(21 Oct. 1799-1866), lawyer, political radical. Born in Montreal. Parents: Angus Macdonell of Sandaig, who was an emigration leader and MLA for GC, and his wife Marie-Anne Picoté de Bélestre. The name is given at the head of the present article in “core form” as John Macdonell, whether or not that was a form he used. It variously appears in printed sources as Jean-François-Marie-Joseph MacDonell or McDonell, John MacDonell-Bélestre, John Bélestre-MacDonell, John Bellêtre Macdonell, John de Bélestre Macdonell, and John Picoté de Belestre-MacDonnell; also, John B. Macdonell has been found in written public records. He studied at the Collège de Montréal, and was afterwards a law student in Montreal, and was called to the bar in 1821. In the 1830s he was associated with the Patriote movement in Montreal. The author of his life in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography sees him as being by 1836 associated only with with the less radical faction of the Patriotes, but Elinor Senior states that at the time of the second outbreak of rebellion in Lower Canada in Nov. 1838, the Chasseurs movement was funding rebels out of his Montreal law office. He was arrested in Nov. 1838, and was tried, but suffered only a short imprisonment. Afterwards he practised law in Montreal till 1850. He died at Saint-Anicet, Que. In the 1830s, he had helped to found French Canada’s patriotic association, the St-Jean-Baptiste Society. He was married to Elizabeth Pickell, whose father was a Montreal merchant of German descent.
Presumably in his childhood John Macdonell lived in GC or was a frequent visitor there. With regard to his adult years, Scott reports a tradition that he visited GC more than once. Macdonell inherited from his father Lot 8, 8th Concession Charlottenburgh Township, GC, and sold it in two portions, 1822 and 1829. This radical Montreal lawyer is at best a shadowy figure in the history of GC. It is hard to guess how well he was known to the Glengarrians. Logically, however, given the extraordinary attachment of the Highlanders of all social ranks to tracing out family relationships, and the intimacy of the Glengarrians’ connection at this time with Montreal, this son of one of the distinguished and well-connected local families must have been well known, at least by name, to contemporary Glengarrians. Senior suggests that the Macdonells and others from GC involved as soldiers in the suppression of the 1839 outbreak were “indignant that a man by the name of Macdonell was numbered among the rebel leaders.” Within Glengarry, during the Rebellion years, there was, of course, no overt disloyalty– quite the contrary. Breaking the ranks was not acceptable. What people privately thought, is of course, a different question. For his family background, see the biog. of his father this dictionary.
Life by Michèle Guay, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, IX, 485-486; see also DCB, VIII, 260 * Scott i, 34 * Harkness 79 * his GC lot: GC registry office records; Scott i, 34 * Elinor Kyte Senior, “Suppressing Rebellion in Lower Canada… 1837-1838,” Canadian Defence Quarterly, 17:4 (1988) pp. 50-55 * Joseph Schull, Rebellion: the Rising in French Canada 1837 (1971) 155, 156, 172 * MacGillivray & Ross 56-59 for an enquiry into the problem of GC loyalty in the Rebellion era