Annan opposite the end of the Alex MacDonald Road.²   While there, William took on duties as a sheriff or sheriff deputy with the County of Colchester.  At that time, the main road from Tatamagouche to Truro ran through East New Annan instead of Earltown thus making it a more convenient location for carrying out his duties.

William died on November 25^th 1882. Of his 14 children, 11 were still living and the youngest was only 4 years old. Some of the older boys had already left for the west but there were sufficient children in their mid to late teens to help Lillian keep the farm functioning.  By 1891 the older sons were settled in California and they moved Lillian and the younger children to the west coast.   Lillian spent her last years in Santa Ana, California with her son George.   She is buried in California and William is buried in Murray’s Cemetery at The Falls.

1. Christena   1857-1857
2. Adam 1858-1892     Adam was accidentally killed by a runaway horse in Bardsdale, Ca.
3. John Willliam 1860-1883 was a prospector in Leadville, Colorado
4. Alexander Sutherland 1862-1885 lived in Cripple Creek, Colorado
5. Marion  1864-1864
6. Marion MacLeod 1865-1953 married John Lockhart Card of Kempt Shore, NS.   They married in Newton, Ma., and returned to Hants County where they lived for a number of years before moving to Palo Alto, Ca..   They had six children including Dr. Thomas Card who maintained connections with his relatives in Nova Scotia.
7. Christena 1867-1932 married John Vincent MacNeil of Benacadie Glen, Cape Breton.  Christy met John V. while working in Boston.   He moved to Los Angeles in 1886 and Christy followed him where they married in 1887.   John was a carpenter by trade and established a contracting company that built several of the early commercial buildings in that city.  They were the parents of Father Dan MacNeil who was an early visitor to The Falls exploring his roots.   The MacNeil’s had eleven children and countless descendants in the Western United States.
8. John Sutherland 1869-1944 lived in Santa Ana and was married to Annie Brady and had six children
9. Mary Jane 1871-1940 married John Lebard in Santa Ana and had a family of ten
10. Hugh Murdoch 1874-1913 married Bessie Huff and lived in Santa Ana with a family of six.
11. Danield 1876-1954 married Eva Sangston and lived in Everett, Washington
12. Marguerita Ann 1877-1881
13. George Henry 1879-1966 married Justine Dubois and lived in Ventura, Ca..  They had 3 children

1. _{This farm has been in the Pope family since the 1940’s and it is still inhabited}. ↩︎
2. _{This Alex MacDonald, whose name appears on this road, was not a relative of this family although there may be a distant connection back in Sutherland if one subscribes to the legend that all MacDonalds in Eastern Sutherland descend from a soldier who settled there around 1700.} ↩︎

The Next Generation

Alex and Christy MacDonald had three children:    Adam, Mary Elizabeth, and William Baillie.

Adam was born in 1824.   In the 1840’s he received the back 100 acres of the grant with the stipulation that his father retain the right to harvest wood for his own use.  Adam cleared a homestead near the summit of the grant which had a commanding view of the Waugh River valley and beyond across the Northumberland Strait to Prince Edward Island[1].   He was joined on this farm by his bride, Margaret Matheson, daughter of Donald Matheson and Christy Sutherland, Matheson’s Corner.

Descendants know very little about this man.   He was only 31 years old when he died on October 14, 1855 leaving his widow with four small children under 5, one of which was an infant.   How Margaret coped with raising this young family and managed to keep the farm is remarkable.   She never remarried.  One can assume that her father-in-law made sure that food was on the table and no doubt there were plenty of hands available among Adam’s dozens of first cousins not to mention the Matheson web of relations around Earltown.   The family narrative suggests that Margaret was a weaver like her father and sisters. In later years she was joined by her Glasgow-born cousin, Eliza Matheson – the Scotch Lady, who earned her keep by weaving as well.

Although Adam and Margaret are recorded as been buried in The Falls Cemetery, that burial ground was not in existence in 1855.  They are buried unmarked in the Murray Cemetery inside the gate.   A daughter-in-law recorded them on her stone at The Falls for convenience.   Also buried in the lot at Murray’s is Eliza, the Scotch Lady, and Adam’s youngest daughter Eliza.

As mentioned above, Adam and Margaret had four children.

1. Alexander MacDonald, 1850-1931, married Harriet MacLean of Nuttby.   She was a daughter of Alexander MacLean (Ally Og) and Christy MacLeod.   Harriet was an only child and heir to the property on the John Sutherland Road therefore Alex moved in with the MacLean family.  Unique in those days, an in-law suite was added to the back of the house for the older generation.  Grandchildren remember Alex as an easygoing sort, more inclined towards playing the violin and looking for ceilidhs than managing the farm.  However, he ended up no better or worse off for it.   Alex and Henny had three children: 

1. Adam, 1874-1947, who married Isabel Martin of Lewis Mountain near Little Narrows, Cape Breton.  The farm at Nuttby was his home base but the family moved from place to place as Adam operated a portable saw mill.  The family eventually moved to a farm near Loch Lomand,  Richmond County, Cape Breton for a few years.  Adam later abandoned farming and took up mining in New Waterford.  He is buried at The Falls.  They had 8 children of which two remained in Colchester, – Joanna Redmond at Waugh River and  George in Truro.
2. Alexander Lane, 1877-1944, better known as “A.L.” married Willena Lynch, daughter of Charles Lynch Sr. and Jane MacKay, Nuttby.   In 1902 he acquired the Balmoral Grist Mill from the MacKay family which he operated for the remaining 42 years of his life.  Many of the surrounding mills were not continued by his generation so he ended up servicing area that included Waugh’s River, Earltown and West Branch.  They had two children, Archie who continued with the mill and who was it’s last miller before becoming a museum, and Mabel, Mrs. Alan Collins of Ontario.
3. Christena “Christy”, 1881-1948, was married to Charles Lynch Jr., brother of Willena.  They lived on a farm at the crest of Gunn’s Hill overlooking Earltown Village and the surrounding area.  The farm is now a blueberry plantation.  They had two children,  Annie who died young, and Russell who continued on the farm for a number of years.  Russell was married to Belle MacKay of New Truro Road.  After she died in an auto accident in 1940, Russell moved to Ontario.  They had two sons, Donald and William, and also brought up  Harry MacKay, Belle’s son.

2. Donald Matheson MacDonald, 1852-1932, went by Dan and was also known as Donadam to distinguish him from others of the same name. He was the heir to the farm at The Falls.  In 1880 he married Agnes Menzie of Brule, daughter of William Menzie and Agnes Donaldson.  They had one daughter Catherine who died unmarried at the age of 30. Agnes died in 1908 after which Dan married Christena Baillie of Balfron, daughter of Donald Baillie and Annie Sutherland.  She had spent some years working in Boston before returning to the area.  After Dan’s death, she sold the farm and moved in with her siblings at Balmoral.

3. Christena, 1853 – 1932, married George G. Matheson of Upper Kemptown in 1875.   They first lived at the Beck farm in Balfron for a short period before purchasing an undeveloped farm off MacLeod Road.    Details of this family can found here on the Macleod Road post.

4. Elizabeth 1855-1897   Eliza’s story is sort of sad from beginning to end.   She was born the year her father died.   In 1876 she was blessed with a beautiful daughter Margaret outside of legal marriage.   This precipitated a public rebuke at the church, likely administered by her grandfather MacDonald who was a senior elder of the congregation.  The father was a married man which didn’t help the situation.

In the 1880’s  Eliza went to Boston.   Margaret was partially brought up by her grandmother at The Falls and also spent periods of time in Newton, Ma., with her mother.

Eliza married Moncton native Jacob Harris Gibson on Christmas Day in 1886.  However, this relationship did not survive and ended in divorce.  At the age of 40,  Eliza died at her home in Newton.   Her remains were brought home to The Falls and she was buried in Murray’s Cemetery.

Margaret remained in Newton where she married James Henry Kivell in 1908.  In 1909 they had a daughter who died in infancy.  There was no further family and Margaret died in 1918.   James, a mechanic in the employ of the US Army, died in 1925.

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[1] This farm is accessed off the road leading to New Annan.  After the MacDonald family expired, it was the home Jimmie and Frances Langille for many years.  It is now a study centre and retreat for Buddhist practitioners operating under the name Dorje Denma Ling.