St. Margarets Pioneer Cemetery Restoration

Sir William Macdonald is one of the more famous descendants of ancestors located in the pioneer cemetery.  His ancestors were among the Glenalandale settlers who arrived in PEI in the late 1700's.  Among the best documented records of those in his family is that of Alexander and Marshally McDonald. 

 In 1772, with the support and leadership of Captain John MacDonald (1743-1811), and also an ancestor of Sir William (paternal grandfather),  they sailed from South Uist, Scotland, on a ship called "The Alexander".  This first expedition formed a settlement in what is now Tracadie, Prince Edward Island.  Soon after their arrival the settler began to spread across the north east part of the island and in so doing, St. Margaret of Scotland Cemetery was established and became the consecrated burial site for those living in this area.  St. Maragaret's was in use until the late 1880's when, like so many of the early cemeteries, St. Margaret's became inactive as its population center shifted.  A new cemetery was established closer to the main road (in the area) and over the years that followed, the original pioneer cemetery became neglected and overgrown.  

In the last few years, a group was formed to restore the cemetery, and to preserve the memory of those buried in the cemetery.

The following is more detailed information, as presented in wikipedia:

Sir William Christopher Macdonald (February 10, 1831 – June 9, 1917) was a Scots-Quebecer tobacco manufacturer and major education philanthropist in Canada.

Early life and career
Born William Christopher McDonald in Tracadie, Prince Edward Island, Macdonald was the sixth of seven children in a prominent Scottish clan. He was a member of the branch of the MacDonald of Clan Ranald and the grandson of one of the last lairds of Glenaladale in Scotland. His grandfather purchased more than 20,000 acres (80 km²) of land in Prince Edward Island for settlement in 1772 by more than 200 members of his Roman Catholic clan. Known today as the Glenaladale Settlers, in Canada the family name had been recorded as McDonald which he maintained until 1898 when he began using the historical Scottish spelling but without capitalizing the "d".

As a youth, Macdonald rebelled against the authoritarian rule of his father and his Roman Catholic upbringing. Although his mother was Protestant, Macdonald and his siblings were raised in the Roman Catholic faith. At the age of sixteen he renounced the church, choosing to become a non-practising Christian. At eighteen he left his Island home, making his way to the United States, where he found clerical work in Boston, Massachusetts. Although he had limited education, Macdonald quickly showed an entrepreneurial spirit and, joined by his brother Augustine, he organized himself as a broker to handle the shipping of American-made goods to merchants in his native Prince Edward Island. However, after a ship carrying some of his merchandise sank in an ocean storm, the venture had severe problems and Macdonald closed the business and left Boston.