File 8 - Autobiographical notes, volume I

John McDonald, known as John McDonald of Garth, was born around 1771 in Perthshire, Scotland, and died in 1866 in Gray’s Creek near Cornwall (Ontario). He was the son of John McDonald, an army captain of the 8th King’s Regiment, and Magdalen Small. In 1799, McDonald married his cousin Nancy Small, who was a mixed Indigenous woman, and they had five children. In 1823, McDonald deserted Nancy and their home together to marry Amelia McGillis, the daughter of Duncan McGillis and heiress of Hugh McGillis, a partner in the North West Company. They had six children. McDonald worked for the North West Company as a clerk after he moved to Canada in 1791. He served as a clerk in Moose Lake (Manitoba), Fort George (Alberta), and Fort des Prairies. McDonald oversaw the building of Fort Augustus (later called Fort Edmonton) in 1795 and the Rocky Mountain House (Alberta) in 1799. After completing a furlough in 1804, McDonald wintered at Île-à-la-Crosse (Saskatchewan), but returned to the Fort des Prairies Department, where he established New Chesterfield House. In 1805, McDonald returned inland to share the charge of the Red River Department with John Wills and likely helped establish Fort Gibraltar (Winnipeg). He then went to England to participate in his company’s assault by the sea on Fort Astoria (Astoria, Oregon) and in February 1813, he sailed from London on the Isaac Todd. In Portsmouth (New Hampshire), he signed a contract with Jane Barnes, to pay her to sail with him to the Columbia River. She was the first white woman brought to the North Pacific Coast. McDonald took charge of Fort Astoria in November 1813.