My Genealogy Hound

John McDonald, a respected and well known farmer of the Eighth District of Smith County, was born in 1837, in Jackson (now Smith) County, Tenn. He is a son of James P. and Susan (Edleman) McDonald. The father, who is still living, is of Scotch-Irish extraction, born in 1809, in Jackson County, Tenn. He is a farmer by occupation; has been twice married; the last wife was Mrs. Evaline Bolton. The mother of our subject was of Dutch descent, born in North Carolina in 1807, and died in 1875, leaving five children. John McDonald received but a limited education in the common schools of his native county. He remained beneath the paternal roof until about twenty-seven years of age. In 1864 he married Martha Washington, daughter of Robert and Fanny Glover, who was born in 1839, at the place where their marriage occurred. This union resulted in the birth of seven children: Leona C., wife of G. D. Saddler; Ada, George A., Sion B., Lassie and Calvin P.; the fourth born, Fannie, deceased. Soon after marriage Mr. McDonald settled on a portion of the homestead, and since that time purchased the interests of the brothers and sisters, now owning the entire farm, which consists of 240 acres. He enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862 in the Twenty-eighth Tennessee, Capt. Trousdale’s company. By the discharge of a gun in the hands of a careless party Mr. McDonald had his right forefinger shot off while on his way to enter the army. He was delayed by the accident until the following year, when he was elected second lieutenant of Capt. McDonald’s company, in which capacity he served till the fall of 1863, when he was sent home as a recruiting officer. He was cut off from the Southern Army by the Federal troops, whose headquarters were at McMinnville. He was not again able to join the Confederates. He became a loyal citizen in the latter part of the same year. He was a Whig previous to the war, casting his first presidential vote in 1860; he is now a Democrat. He is an honest, industrious and enterprising man. By his own efforts he has become possessed of the old homestead, which is in a good state of cultivation and improvement. He and the eldest two sons are members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and George is only waiting for an opportunity to join. Mrs. McDonald is connected with the Methodist Church.