(30 Nov. 1768-17 April 1850), fur trader. (called Le Prêtre, John le prêtre Macdonell; Judge Macdonell; the Colonel; also known to early Glengarrians as John “Crowlin” or “Croulin” from an estate named in Gaelic Crolainn his family had in Scotland; identified, like his father, also by the family designation of Scotus or Scothouse) Born in Scotland, the son of John Macdonell, who is remembered as “Spanish John.” He accompanied his father and kindred to the new world in 1773 as one of the Macdonell emigrants on the Pearl. To Canada he came with the U E Loyalists after the Revolutionary War . By 1793 he had entered the service of the NWC. From around 1796, he was a wintering partner in the company. He was in charge, successively, of the Upper Red River department and the Athabasca department. It is said that as a fur trader he attracted attention as a particularly attentive Roman Catholic, and that it was for this reason he became known among his fellow fur traders as Le Prêtre, the priest. He retired from the NWC in 1812. In the War of 1812, he was a captain in the Corps of Canadian Volunteers. At the Battle of Saint-Régis, he was taken prisoner. From soon after that event, his home was at Pointe-Fortune, on the Ottawa River east of GC. There, he built a large, sombre stone house, now known as the Macdonell-Williamson House. Besides farming, he conducted a store as a general merchant, and was in business in carrying freight on the Ottawa River. He was a judge of the Ottawa District Court. Also, he was a colonel in the Prescott militia. From these offices, he was commonly known locally as Judge Macdonell or the Colonel. He was MLA for Prescott County, 1817-1820. In his later years, he was in financial difficulties, and even contemplated emigrating to the Red River area, where his brother Miles Macdonell had once headed Lord Selkirk’s colony.

     John was married, in the country fashion, to a Métis wife, Magdeleine Poitras (d. 1870). (C ) Unlike some of the other Nor’Westers, he did not abandon his wife when he moved back to the east, but settled with her at Pointe-Fortune. Also, however, for some reason, he may never have regularized his marriage to her. After her husband’s death, she lived on in the house at Pointe-Fortune. John died at Pointe-Fortune, and was buried at St. Andrew’s, Que., across the river from Pointe-Fortune.

     E. W. Thomson’s short story, “Great Godfrey’s Lament,” seems to be based, rather loosely, on John’s great stone house at Pointe-Fortune and part-Indian family, which included a son called Godfrey. The Williamson family, who owned the Pointe-Fortune stone house from 1882 and whose name is perpetuated in its official designation today, were closely related to Douglas Clyde Macintosh the theologian and John Everett McIntosh the distinguished chronicler of rural Ontario.

Life by Herbert J. Mays, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, VII, 552-553 * Wallace * MDict * David G. Anderson, GHS Newsletter Oct. 1994 (with much valuable quotation from family letters) & June 1997 * Morice, Harkness and Jensen, as in notes to life of Miles Macdonell his brother this dictionary * Thomas 477-502: valuable, intimate glimpses of John and his kindred; moving and highly readable * Valerie Verity, A Developmental History of the Macdonell-Williamson House and Lands, called on cover the The Macdonell-Williamson House: National Historic Site (1998): contains a valuable summary of the surprisingly many writings on this house * McLean * genealogy, family connections: see entry for his father * Johnson: index * McKenna GN (16 Aug. 2006) * Valerie Verity, ed., John Macdonell of Scotus: Correspondence and Papers, 1795 to 1856 (2006)