William Jesse McDonald

(September 28, 1852 - January 15, 1918)

Born in Mississippi, "Bill" McDonald moved with his family to Rusk County, Texas, about 1866. During Reconstruction, McDonald was tried for treason after a conflict with Union authorities but was acquitted. He established W. J. McDonald and Co., one of the first mercantile firms in Mineola, by 1873. McDonald became friends with James Stephen Hogg, who introduced him to Rhoda Carter; she and McDonald were married in 1876. By 1877 they were operating McDonald Hall opera house, a prominent local cultural center.

When Hogg became county attorney in 1878, he prosecuted McDonald and others for carrying weapons in the increasingly violent streets of Mineola. McDonald later became a deputy sheriff of Wood County, and his reputation for boldness and marksmanship began with his role in bringing order to Mineola. During the 1880s McDonald started cattle ranches in Wichita and Hardeman counties and became a deputy sheriff in Hardeman County. He also was appointed deputy to the U. S. Marshal of the Northern District of Texas. Governor James Hogg made McDonald a captain in the Texas Rangers in 1891. He was an exemplary administrator and investigator for the Texas Rangers until 1907, when Governor Thomas Campbell appointed him state revenue agent. He later served as a bodyguard to President Woodrow Wilson, who in April 1913 appointed him Marshal of the Northern District of Texas, a post he held until his death.

Most celebrated for his years as a Texas Ranger, McDonald was considered a fine tracker, an excellent criminal investigator, and an efficient controller of mobs. He died of pneumonia in 1918 and was interred at Quanah. (1999)