MCETTRICK. MCFARLIN. 40I tion, backed by a manly courage, made him one of the acknowledged Democratic leaders of the popular branch of the Legis- lature. Mr. McDonough is unmarried, and resides in Boston. MCETTRICK, MICHAEL JOSEPH, son of Matthew and Mary (McDonough) McEttrick, was born in Roxbury, Norfolk county, June 22, 1846. His father was a well-known and re- spected citizen of Roxbury, and his mother was the daughter of one of the earliest Irish settlers of that locality. Mr. McEttrick diligently made use of the fine educational advantages afforded by the Washington grammar school, gradu- MICHAEL J. McETTRICK. ating at eleven years of age at the head of the class, of which he was the youngest member. He was graduated from the Roxbury Latin school, with honor. He immediately entered the office of Charles Whitney, the city engineer of Roxbury, and has ever since been connected more or less with that line of study and work. He early developed a taste for athletics, and by the time he had reached his majority he had won a national reputation for wonderful powers of strength and endurance, and a record for wrestling, jumping and long-distance pedestrian matches, which for many years remained unbroken. He was, in fact, the pioneer in this State of the pedestrian feats that have since become national in their charac- ter. He won the championship of America in 1869, and held it against all comers for a number of years. During the last year of the war he joined the army, and served in the corps of engineers, U. S. A., until after the cessa- tion of hostilities, receiving his discharge in 1867. In 1884 he served as assistant assessor of the city of Boston, and in the fall of the same year was elected by the Demo- crats of his district to a seat in the lower branch of the Legislature. He has since been re-elected four times in suc- cession, each year receiving a largely increased and flattering majority at the hands of his constituents. He served on many of the most important committees, such as finance, roads and bridges, that on special child labor, education, liquor law, constitutional amendments, and ex- penditures. Mr. McEttrick's life-long abstemious habits, his splendid physique and quick apprehension, and able treatment of legis- lative matters, joined to his forceful and at times really eloquent delivery, have made him a man of power and commanding influence on the floor of the House. His able and successful management of the Franklin Park loan, Stony Brook, soldiers' exemption, employers' liability bills, and his work on the abolition of the poll-tax amendment and others of equal import- ance, very properly gave him a strong hold upon the constituents he so faithfully represented. His brilliant minority reports as a mem- ber of the education committees of 1888 and '89 will probably long be standard and authoritative expositions of the cause espoused by Mr. McEttrick in 1888, at that time, and since, endorsed by the Legis- lature itself, upon the much-vexed question of the right of the State to interfere with the management of private schools. In his opinion, the existence of private schools is due to the wishes and consent of the parent, and the right of the parent to educate his child as he thinks best is a sacred one, vested in him by nature. He holds that as the constitution of the United States guarantees freedom of conscience and freedom of worship to every American citizen, it guarantees, with equal right, freedom of education.
