Lansing Mich, March 5. While presiding in the senate
yesterday, Lieut. Gov. McDonald was
handed a telegram from a friend announcing to him that a sister from whom he
had not heard from and he had not seen for 39 years was alive, giving her
address. The news so unmanned him that
he called the President Pro Tem Monroe to the chair and retired to his room.
Here he was seen later and finally related his life history, as follows: "
When I was only three years old my father and his family left our home in
Scotland and came to Pictou, Nova Scotia. I remained there until I was about
16, but becoming discontented, started out to see the world. This was 1848.
Since that time I have never seen nor heard from a member in my family until
to-day. I do not know why I did not write to them, but I wandered around so
much, and was for many years engaged in the hardest of labor, that I let the
years slip by an and finally did not care to write them, for I knew many sad changes must have taken place. I
worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania for three years, and then was a
section hand on the Ohio Central until it was completed to Cleveland. Then I came
to Wisconsin and assisted in the building the Milwaukee and La Crosse line now
the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul,
living at the same time at Beaver Dam. In 1859 I was sent by Selah Chamberlain
to Cuba, but could not stand the climate, and returned the following summer. In
1863 I removed to Escanaba, where I have since resided
"And you have never saw or
heard form any of you’re your family in all these years?"
"No; not a word. I think I'll go down to Boston, though
and see my sister just as soon as I can get away. She is the only sister I ever
had, though I must have several brothers yet living."
"How did you come to find
her ?"
" I didn't find her. When I made the race for the the
position I now hold, last fall, it seems that she saw my name and wrote to
Canadian friends making inquiries regarding me. They made other inquiries here.
I have just learned that my sister is living and well."
The Governor as he is always called, is a plain man of the
people, self made and self taught. He is intellectual in appearance and
pleasant in his manners. His hair is as white as snow, but his eye is as keen
as a boy's and his laugh as cherry.
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