Description Eastern Chronicle, 1857

Printed in the Eastern Chronicle on 22 January, 1857.

DEATH OF A CENTENARIAN - Died at Braefield, C.W., James McDonald, long known as a ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Congregation, of upper Settlement E. River, Pictou, aged one hundred and three years.

He was a native of Invernesshire, N.B., and sailed for Nova Scotia, during the American Revolutionary war.  On the passage the vessel was boarded by a portion of the crew of a British ship of war, and he with others of the emigrants, was impressed and taken to Boston, from which after a short time they were ordered to Halifax.  Having served his term of eight years in the army in this city, he received land on the East River of Pictou where he settled.

He was engaged with others in cutting a road between Pictou and Truro, in 1786 when the Rev. Dr. McGregor, then a very young man of 26 passed along from Halifax where he landed, to Pictou, the scene of his labors, and James McDonald was thus among the first by whom he was welcomed.

Being a man of integrity and piety, he was more than a century ago, chosen as a Ruling Elder, the duties of which office he faithfully discharged till his departure for Canada in 1--3, whither some of his family had previously removed.  In the Congregation of the Rev. Mr Proudfoot of London, C. W., he was re-elected a spiritual officebearer, and acted as such for many years.

He retained his faculties until his death, though occasionally somewhat impaired, and could tell to his great, grand-children who surrounded him, the stirring transactions of a by-gone century.  He walked without aid, and without even a staff on the day previous to his decease. - Communicated to Presbyterian Witness