T. B. McDonald
Has had an interesting career. He was born near Liberty, Union County, Indiana, December 6, 1846. His father, Bernard McDonald, was born in County Carlow, Ireland, August 25, 1812. At the age of eight Bernard McDonald went to to sea as a cabin boy on a ship with his uncle. He followed the sea for twenty-five years, when he came to America. T.B. McDonald's mother, Elizabeth McDonald, was the daughter of Samuel Heavenridge, of Rock Bridge County, Virginia. He settled at Cincinnati, Ohio, where Mr. McDonald's mother was born in 1824. Samuel Heavenridge was a Quaker of the old school. He was an elder in the church at Fairmount when he died. Bernard McDonald moved to Henry County, Indiana, when the son was one year old, and to Grant County in 1854, where the latter spent his boyhood days on a farm. When he left the farm he went to Jonesboro and worked in a woolen mill owned by Pemberton & Baldwin. From there he went to work for Noah Harris, and assisted in building the first grain elevator at Harrisburg (now Gas City). It was while this elevator was being built that John Evans killed John Brinegar. T.B. was a witness to the killing. This unexpectedly changed his plans for life. He had intended to go to Kansas with John Rush, but was held as a witness to the tragedy, and could not go as he had planned. He then went o to work on the Panhandle railroad as a brakeman on a gravel train, then on a local freight train for about ten months, when he went to Nebraska City with Dr. J.N. Converse, who was building the Midland Pacific Railroad. He remained there, employed as a conductor, until the road was finished to Lincoln, Nebraska. He was the first conductor to run a train into Lincoln. This was on April 24, 1871. He went to Iowa, October 9, 1871, the day of the great Chicago fire. He was employed by the Burlington Railroad as a conductor for ten years. Since that time he has been engaged in farming, merchandising and banking, and is now President of the Lovilia Exchange Bank. He owns 965 acres of valuable coal lands, contented with his lot, never held a public office, has often been a member of the third house (lobby), has always taken an interest in politics, votes the Republican ticket, believes in prohibition and woman suffrage. He is proud of the fact that he is a native of Indiana and lived in Fairmount Township, "where," as he puts it, "more good people live and have lived than on any other six miles square on earth."
Submitted by: Gina Reasoner