He was educated at The King's School, Parramatta, and gained farming experience before heading to the Victorian goldfields and later becoming manager of Ingleby station near Geelong.

[2] He arrived in Queensland in 1857 and soon set out on a series of pastoral explorations with fellow squatters and aboriginal guides with the plan of taking up as many leases as possible.

In May 1859 while living at Yaamba, he joined his brother John Graham MacDonald on an exploration tour of the head waters of the Nogoa and Belyando Rivers, where they took up a large area of pastoral country.

As well as his pastoral leases, he purchased hotels throughout Queensland as well as the Northern Argus newspaper and a meat works at Lakes Creek, both based in Rockhampton.

[2] In Geelong in 1861 he married Julia Louise Ayrey, the orphaned daughter of a wealthy Western District pastoralist and together they had seven children.