Stillwater Hero

Donald MacIntosh was raised in Stillwater NS. His family’s farm is shown in the photo. Behind the house is Archibald’s Brook and the bottom of the Stillwater as it enters the Ford Pool, a famous salmon pool on the St. Mary’s River. Hwy 7 has since been built up and changed, significantly altering the view and the farm’s buildings are long gone. His father, Bill MacIntosh, raised his boys Arch, Alex, Dan, Donald, Ted and Clarence to be salmon fishermen, fly tyers and fine river guides.

The following account that is from the Chronicle Herald, undated. 

Bravery of Nova Scotian Saves City

Donald MacIntosh, who came to Boston six years ago, was buried today in Everett, Mass. The Mayor and residents paid his memory a wonderful tribute.

SACRIFICED LIFE

“Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend." Never did |his quotation apply better than in the case of young Donald MacIntosh. He could have saved himself, but he chose to stop a terrible disaster where it was and gave up his life in so doing. The story of his brave act is best told in the simple story of his fellow workmen who were at his side when the first explosion that crumbled houses half a mile away and shot flames three hundred feet in the air, came.

MacIntosh had charge of the valves which fed the scores of huge tanks which covered the I00-acre lot of the company. As the first half dozen stills and tanks blew up, Mac­intosh, terribly burned and suffering intensely, turned his back on the single opening where he might crawl to safety and be rescued and deliberately crawled on his hands and knees through a wall of solid flame and shut off each of the valves of the other tens of huge tanks. Had these valves not been shut off, the entire city of Everett, Mass., would have been blown to bits, explosive expert Stone declares.

MATCHLESS COURAGE^:   

“God seldom gives such. courage as   Macintosh displayed to a man," declared the victim's' old pal John J. Thompson, with tears streaming down his cheeks. "Don just turned his back on escape and crawled into that living hell to shut off those other tanks and save the city from being wiped off the map.”

"We watched him, begging, pleading, and crying for him to come back” continued Thompson." You see he realized he knew what he was doing and he didn't stop to think. It was terrible and the memory of it will be burned into my brain as long as I live. Don was burning when he started for the valves. As we shrieked like crazy men, he just turned with the faintest of smiles on his face and waved his hand. Then he went through that wall of flame, hellish searing fire of burning oil, and we never saw him alive again."

State Fire Marshal Neal told The Herald's correspondent the re­sult of the explosions, had not Mac­intosh shut off the score of valves, would have been the greatest catastrophe in the history of New England."

The only possible way of identifying Macintosh’s body was by a ruby ring. His shift at the plant was to have been relieved in eight minutes when the explosion came. He was married in Halifax, N. S. just before coming to the States.

The fish photo, undated, shows Harold Jordan, Ernest MacKeen, Herbie Fisher and Donald MacIntosh’s brother Ted with some large St. Mary’s River salmon.

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