This is a 1854 photograph 9 x 7 , in original frame by j.a. Noel photographer North Bay.
With Feb. 18 , 1932 inscription from John Mcgrail of North Bay
To a.c. casselman Esq

Sir John A. Macdonald

1st Prime Minister of Canada
In office
17 October 1878 – 6 June 1891
Monarch Victoria
Governor-General The Earl of Dufferin
Marquess of Lorne
The Marquess of Lansdowne
The Lord Stanley of Preston
Preceded by Alexander Mackenzie
Succeeded by John Abbott
In office
1 July 1867 – 5 November 1873
Monarch Victoria
Governor-General The Viscount Monck
The Lord Lisgar
The Earl of Dufferin
Preceded by Position established
Succeeded by Alexander Mackenzie
Personal details
Born John Alexander Macdonald
11 January 1815
Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
Died 6 June 1891 (aged 76)
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Resting place Cataraqui Cemetery, Kingston, Ontario
Political party Liberal-Conservative
Spouse(s) Isabella Clark
(1843–1857, her death)
Agnes Bernard
(1867–1891, his death)
Children 3
Profession Lawyer
Religion Anglican
(Previously Presbyterian)
Signature
Military service
Nickname(s) "Old Chieftain"
Allegiance United Kingdom Upper Canada
Service/branch Loyalist militia
Years of service 1837–1838
Rank Private
Unit Kingston militia
Battles/wars
Rebellions of 1837

Upper Canada Rebellion
Sir John Alexander Macdonald GCB KCMG PC PC QC (11 January 1815 – 6 June 1891) was the first Prime Minister of Canada (1867–1873, 1878–1891). The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career which spanned almost half a century. He drank heavily, and in 1873 was voted out during the Pacific Scandal, in which his party took bribes from businessmen seeking the contract to build the Pacific Railway. Macdonald's greatest achievements were building and guiding a successful national government for the new Dominion, using patronage to forge a strong Conservative Party, promoting the protective tariff of the National Policy, and building the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway. Economic growth was slow during his years in office, as Canada verged on stagnation; many residents migrated to the fast-growing United States. He fought to block provincial efforts to take power back from Ottawa. His most controversial move was to approve the execution of Métis leader Louis Riel for treason in 1885; it alienated many Francophones.

Macdonald was born in Scotland; when he was a boy his family immigrated to Kingston in the colony of Upper Canada (today in eastern Ontario). As a lawyer he was involved in several high-profile cases and quickly became prominent in Kingston, which elected him in 1844 to the legislature of the colonial United Province of Canada. By 1857 had become premier under the colony's unstable political system.

When in 1864 no party proved capable of governing for long, Macdonald agreed to a proposal from his political rival, George Brown, that the parties unite in a Great Coalition to seek federation and political reform. Macdonald was the leading figure in the subsequent discussions and conferences, which resulted in the British North America Act and the birth of Canada as a nation on 1 July 1867. Macdonald was the first Prime Minister of the new nation, and served 19 years; only William Lyon Mackenzie King served longer.

Contents
Early years, 1815–1830

John Alexander Macdonald was born in Ramshorn parish in Glasgow, Scotland, on 11 January 1815.[a] His father was Hugh Macdonald, an unsuccessful merchant, who had married John's mother, Helen Shaw, on 21 October 1811. John Alexander Macdonald was the third of five children. After Hugh Macdonald's business ventures left him in debt, the family immigrated to Kingston, in Upper Canada (today the southern and eastern portions of Ontario), in 1820, where there were already a number of Macdonald relatives and connections.

The Macdonalds initially lived with another family, but then resided over a store which Hugh Macdonald ran. Soon after their arrival, John's younger brother James died from a blow to the head by a servant who was supposed to look after the boys. After Hugh's store failed, the family moved to Hay Bay (south of Napanee, Ontario), west of Kingston, where Hugh unsuccessfully ran another shop. His father, in 1829, was appointed a magistrate for the Midland District.John Macdonald's mother was a lifelong influence on her son, helping him in his difficult first marriage and remaining a force in his life until her 1862 death.

John initially attended local schools. When he was aged 10, his family scraped together the money to send him to Midland District Grammar School in Kingston.Macdonald's formal schooling ended at 15, a common school-leaving age at a time when only children from the most prosperous families were able to attend university. Nevertheless, Macdonald later regretted leaving school when he did, remarking to his secretary Joseph Pope that if he had attended university, he might have embarked on a literary career.

Law career, 1830–1843

Legal training and early career, 1830–1837
Macdonald's parents decided he should become a lawyer after leaving school.[8] As Donald Creighton (who penned a two-volume biography of Macdonald in the 1950s) wrote, "law was a broad, well-trodden path to comfort, influence, even to power".It was also "the obvious choice for a boy who seemed as attracted to study as he was uninterested in trade."Besides, Macdonald needed to start earning money immediately to support his family because his father's businesses were again failing. "I had no boyhood," he complained many years later. "From the age of 15, I began to earn my own living."

A few months after he opened his first law office in 1835, Macdonald moved with his parents and sisters to this 2 1⁄2-storey stone house on Kingston's Rideau Street.
Macdonald travelled by steamboat to Toronto (known until 1834 as York), where he passed an examination set by The Law Society of Upper Canada, including mathematics, Latin, and history. British North America had no law schools in 1830; students were examined when beginning and ending their tutelage. Between the two examinations, they were apprenticed, or articled to established lawyers.Macdonald began his apprenticeship with George Mackenzie, a prominent young lawyer who was a well-regarded member of Kingston's rising Scottish community. Mackenzie practised corporate law, a lucrative speciality that Macdonald himself would later pursue. Macdonald was a promising student, and in the summer of 1833, managed the Mackenzie office when his employer went on a business trip to Montreal and Quebec in Lower Canada (today the southern portion of the province of Quebec). Later that year, Macdonald was sent to manage the law office of a Mackenzie cousin who had fallen ill.

In August 1834, George Mackenzie died of cholera. With his supervising lawyer dead, Macdonald remained at the cousin's law office in Hallowell (today Picton, Ontario). In 1835, Macdonald returned to Kingston, and even though not yet of age nor qualified, began his practice as a lawyer, hoping to gain his former employer's clients.Macdonald's parents and sisters also returned to Kingston, and Hugh Macdonald became a bank clerk.

Soon after Macdonald was called to the Bar in February 1836, he arranged to take in two students; both became, like Macdonald, Fathers of Confederation. Oliver Mowat became premier of Ontario, and Alexander Campbell a federal cabinet minister and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. One early client was Eliza Grimason, an Irish immigrant then aged sixteen, who sought advice concerning a shop she and her husband wanted to buy. Grimason would become one of Macdonald's richest and most loyal supporters, and may have also become his lover.Macdonald joined many local organisations, seeking to become well known in the town. He also sought out high-profile cases, representing accused child rapist William Brass. Brass was hanged for his crime, but Macdonald attracted positive press comments for the quality of his defence. According to his biographer, Richard Gwyn:

As a criminal lawyer who took on dramatic cases, Macdonald got himself noticed well beyond the narrow confines of the Kingston business community. He was operating now in the arena where he would spend by far the greatest part of his life – the court of public opinion. And, while there, he was learning the arts of argument and of persuasion that would serve him all his political life.

Legal prominence, 1837–43
All male Upper Canadians between 18 and 60 years of age were members of the Sedentary Militia, which was called into active duty during the Rebellions of 1837. Macdonald served as a private in the militia, patrolling the area around Kingston, but the town saw no real action and Macdonald was not called upon to fire on the enemy.

Although most of the trials resulting from the Upper Canada Rebellion took place in Toronto, Macdonald represented one of the defendants in the one trial to take place in Kingston. All the Kingston defendants were acquitted, and a local paper described Macdonald as "one of the youngest barristers in the Province [who] is rapidly rising in his profession".

Battle of the Windmill, near Prescott, Upper Canada, 13 November 1838
In late 1838, Macdonald agreed to advise one of a group of American raiders who had crossed the border to liberate Canada from what they saw as the yoke of British colonial oppression. The inept invaders had been captured after the Battle of the Windmill (near Prescott, Ontario), in which 16 Canadians were killed and 60 wounded. Public opinion was inflamed against the prisoners, as they were accused of mutilating the body of a dead Canadian lieutenant. Macdonald biographer Donald Creighton wrote that Kingston was "mad with grief and rage and horror" at the allegations. Macdonald could not represent the prisoners, as they were tried by court-martial and civilian counsel had no standing. At the request of Kingston relatives of Daniel George, paymaster of the ill-fated invasion, Macdonald agreed to advise George, who, like the other prisoners, had to conduct his own defence.George was convicted and hanged.According to Macdonald biographer Donald Swainson, "By 1838, Macdonald's position was secure. He was a public figure, a popular young man, and a senior lawyer."

The British Parliament merged Upper and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada effective in 1841. Kingston became the initial capital of the new province; Upper Canada and Lower