JOHN MACALEAN MACDONALD

1790-1863

<facsimilie signiture>

(FACSIMILIE SIGNITURE)1

John MacLean Macdonald was the eldest son of Dr. Archibald Macdonald and Flora MacLean, his wife, and was born Dec. 27, 1790 at Franklin, Dutchess County, N.Y. (now Patterson, Putnam County, N.Y.). In an address before the Westchester County Medical Society, at its session held in White Plains, June 1, 1858,2 en-titled "Biographical Sketches of the Deceased Physicians of Westchester County, N.Y.," George J. Fisher, M.D., gave the following biography of Dr. Archibald Macdonald: "Dr. Archibald Macdonald of White Plains, will first claim our attention, as being one of the most distinguished of the earlier physicians of our county, of whom we have been able to obtain any satisfactory account; but more especially from the fact of his having been prominent among the founders of this Medical Society, now in the sixty-first year of its age. "In the first volume of the Medical Repository, which was the first medical journal ever published in America, under date of June 25, 1797, may be found the following notice: " 'On the 8th of May, at the White Plains, there was a

1 This facsimile signature is from the will of John M. Macdonald 2 This was published in pamphlet form in 1861 and from a copy of it this quotation has been made. JOHN MACLEAN MACDONALD 85

meeting of respectable physicians of the county of Westchester, who formed themselves into a society, to be known and called by the name and style of "The Medical Society of the County of Westchester." Dr. Archibald Macdonald was elected President, and Dr. Matson Smith, of New Rochelle, Secretary. The principal views of their formation appear to be a harmo-nious establishment of a regular practice of physic throughout the county, and an immediate compliance of the law of the Legislature of the State, made at the last session.' "Dr.