Joseph was born October 9, 1853 in Olden township near Sharbot Lake, Ontario. On October 2, 1884 twenty-eight year old Joseph married 21 year old Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Patterson from South Sherbrooke township. Joseph’s brother Richard and Lizzie’s sister Mary were the witnesses to the ceremony at St. Stephen’s Church in Bathurst township. They lived in Olden township for many years until moving to a farm in Dack Township near Englehart, Ontario between 1911 and 1921 with their three surviving children, one son having died in infancy.

After moving to Northern Ontario, Joseph and Lizzie sadly outlived their son Richard Robert Thomas (RT) MacPherson who died from lobar pneumonia on June 28, 1927 at the age of 39 leaving a wife and two children. Joseph died April 23, 1931 at the age of 77 from senility and apoplexy. Lizzie died in 1951 at the age of 87. Both are buried in the Englehart Public Cemetery.