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JACKSON DONALD, retired and living in Garrison for several years, was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, October 19, 1826; he is a son of Moses and Rachel Donald, old residents of Pennsylvania, who went to Ohio when Jackson was a small boy, locating first in Wayne county. Moses Donald and his wife lived for a time in Ashland county, and later removed to Holmes county, Ohio, where they emigrated to Iowa in 1856. They secured a farm in Jackson township, where both passed away, Moses Donald dying prior to the Civil war and his widow in the early seventies, at an advanced age. He was a miller by trade. He and his wife had eight children, of whom three survive, namely: Jackson, and two sisters, Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ferguson. Mrs. Joyce, of Cedar Rapids, is in her ninety-fourth year; Mrs. Elizabeth Ferguson, of Missouri, now aged seventy-three, is the youngest of the family.
Jackson Donald was reared in Ohio and was over thirty years of age when he came to Benton county, Iowa, with his parents who located in Jackson township with others from Ohio. Mr. Donald owned a large and well-improved farm in Jackson township, near Garrison, which he has now sold. He has lived in Garrison the past ten years, and has a pleasant home there. He was very successful in his farming operations, and has high standing in the community. He has always been a Democrat in politics, and takes an active interest in public affairs. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian church.
Mr. Donald married, in 1870, in Jackson township, Benton county, Lovina Ridge, born in Ashland county, Ohio, April 28, 1839. She is the daughter of Thomas and Magdalena (Smith) Ridge, who came to Benton county, Iowa, in September, 1854, driving overland. The Ridge family located two miles north of the present town of Garrison. They bought forty acres of timber, and Mr. Ridge entered eighty acres, their home the remainder of their lives. He died in 1875, aged seventy-three, and his wife died in the fall of 1870, aged sixty-six. They had ten children, of whom four survive, Mrs. Donald; Thomas, of Vinton; Mrs. Delilah Butler, living near Estherville, Iowa; and Mrs. Sarah Hardinger, of Garrison. Mrs. Donald was one of a party of twenty-eight who drove through from Ohio, in 1854, with five teams and those of her family are now the only survivors of that trip. Mr. Donald and his wife have four children, namely: Blanche, wife of J. E. Forsyth, of Vinton; Frank, a farmer of Jackson township, who married Nettie Bick; Arthur, cashier of the Peoples Bank of Garrison, who married Nellie Voorhies; and Bertha, wife of Roy C. Mease, a farmer of Jackson township.
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