The M'Donalds.

The name suggests its Scottish origin, and Glencoe as the original 
home of the family. After the close of the revolution of 1688 
many of the Scottish clans continued in arms for King James 
against William and Mary. 

In August, 1691, the government of William and Mary issued a 
proclamation offering amnesty to such insurgents as should take 
the oath of allegiance on or before the 31st day of December 
then next ensuing. All the chiefs submitted within the 
prescribed time, except the aged Macdonald of Glencoe, whose 
clan inhabited or lived in the pass of Glencoe. He went to
Fort William on December 31st and offered to take the oath, but 
the officer in command, not having authority to administer it, 
referred the matter to the Sheriff, before whom Macdonald took 
the oath on January 6th,1692; this, however, did not satisfy the 
adherents of King William, who determined to avail themselves 
of this unintentional delay to effect the destruction of the 
clans. On February 12th a body of 120 soldiers, commanded by 
Campbell, murdered Macdonald and two of his attendants, and
so wounded his wife that she died the next day. About forty 
persons were killed that night. 

Detachments of soldiers sent to guard the outlets of
the valley arrived too late, and many of the clans escaped 
half naked to the mountains, where a considerable number of the 
women and children perished of cold and hunger--("McCauley's His. 
of England, Vol. IV").

Shortly after this massacre, supposed to have been between 
1692 and 1700,Bryan McDonald and Mary Combs McDonald, with their 
family, having first migrated to Ireland, came from thence to 
America, and settled at or near New Castle, Delaware, then in 
the Province of Pennsylvania, and presently purchased of William 
Penn, the proprietor, a large and valuable tract of
land. 

Bryan McDonald and family came, in 1756, to the Virginia 
Valley, having been preceded some years earlier by two of his 
sons, Joseph and Edward. In a battle with the Indians, in 1761, 
near Amsterdam, in what is now Botetourt County, Edward, a bright 
and promising young lawyer, was killed. He left four daughters, 
two of whom married Campbells, one married a Greenway, and one a 
Russell. Their descendants are numerous, prominent and influential 
people; one of them, David Campbell, was Governor of
Virginia; William went to Tennessee; Dr. Edward McDonald Campbell 
and Judge John A. Campbell were their descendants.  The Russells 
lived in south-west Virginia, and the Greenways in Lynchburg 
and Baltimore.

Joseph McDonald married Miss Elizabeth Ogle, whose ancestors had 
come from Castle Ogle, Northumberland County, England. They, the 
Ogles, came to England with William the Norman. Joseph McDonald, 
who was born April 4th,1722, after his marriage came, in 1763, 
over the Alleghanies and settled in what is now Montgomery County, 
then Augusta. He died in 1809. 

In the American Revolution he served in Captain Kirkpatrick's 
Company. He had six sons in the American Army; Richard was a 
Major, Edward was a Captain, and Alexander served in Captain 
Thompson's Company. Powder for the Patriot Army was manufactured 
on his farm, and a government tannery established, as well as 
provisions gathered there. All these supplies had to be
largely, if not altogether, transported to the army on horses, 
and this proved a dangerous business, on account of Indian 
forays. Captain Edward McDonald was in the Border Wars against 
the Indians, and in scouting expeditions toward the Ohio.

Joseph McDonald had ten children in the following order as to 
ages: Bryan,who married Mary Bane; John, who married Miss 
Sawyers, second Miss Cannaday; Joseph, who married Nancie 
Sawyers; Edward, who married Keziah Stephens; Richard, who 
married Mrs. Mary Martin; Alexander, who married Elizabeth 
Taylor, niece of President Taylor; William, who married Ursula
Huff, daughter of Dr. Huff; Elizabeth, who married Samuel 
Ingram; Jonas,who married Elizabeth Foster; James, who married, 
first Elizabeth New,second Mary Flournoy. The descendants of 
Joseph McDonald have scattered over many states of the union, 
and have held many prominent positions,many of them able and 
distinguished persons. A great many of them were slain, or 
died, in the war between the states.

Joseph McDonald Sanders, a bright young lawyer of Mercer 
County, West Virginia, who served eight years as Judge of the 
9th Judicial Circuit of West Virginia, and who was recently 
elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West 
Virginia, is a great-great-grandson of Joseph
McDonald, and great-grandson of Edward McDonald and Keziah 
Stephens McDonald.

During the American Revolution one David Hughes, formerly of 
North Carolina, and a Tory, while scouting through the wilderness 
country toward the Ohio River, discovered that beautiful body of 
valuable land on the Clear Fork of Guyandotte, in the now County 
of Wyoming. He informed the above mentioned Edward McDonald of 
his discovery, with whom he agreed for one blanket and a rifle 
gun to show him this land, which he did, and in 1780 McDonald 
entered and surveyed the same; and in 1802, together with
his son-in-law, Captain James Shannon, removed to the Guyandotte 
Valley and took possession of his valuable property; his son-in-law,
Captain Shannon, settling a few miles away on the Big Fork of the 
Guyandotte. When Captain Shannon took possession of his land he 
found still standing on the bottoms the Indian wigwams.

Edward McDonald had several sons and daughters. The sons, 
Joseph, William and Stephen, settled on the lands given them by 
their father out of the homestead. One daughter married Captain 
James Shannon; one Captain Thomas Peery; one Augustus Pack; one 
William Chapman. Joseph McDonald married Nancy Chapman, daughter 
of Isaac Chapman and his wife, Elian Johnston Chapman, and their 
children were Sallie, who married John Sanders; Juliett, who 
married John Tiffany; Elizabeth, who married John Anderson,
and Nancy, who married Lewis McDonald. W. W. McDonald, of Logan, 
married Miss Scaggs; Lewis, the son of Joseph, married, first 
Miss McDonald, second Miss Keffer. John C., Floyd and Colonel 
Isaac E. were never married; the two former died in the army 
during the Civil War. 

Colonel Isaac E. lived on the McDonald homestead, in Wyoming 
County, until 1876,when he purchased, by exchange, the valuable 
farm of Mr. George Pearis George, on Bluestone, in Tazewell 
County, Virginia. Colonel Isaac E. was a member of the Virginia 
Legislature in 1861, and of the West Virginia Senate for several 
years.

The family of William McDonald, son of Edward, consisted of 
one son,Edward, who married a Miss Black, of Montgomery County, 
and daughters, of whom one married Harmon Newberry, one William 
G. Mustard, one Zachary T.Weaver, and one Captain Robert H. Bane.

Stephen McDonald's family went west many years ago. He had two 
sons,Andrew McDonald and Crockett McDonald; the latter married 
Miss Ellen Hall,then of Princeton, West Virginia. He died several 
years ago, leaving three children, two sons and a daughter, who, 
with their mother, live in the state of Kansas. Joseph, William 
and Stephen all died about the beginning of or during the Civil War.
Colonel Isaac E. died a few years ago, leaving
the major part of his valuable estate to his nephew, Walter 
McDonald Sanders, who also died some two or three years ago, 
leaving a widow and three or four infant children, who, with 
their mother, reside on the Bluestone farm.