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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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MCDONALD, DUNCAN (17?? LIVING 1797)

MCDONALD, DUNCAN, murderer.

In 1794 Duncan McDonald, a parish constable and commissioner of roads who was settled near Bay du Vin, was one of two men charged with concealing the death of one Edward Bargain. The latter was thought to have been murdered, and as punishment for his role in the affair McDonald was fined. The next year, he and his neighbor Donald McVicar were among six men brought before the magistrates, presumably for disturbing the peace.

In 1797 McDonald quarreled with McVicar and later stalked him and shot him dead as he was emerging from his house. He then fled to the woods on snowshoes. He was pursued by a party of men who caught up with him at Point Sapin, where he had taken refuge in the cabin of an Acadian settler. He fired on his pursuers and injured a member of the Horton family who was among them, but he was successfully arrested and incarcerated. According to Robert Cooney's history he was tried before Judge John Saunders of the Circuit Court, found guilty, and hanged on a makeshift gallows erected near the courthouse in Newcastle. His was the first murder trial conducted on the Miramichi.

Sources

[d] Cooney (H) / Hist. Bay du Vin; Macdougall; Spray (ENC)


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