James Greer McDonald (March 22, 1824 – January 23, 1909) was a surveyor in

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...

, an authority on horticulture and a member of the Los Angeles Common Council, the governing body of that city, in the 19th century.

Biography

McDonald was born on March 22, 1824, in Wilson County, Tennessee, the son of James McDonald, a minister of the

Cumberland Presbyterian Church The Cumberland Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian denomination spawned by the Second Great Awakening.Matthew H. Gore, The History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Kentucky to 1988, (Memphis, Tennessee: Joint Heritage Committee, 2000). ...

. The family moved to Texas in 1838 and lived there until 1853, when young McDonald was offered a job as a deputy surveyor-general of California, under John C. Hayes. He voyaged to California and crossed Mexico via the Isthmus of Tehuantepec."Passes After Many Honors," ''Los Angeles Times,'' January 25, 1909, page II-4
/ref> In 1858, McDonald returned to Texas and was married to Margaret V. Samuel. In the same year he organized a group to cross the plains to California by the southern route, surveying the Mexico–United States border. More than ten months later, his wife joined him, making the overland trip by stage. McDonald died in his home at 1525 East 20th Street on January 23, 1909, leaving his wife and three children, James T. McDonald, Mrs. Thomas Weiss and Mrs. Grant Roberds, all of Los Angeles.

Public service

In his work as a California deputy

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

, McDonald made the first surveys of the San Jacinto and

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ranches, and in 1862 he was elected surveyor of Los Angeles County. He became an authority on horticulture and was appointed state Horticultural Inspector. McDonald was elected to the Los Angeles Common Council on December 2, 1878, to represent the 5th Ward and was re–elected the next two years.''Chronological Record of Los Angeles City Officials,1850-1938,'' compiled under direction of Municipal Reference Library, City Hall, Los Angeles (March 1938, reprinted 1966). "Prepared ... as a report on Project No. SA 3123-5703-6077-8121-9900 conducted under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration."

Vocation

Besides his surveying work, McDonald attempted mining ventures with William Workman, but when they failed to succeed, he turned to citriculture, renting the "noted orchard" of

William Wolfskill William Wolfskill (1798–1866) was an American-Mexican pioneer, cowboy, and agronomist in Los Angeles, California beginning in the 1830s. He had earned money for land in a decade as a fur trapper near Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he had become a ...

and later planting a 40-acre grove of his own, where he had his family home, in today's Central-Alameda district.

References and notes

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mcdonald, James Greer American horticulturists American surveyors 1824 births 1909 deaths Los Angeles Common Council (1850–1889) members 19th-century American legislators People from Wilson County, Tennessee