Biography:

Angus McDuck was born in Glasgow?, Scotland in 1829 as the oldest of three siblings. While his younger brothers remained in Scotland, Angus went to America. It's still unknown when he left for America, but it was probably sometime late in the 1840s.

In America he ended up as a riverboater on the Mississippi. Don Rosa has thus given him the nickname "Pothole", when asked about this he says: "I decided "Pothole" didn't sound very Scottish and was obviously a nickname for a riverboater... a pothole being a round depression dug in the riverbed mud by the water currents."

In Lo$ chapter II, Don Rosa shows that around 1850 Angus was a cabin boy on a riverboat, Drennan Whyte, which sailed on the Mississippi. It sunk with a cargo of US government gold bars worth $ 100,000 while he was onboard. Angus was the only survivor and he kept searching for the gold until he and Scrooge finally found it in 1880.

In the period 1861-1865 there was a bloody civil war in the USA in which the Mississippi area was one of the important battlefields, with the battle of Vicksburg (July 1863) as the most important battle. When asked if "Pothole" was somehow involved in the war on either side, or if he perhaps made profits from the war - money later used to buy the stern-wheeler "Cotton Queen", Don Rosa says: "This is possible, but I can't imagine that I would do a story involving the Ducks with a war... especially not a war as hideous and bloody as the American Civil War!"

In The Great Steamboat Race from 1955 Carl Barks shows that in 1870 Angus and another riverboater, named Porker Hogg, ended up in a race to settle the ownership of the estate of "Cornpone Gables", but the race ended with a draw since none of them were able to finish the race. Angus' river boat at that time was the stern-wheeler, Cotton Queen.

In the period 1880-1882 his nephew Scrooge joined him. By then Angus had another river boat called the "Dilly Dollar" which he claimed was "the fastest steamer on the river!" The two first met in Louisville, Kentucky (when asked about why Louisville? Don Rosa says: "Well, that's where I live, so why not? Besides, in 1880 it would have been one of the main ports in the Mississippi River system. And the reason for that was that all river traffic had always been forced to stop at Louisville due to the Falls of the Ohio which are located here (or I should say, Louisville is located at the Falls). Those waterfalls, the only such feature in the Mississippi system, would add an authentic bit of danger to the story. Of course, the "Falls" are actually just a series of rapids, not a single drop as I show in the story."

In 1882, After tutoring Scrooge for two years Angus sold the "Dilly Dollar" to the lad at a bargain price. At first that made Scrooge wonder if his uncle was a real McDuck, but after a while, when the railroad started to take over the business from the steamboats, Scrooge realised that Angus knew very well what he did.

As for Angus, he retired to New Orleans where he started writing dime novels about his adventures. In The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff Don Rosa shows that in the early 1890's he dealt with a great Western show including Buffalo Bill and the Apache chief Geronimo.

In page 7 of his unpublished sketches for chapter I of Lo$ Don Rosa shows that Angus never married.

Angus "Pothole" McDuck died in New Orleans, sometime after 1900.