You Can Go Home Again

By Frances Mc Donald Santos de Dios (descendent of Roy, Francis, Ronald, Angus, Laughlin, Hugh, Laughlin)

Theresa Mac Donald, my second cousin once removed, had invited me to come to Nova Scotia and this was an opportunity I did not want to miss! On 8/10/05 I flew from Boston’s Logan Airport to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Theresa has eight grown children and the youngest daughter, Barbara, met me at the airport. I stayed two nights with more relatives – Kenny and Lynette Douglas (she was a Mac Donald, of course). Theresa’s niece, Elaine Macdonald (this is the correct spelling of their name), and her two young daughters, Elizabeth and Katherine, and I took a walking tour of Halifax the next day. Saturday morning, Barbara and I left to pick up her brother, David. The three of us drove north to Cape Breton Island. It should have been a 4-½ drive, but a HAZMAT truck overturned and we were routed over a one-hour detour. We arrived in Sydney Forks late afternoon; a lot of beautiful scenery had gone by. I had talked my cousin, Dan McCoy, into coming and we met him about suppertime at the Sydney Airport (one gate to leave and one gate to arrive – all airports should be like this). For the next 12 days we hung out, laughed, played cards (Tarabish), and got to know the family. It is a blood sport there to sit around and figure out who is related to whom! We were able to look at hundreds of old photos. Just after arriving Theresa handed me a photo that had been in Nova Scotia for about 80 years. It was a photo of my Dad, Roy Mc Donald, and three of his siblings circa 1925. I had never seen it before.
Theresa Mac Donald (name always spelled this way in Nova Scotia) was our hostess. Her grandfather, James, was the brother of our great great grandfather, Ronald. She lives in the house that James and Ronald’s father, Angus, built circa 1860. You can still see hand hewed beams downstairs. Theresa has eight grown children (third cousins of ours) and seven of them were home while we were there in Sydney Forks – Diane, David, Donald, Marilyn, Robert, Cameron, Gerald and Barbara. We missed meeting Donald as he had come home earlier in the summer.
Ronald left Nova Scotia for the second time between 1874 and 1878. He left behind nine brothers and sisters and his mother. We were asked over and over why he went to California and we do not know the answer to that question. The lore is that he went to the California Gold Rush when he left the first time. Since he was born in 1834, he would have been 14 years old when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California so it is my personal opinion that this was not likely. It is also the oral history of the family that he worked his way around the horn as a butcher on a ship to California when he left the first time. We just don’t know why he went and why he came back to Nova Scotia. He married great grandma, Elizabeth Gillis (Betsy?) on 14 February 1871 at St. Mary’s Church in East Bay. They returned to California after their first child, Mary Ann (Mamie), was born in Nova Scotia. Their second child, Margaret, was born in California in1878. Ronald is buried in an unmarked grave in the old Catholic Cemetery “against the hill” in San Luis Obispo, California. Elizabeth (Betsy/Betty) is buried at Mission San Miguel Archangel in San Miguel, California.

One day, we all went to the cemetery in Grand Mira overlooking the Mira River. What a beautiful spot. Angus and his father, Laughlin, were both buried here. There were no old graves there and we heard the following story – 29 years ago the priest, Father Paul Mac Donald, had the old graves down by the water bulldozed as the alder saplings were growing up there. One story is that the headstones were not kept. Another is that not all the graves were marked anyway. I have written the Archdiocese of Antigonish to see if there is any record of the burials or deaths, as the graves no longer exist.
Cape Breton is noted for its music and especially its fiddlers. One night we went to a restaurant down by the water in Sydney (with a full moon and a ferry slipping in from Newfoundland); they have jam sessions there on Thursday nights. There was a piano, banjo and eventually 14 fiddlers as they kept coming in and just sitting down to play. It was amazing. I sat there, had my annual beer and enjoyed every note.
Theresa had arranged a reunion for August 20th. There was a wedding in the greater family on the same day and still 72 people came to the reunion. We must be related to half the people on the northern part of Cape Breton Island! It was fun and interesting. Theresa even discovered she was related to several people in more ways than one that day. Father Donny Mac Donald was at the reunion and is a “Mac Donald family tree expert.”
We came back to the house and they had a guitar and bass guitar playing music. I listened to every note. Cameron Mac Donald also played for us earlier a song about the Campbell massacre of the Mac Donalds at Glencoe in Scotland. I have been to Glencoe, which is a dark, and foreboding place. The song is quite lovely despite the subject. It tells the story of the Mac Donalds housing and feeding the Campbells. In the night, the Campbells rose up and slaughtered the MacDonalds. It was not OK in that day to slaughter your hosts! It is a much longer story, but this will give you the gist. The song is unbelievably beautiful and I play it over and over.
We drove the Cape Breton Trail for 10 hours one day around the top of Cape Breton – beautiful country. Another day we went to the Probate Office in Sydney and found the Wills’ of James and Angus Mac Donald. Angus left $20 to his grandson, Hugh Gillis, when he leaves the house! We also went to the library and found Crown Grant papers for the property in Sydney Forks dated from 1832. By 1851 a Mr. Munroe owned and it sold it to a Mr. Shaw (Shaw Grant). Something happened in the next seven years as in 1858 the same piece of land was sold to Angus Mac Donald. There is a smaller piece of land attached called the Dodd Grant. These properties are where Theresa Mac Donald lives in Sydney Forks to this day.
We walked the fields by the house and down to the lake out back. It was special to be in the place where our great great grandparents had been since 1860 for the duration of their lives. The original large stone step is still there by the veranda.
While we were visiting there were often 10 people sleeping the house and maybe 14 or 15 for dinner. I told Theresa I had never seen a house like it and she replied, “I bet you haven’t.” This house has always been used as a way station – teachers lived here, priests stopped by for dinner or to stay over, relatives came to eat, visit or live, people were born and waked here. The house has a long and illustrious history.
By the time we left we felt like we were leaving home rather than going home. As Dan said, this family has something that not many families have in the modern world. These are only a few of the highlights of this trip. It was a very special experience. I write this with many thanks to Theresa Mac Donald and her family for all their kindness to two “stray relatives.”

(Cousin Frances lives in Houston and a letter from her in an article entitled "Grandpa's Graffitti" can be found in the Winter 2000 issue of the Newsletter.) #####################################################################################################################

Mac or Mc?

"Which is correct, Mac Donald or Mc Donald?" This is a question I have been asked dozens of times since I started my research. People tell me, "My grandfather swears that Mac is the only proper way to spell this surname." Others say, "If it is Irish it is Mc but if it is Scottish it is Mac." I arived at the unscientific conclussion that it is just a matter of preference and no more than that. In our own family I see it spelled both ways. In my database I have 639 Mc Donalds and 363 Mac Donalds. Almost double the number of family's preferred Mc. But I am not sure that proves much for I see many of our ancestors changed the spelling from one generation to another and then back again. I really don't care which version people choose to use. I just wish they would become more imaginative about assigning given names; we have 41 Mary Mc Donalds and 37 Mary Mc Donalds, and there are plenty of Johns, 41 Mcs and 19 Macs.
So gang it's your choice for the last name but lets have more Madisons, Kyles and Tylers and less Cassies and Lockies.
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The Late John M. Macdonald

Tributes given to the late senator by his peers upon his death in 1997.
Hon. B. Alasdair Graham (Leader of the Government):
"Honourable senators, many of you know that Cape Breton is a lovely place of deep valleys and spectacular vistas. Its quiet beauty, mixed with the rich culture and fierce pride of its inhabitants, makes it a place that instils incredible love and loyalty in those fortunate enough to call it home. As a matter of fact, there are those who still insist that there are two kinds of Cape Bretoners: those who were born there and those who wish they were born there. Some people even consider their birth on the island as a personal accomplishment, rather than a biological accident. Having said all of that, you will know that I speak with a lot of pride and just a little bit of prejudice.
Today I rise to pay tribute to one of Cape Breton's most outstanding native sons. One of the greatest tributes I can pay my old friend and colleague is that no man or woman ever bore greater love for Cape Breton; no man or woman ever bore more loyalty to its people than the late Senator John M. Macdonald. He was buried on June 24, 1997: 37 years to the day he was called to the Senate by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. If John Macdonald is looking down on us right now - as I am rather sure he is - he is probably having a good laugh at the irony of all that. I visited him personally shortly before he passed away. Tough and razor sharp, even in his final days, he always said he would leave the Senate when they carried him out.
I spent many a day and night in the Sydney airport travelling to and from Ottawa with John M. He was meticulously punctual, arriving as much as two hours before scheduled lift-off. He was easily recognizable by his hat, his slightly stooped figure, his ever-present cane in later years, his sizeable shoes - which will be very hard to fill - and his very determined step.
I am sure he chuckled, too, when the Senate delegation arrived at the Sydney Airport on the day of his funeral. Their arrival coincided with a rather large exercise being staged by the Canadian Armed Forces. The tarmac was dotted with several fighter planes, helicopters and big Hercules aircraft. It was probably the biggest display of force seen in that area since the convoys were assembled in Sydney Harbour during World War II. You could almost hear John M. say, "Boys, you really didn't have to go that far."
If he could speak to us now, he would be able to tell some wonderful stories. During those 37 years, he spent 22 of them as the Conservative caucus whip and participated in some of the most historic debates this country has witnessed. He would reminisce on the bitterness of the flag debate; he would tell us about the debate on capital punishment, in which he introduced his own private bill on abolition; he would recall the great patriation debate, his strong views on changes to the abortion law, the causes he championed which concerned transportation, veterans, fishermen, coalminers, steelworkers, and so many others. Think about it: John Macdonald's death at 91 meant an extraordinary career that spanned those of eight Prime ministers. John M. was loyal, direct and principled; honest as the sun. Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
`An honest man's the noblest work of God.'
Thus wrote Robert Burns. John M. was an honest, noble man, who served his party, his community, and the people of eastern Nova Scotia until the end. He is now at rest in his beloved Cape Breton. That is where his heart was; that is where it has always been, and that is why all of us who knew him so well still miss him so very much."
Hon. John Lynch-Staunton (Leader of the Opposition):
"Honourable senators, this afternoon I look along the front bench of my party to the place where John M. Macdonald sat for so many years; sat as if on action alert, ready to pop up in mid-debate and caution the Speaker that he was losing control of what was going on here in this chamber. When the tactic worked, he would sit back again, his hand on his cane, a twinkle in his eye, and on his face a wicked smile that would take in his regiment of friends on both sides of the chamber. Diminutive he was, and hardly what you would call garrulous or persistent in argument. Each of us might have described him differently. He might have skippered the boat that carried Bonnie Prince Charlie to Skye! At least that is the way he seemed to me: Still; ready for the worst that the seas and winds might send; never perplexed by political wars; ever adaptable to the generosity of his fate.
In return for high standards of service, fate was kind through his 91 years. He was born in 1906, the year of the San Francisco earthquake, and like many of us he liked to pinpoint the milestones of his life with the miracles and disasters that coincided with his ups and downs.
When I paid tribute to him here on the occasion of his 90th birthday, I chose my words carefully when I said that:
He stands tall among us as a Canadian, as a Roman Catholic and as a Conservative. He is slavish to none of these faiths, but honest to all of them, even when they seem to be in conflict with one another. In his reply to these comments and to those kind ones made by Senator Fairbairn as Leader of the Government - she called him a true example of excellence and dedication - he said very snappily:
As a young man entering politics, I had one resolution, namely: Do not believe all the things that are said about you, good or bad! The trouble is that after a while you get to believe it yourself."
He continued:
"I must say it took me a long time to get a mention on the front page of the Cape Breton Post, but I finally made it after 90 years. John Michael Macdonald was born in North Sydney, the son of a Nova Scotia cabinet minister. After Dalhousie and St. Francis Xavier universities and time as a school teacher, union officer and school principal, he served in the Nova Scotia legislature, the House of Commons, and, at the wish of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, was dispatched to the Senate in 1960. When he became Conservative whip here, Government Leader Duff Roblin remarked:
He exemplifies the art of party management brought to its best degree. He is one of those men blessed with the gift of succinct expression. The file of John M.'s speeches is a running commentary on the great events and political vexations that roused Canadian concerns in a long public career, which John M. topped with his final labours as the last of the lifers in the Senate. It is worth focusing briefly on some of those Macdonald occasions - just to get a measure of the man."
Footnote: I had the pleasure of meeting John several years ago when I visited his office in North Sydney.He was my second cousin, son of Theresa, daughter of my grandfather's older bro, Ronald. We chatted about our common ancestors and at one point I commented about the picture of him in the senate chambers that hung on the wall. Without another word, he immediatly lifted it from the wall and gave it to me. I found him to be a kind and generous man.
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JACK LONDON’S “SEA WOLF”

By Pat MacADAM

(The McDonald property on Meadows Road, land which the family has owned for some one hundred and seventy years, adjoined the farm where their clansman, Alex Mac Lean, alias the Sea Wolf, was born. Sister Agnes Clair, daughter of Agnes McDonald, who was raised by Senator William McDonald was supervisor of all the schools run by the Sisters of Halifax. One day her St. Peter's School in Dorchester was showing the film The Sea Wolf. When told the pirate had been the family's neighbor she almost collapsed on the scene. The family evidently had not displayed his picture on the mantle!)
Prolific American novelist, Jack London, author of such classics as “Call of the Wild” and “White Fang”, hoboed around Canada and the United States. He followed the Gold Rush to the Klondike. While in the North, he met up with a colorful sea captain by the name of Alexander MacLean, a native of East Bay, Cape Breton.
When Jack London wrote his novel “Sea Wolf” in 1904, there was little doubt who the hero – a tough, brawling sea captain named Wolf Larsen – was modelled after.
Actually Jack London’s and Captain Alex MacLean’s paths had crossed several times – not just in the Klondike. They also met in the saloons of San Francisco, along the Oakland, California, waterfront and probably on Pacific northwest sealing waters.
When Jack London’s best-selling “Sea Wolf” appeared, Captain MacLean jokingly threatened to throw the author into the ocean for portraying him as the Swedish sea captain, Wolf Larsen, rather than a Cape Breton Scot.
Alex MacLean and his older brother, Dan, were sailing on the Bras d’Or Lakes from the time they could walk. Local Scots joked that the MacLeans had their own boat during the Biblical Flood and sailed alongside Noah’s Ark.
The careers of Alex and Dan MacLean and Jack London paralleled each other. They all left school at early ages to follow the sea. The MacLeans had a strict Scottish religious upbringing from God-fearing parents, but Jack London, said to be the illegitimate son of itinerant astrologer, William Henry Chaney, was raised by a family with neither fixed address nor fixed occupation.
Jack London left school at age 14, bought a sloop and raided oyster beds along Oakland Bay. The MacLeans headed for the northern sealing grounds on board the schooner City of San Diego, with older brother Dan as skipper and Alex as first mate.
The Pacific northwest sealing grounds were considered to be the private hunting preserves of Russia, the United States and Britain. The Alaska Commercial Company owned a 20-year lease on the Aleutian sealing area and their monopoly was reinforced by U.S. revenue cutters. However, this was a minor inconvenience to the MacLeans and they ignored it completely, poaching at will.
The brothers were probably the most successful seal hunters on the west coast. In 1886, Captain Dan returned to port with a record 4,250 skins and Alex trailed behind him with 3,300. Their combined harvest was a prize valued at more than $60,000. In 1888, Alex dropped anchor in Victoria with what he believed to be the largest cargo of sealskins ever landed.
When he learned that a rival sealer had off-loaded an even larger catch, be put out on a second hunt and returned with an indisputable largest number of sealskins ever landed in Victoria.
Normally, the MacLeans sailed out of Victoria flying the Red Ensign. Once, sailing the J. Hamilton Lewis , Captain Dan was challenged by a Russian gunboat which, by sheer coincidence, was named Alexander. Captain Dan had no qualms about running up the Stars and Stripes and ignoring the armed Russian patrol boat. The ruse worked.
On another occasion, Captain Alex was caught raiding a seal rookery on Copper Island by the Russians. He was bracketed by Russian gunfire and a crew member drowned when he was swept overboard. The Russian gunship ordered Alex to heave to but he ignored the warning. More shots were fired across his bow and the Russian vessel Aleut steamed down across MacLean’s bow, carrying away his ship’s forerigging.
An armed Russian party boarded MacLean’s ship and escorted her to Petropaulovski and then on to Vladivostock where the crew was interned briefly on board their own ship. They were permitted to roam the Russian town freely by day but had to be back on board their ship by 8 p.m.
Even as a prisoner of the Russians, Alex MacLean’s brawling habits came to the fore. As he was crossing over mud on duckboards, he was confronted by three bemedalled Russian officers from the local garrison. They were walking three abreast.
Alex MacLean had no intention of being deferential and yielding to the three Russian militia officers who soon found themselves up to their necks in mud. Soldiers rushed to their aid and Alex was frog-marched back to his lock-up.
An international tribunal later found Alex MacLean innocent of poaching or any wrongdoing but his long incarceration meant that he had missed the season’s seal hunt. Not to worry. Off he went to the Yukon to dig for gold. They found accommodation at a hotel in Bennett City owned by a MacNeil, a distant cousin from Washabuck.
Alex wasn’t in Bennett City long before he was warned of a card cheat in the hotel’s saloon. The crooked gambler played with two loaded pistols on the table in front of him. Alex called him a cheat and was immediately challenged to a duel.
MacLean said that he had the right to choose the distance over which they would fire at one another and the card cheat agreed.
MacLean said: “All right, you stand on one side of the card table and I’ll stand on the other side. Now.”
The cheat would have no part of MacLean’s point blank distance and pleased for his life.
MacLean disarmed the cheat, administered a severe thrashing and threw him outside into a cold northern snowbank.
Alex’s hunting was not restricted to seals or gold. He spent some time in the South Seas poaching French oyster beds for pearls. The French harvested the rich pearl beds every 10 years. MacLean plundered them in the ninth year. But, he was spotted looting the beds by a French gunboat.
His ship, Carmecita, sailing under Mexican registry, was forced to leave. MacLean’s crew had hidden their booty in tar pitch between the ship’s planks. He told the French he had anchored in the lagoon to take on fresh water and fish. The French found no evidence of pearls on board but they were nonetheless suspicious and MacLean’s ship was impounded.
Under cover of darkness and an approaching storm, the real life Sea Wolf and his crew overpowered their guards, rowed their ship out of the lagoon, set full sail and were never seen again by the French. A Maritime historian, W.A. Claymore, wrote that the French gunship “couldn’t have caught them had they tried”. Most of the schooners being used by sealers were Maritimers, direct forebears of the fast schooner Bluenose.
After the voyage, Captain Alex sported a new tie pin – a pink pearl set in five golden claws.
Alex MacLean was a fierce looking sea captain. His trademark was an 18-inch moustache that he could tie in a knot at the back of his neck. He was 5’ 11” tall and weighed 190 pounds. Reports of his brawling prowess are legendary. Once, he took exception to negligence by his 230-pound first mate. The mate had allowed several crew members to jump ship and join another sealing vessel (which happened to be his brother Dan’s ship). Alex announced he was “going to give him (the first mate) a thrashing”.
He ordered the crew below, battened the hatches, took off his shirt and, for half an hour, punched his first officer senseless. MacLean didn’t have a scratch on him after the fisticuffs but he didn’t bear a grudge. He considered his mate a good seaman, dressed his cuts and scrapes, shook hands with him and kept him on as second in command.
Like Alex MacLean, Jack London’s fictional character, Wolf Larsen, was the skipper of a sealing ship. They were both known for their great physical power but Alex MacLean did not possess Larsen’s ruthless nature. Back home in East Bay, he was known for his kindness and his generosity with money.
Alex MacLean probably would not have grasped the symbolism behind Jack London’s story of the Sea Wolf, the cult of “red blood” and a breed of Nietzschean supermen engaged in various and violent inner and outer struggles.
Jack London’s idols were Marx and Nietzsche who were poles apart in their ideologies and London championed them – first one and then the other – both in his life and in his novels. Alex MacLean probably never heard of either and historians disagree whether or not he could read.
Captain MacLean never left the sea. He was captain of Favorite when he accidentally drowned in Vancouver harbour in 1914 at the age of 56. There were reports that, in his lifetime, he had killed 50 men but he maintained he never killed anyone “though I have lost 59 men”. It has also been recorded that he marooned sailors who fell afoul of his iron discipline.
Once, he told a crew member “if you want to go ashore, swim for it” and threw him overboard.
Jack London put the sea behind him at a young age and tramped through Canada and the United States for two years before enrolling at the University of California for one semester. He contracted scurvy in the Klondike and returned home to Oakland to write. Until his death in 1916, he wrote 19 novels and scores of short stories.
London’s best-selling works made him as popular in the English-speaking world as Rudyard Kipling.
Alex MacLean, the real life Sea Wolf, never did get to carry out his threat to throw Jack London into the Pacific Ocean.