John Alexander McDonald was born on January 11, 1815 in Glasgow, Scotland. His father was Hugh McDonald, an unsucessful merchant. After the failure of Hugh's business ventures, he decided to move his family to Kingston, Canada, where a number of McDonald relatives lived, and Hugh had a lot of connections there. McDonald ended his term as Prime Minister in 1878. He returned to his home in Saskatoon, where he died in 1891.