Among the first settlers in Barnes County was James McFadgen. Born in Scotland in 1812, he married Mary Shaw and they migrated to Canada, where he entered into a business partnership which failed in due time. To this union were born four sons and four daughters.
Donald D. McFadgen, son of James McFadgen, was commonly known as "Mac." He left the family home in Fergus, Ontario and, according to one account, became a supervisor of a construction gang for the Northern Pacific Railroad and was with the surveying party that picked the crossing place on the Sheyenne River in Barnes County.
Donald D. McFadgen resigned his position in early 1872 and returned to the Sheyenne River Valley in May of that year. He built a log cabin in the vicinity of what is now the Mercy Hospital, planted a vegetable garden and settled down to await the arrival of the railroad.
He was soon joined by another early arrival, one John Morrison, who also built a log cabin where the Valley City Tourist Park now stands. According to early accounts, he operated a trading post from his cabin, patronized by the half-breed French trappers living in the river bank where the College Footbridge is now located.
With the coming of the railroad on September 15, 1872, Donald D. McFadge and John Morrison decided that they had best file on the land on which they had squatted and so they went to Pembina and filed pre-emption claims in 1873. Their lands straddled the Sheyenne River. However, they first built a tent hotel and restaurant to take care of the railroad men and itinerants passing thru.
The final county organization was completed in 1878 and McFadgen was elected the first sheriff of Barnes County. This not being a lawless country, the first jail was not too well built and the very first prisoner promptly escaped and Mac had to track him down and re-incarcerate him.
The second court house was built in 1883 and it contained not only a new jail but an apartment for the sheriff. Mac sent for the rest of his family and his father and mother and three sisters came to join him in what were then considered the most palatial living quarters in Valley City.
Mac McFadgen was re-elected sheriff for three consecutive terms. He ruled with an iron hand and the record shows that not one single individual was sent to the Territorial penitentiary from Barnes County during Mac's term in office. It simply was not good policy to commit serious crime while he was sheriff.
After retiring from the sheriff's office, Mac returned to his farming operations but the lure of the railroads soon called him and he returned to railroad work in 1887 and moved his family to Birmingham, Alabama. He died in Birmingham on May 16, 1903 at 62 years of age from a throat ailment. He left a wife and one child.
Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 145