Birth: November 20, 1838
Death: June 23, 1902
Location: Lot 162, Section 2, Row 12, Old Cemetery – SE
Source:
The Murders of John Donaldson and E.M. Fritz.
Pocatello Idaho, June 2, 1902
Obituary
Wood River Interests
July 4, 1902
DIED- Pocatello, Idaho from an assassin’s bullet, on June 23, 1902, John Donaldson of Wood River, aged 63 years. On the receipt of the telegram announcing his death, the relatives got W. W. Mitchell to go to Pocatello for the remains. Monday noon Mr. Mitchell arrived in Wood River with the body and the same was taken in charge by undertakers, Rounds & Colwell.
On consultation with the relatives it was thought best that Interment should take place that afternoon and that the funeral services be held the next day. Accordingly at 4 o’clock all that was mortal of John Donaldson was laid to rest in the Wood River cemetery.Rev. Dressler gave a short service at the grave and Truman Taylor, Pat Hoye, Wm.
Thorp, Geo. Plummer, Hi Jones and Robert Clark were the pallbearers.
Funeral services were held in the M. F. church Tuesday afternoon at 2 o’clock, conducted by Rev. Dressier in the presence of a crowded house. The speaker spoke of the tragic death of the deceased, eulogized his many admirable traits of character and extended sympathy and consolation to the grief stricken wife and family.
John Donaldson was born in Parkman, Geauga Co., Ohio, in 1839. When only fifteen years of age (1854) he caught the gold fever, crossed the newly settled states of Indiana and Illinois , the sparsely settled state of Iowa and the trackless and treeless plains of Nebraska, the Rocky Mountains, the desert beyond and never stopped till he reached the land of gold and view the Pacific ocean as did Balboa of old.
For seven years he prospected and dug gold from British Columbia way down into South America – rich one month and poor the next with a miner’s ever changing fortune. In 1861, with little more than when he same he returned to the old folks in Ohio, coming around by way of Cape Horn.
Here he spent about a year amid the scenes of his childhood. When he could no longer resist the charms of fascination of the frontier and the excitement of the hunt for gold, he once more returned to California. As a frontiersman he had many personal encounters with grizzlies, Indians and bad white sen in which he never showed the white feather.
In 1868 he came back east and in 1869, at Sloan, Iowa, was married to Miss Delia Lovell. The wedding trip took them to Hall County, Nebr where he secured a farm near Wood River and made his home up to the time of his death.
Since locating in Hall county he has crossed the mountains probably a dozen times, often in a wagon, and visited many states. His peregrinations by wagon and on foot probably stretched out 25,000 miles, a record very few have equaled.
The deceased leaves a wife and the following children, Mrs. John Williams, Mrs. Wallace Whitehead, Mrs. Chas. Garrison, Mrs. Tanton Swain, Mrs. Julius Glade and Miss Bessie Donaldson. He carried $2000.00 insurance in the MWA and was a worthy member.
John Donaldson was a plain man in dress and speech and of simple habits, but he had a big heart and an honest hand. Wood River lost a man who followed closely the principles of the Golden Rule.