Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 3.djvu/12

6  Railway Company; and various other corporations received the benefit of his acumen and experience. He retired from the wholesale mercantile business in 1892, prior to which he was largely instrumental in the organization of the United States National Bank, of which he was president for several years and guided it safely through the financial panic of 1893, which brought disaster to so many banks and other financial institutions of the country. About a year later he was obliged to relinquish the presidency to go abroad on account of failing health.

The city of Portland was in countless ways enriched by his exertions in its behalf. Whatever tended to the upbuilding of its institutions whether commercial, social, educational, religious or charitable, always found in him ready support and encouragement. He was elected president of the Board of Trade in 1881 and was reelected by acclamation for many succeeding years, during which time he was largely instrumental in inducing the United States government to build the jetty system at Columbia river bar.

His position on any question of public policy was never one of hesitancy or doubt. His business, social, private and public life were above reproach, and his honesty of the character that needed no profession but made itself felt upon all with whom he came in contact. Though essentially a man of business, he took great pleasure in the social side of life. He was for a number of years president of the British Benevolent and St. Andrews Societies of Portland, to both of which he contributed liberally. He was one of the founders and charter members and for a time president of the Arlington Club. The Clan Macleay was named after him. He was one of the founders of the Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Macleay was married March, 1869, to Martha, daughter of John Macculloch of Compton, Canada. She was a devoted Christian, a woman of cultivated mind, whose kindness, charity and benevolence endeared her to all who knew her. She died November 22, 1876. Mr. and Mrs. Macleay became the parents of four children: Barbara Martha, Edith Macculloch, Mabel Isabel and Roderick Lachlan. They were throughout their residence in Portland members of the First Presbyterian Church.

Donald Macleay died July 26, 1897. He had the satisfaction of living to see the place which he had found a mere struggling frontier town grow to a splendid city of one hundred thousand people and of feeling that he had contributed largely to that growth. He was a man of sound judgment, clear perception and industrious habits, but underneath and as a basis on which these qualities rested and which furnished the chief cause of his success, was his sterling integrity, fidelity to principle and tenacious adherence to them in every-day life. In all his relations he was at once honest and honorable. Remarkably successful in the accumulation of wealth, one of his greatest pleasures was to fill the hand of charity when ever extended in a worthy cause, and he was a most active factor in the establishment of the charitable, educational and religious institutions of the city. An enthusiastic advocate of the city's park system he gave Macleay park, a tract of one hundred and seven acres of land as an addition to the park system of the city. No man in Portland enjoyed a higher respect or held deeper regard from his fellow citizens. Few men have lived and died in Portland whose loss was felt more acutely or whose death more sincerely was mourned. 

 JOHN S. SEED.

John S. Seed, a general contractor in brick, stone and steel construction, is one of the pioneers in this field of building operations in Portland, where he has resided for about thirty years, arriving in 1879. For the first two years he worked as a journeyman and then began contracting on his own account. The years have marked his continuous progress and he has long been regarded as one of the foremost representatives of building construction in the city. His 