David Ross McCord was born on March 18, 1844, in Montreal, Quebec.

He was a Canadian lawyer, alderman, and museum founder. His father John Samuel McCord (1801–1865), Judge of the Supreme Court, and his mother Anne Ross (1807-1870), an accomplished watercolour artist, instilled a love of science and art in their children, provided them with a classical education, and insisted that they learn to speak French. McCord studied law at McGill University (B.A.,1863; M.A., L.L.D., 1867) and was called to the bar in 1868, eventually becoming a magistrate who gained fame by intervening on behalf of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada. In 1878, he proposed the establishment of a national museum for Canadian history in his maternal city, and in 1921, the McCord Museum opened its doors with a collection of 15,000 artifacts from his personal collections related to Aboriginal, French, and British history in North America. In 1895, he was named a Queen's Counsel.

In 1878, he married Letitia Caroline Chambers (1834–1928). He died on April 12, 1930, in Guelph, Ontario.