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The stone is located near the NS4075 : Dumbarton Cemetery entrance; see that photograph for context.

According to the inscription, it is "in memory of Daniel McAusland, late rope maker in Dumbarton, a councillor and treasurer of the burgh ... suddenly cut off from his friends by the visitation of cholera, October 12, 1849, aged 63". The intervening part of the text recounts his fine qualities and activities, but does not supply many biographical details.

According to Donald Macleod's "The God's Acres of Dumbarton" (1888), the monument was erected by public subscription, and was originally situated near the North Free Church (see below). The inscription is by the Rev. James Smith.

Daniel McAusland was born in Greenock on the 10th of April, 1787, to John McAusland and Catherine Douglas; he was the second-youngest of their four sons (they also had three daughters). He married Agnes Connell on the 1st of February, 1808; they had eight daughters and one son.

[Their son, John, married Christian Denny, daughter of the shipbuilder William Denny. Their memorial can be seen in the foreground of a picture of NS4076 : The Denny family mausoleum; the names John McAusland and Christian Denny can be made out in that photograph.]

Daniel came to reside in Dumbarton on the 1st of March, 1811, to take up the post of Superintendent of the Ropework. He later become its sole proprietor (the old Ropewalk stretched from NS4074 : Castle Road to NS4075 : Gruggies Burn). For the last few years of his life he lived beside the North Free Church (as noted above, the gravestone was originally placed near there). His wife survived him by less than two years, dying on the 28th of August 1851, aged 66.

For the position of the North Free Church (which was on St Mary's Way), see the description for NS4075 : Dumbarton Free High Church (note, see the description, and not the picture, which shows a later church on a different site). The memorial stood just to the south of the church on St Mary's Way.

As the inscription mentions, Daniel died of cholera. Scotland had earlier experienced a serious cholera epidemic in 1832, which came to be known as "the cholera year"; see NS4076 : The Richard Memorial.