Samuel A. MacDonald's custom tailor shop opened on Queen Street, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, in July of 1895. The family business continued at this site for almost seventy years, closing its doors in the early 1960's to make way for the Metropolitan Stores of Canada. Through the years the enterprise prospered. The original wooden building was replaced by a more imposing brick one, and the business expanded to become a department store offering not only men's clothing and furnishings but dry goods, ladies ready-to- wear clothing, millinery, carpets, rugs, and oilcloth. In 1911 S.A. MacDonald purchased the house at 45 Fitzroy Street which remained in the family until the 1990s passing to his son J. Gordon MacDonald who also took over the business in the 1930's. Another son, Sandy, became a physician.