====== McDonell, Oscar ====== 
 (//fl//. 1870s-1890s), newspaperman. Born in Glengarry. In Ottawa, he was a self-employed bookkeeper in 1881, then a family grocer in the mid-1880s. In 1879, he was president in Ottawa of Le club de discussion canadien-français. He was in charge of the administration of //Le Triboulet//, a bilingual Ottawa weekly with humorous and political content, which began publication in Nov. 1879, but it survived for only a few issues. Much more importantly, McDonell was proprietor and editor-in-chief of the Ottawa newspaper //Le Canada// around the years 1887-1890. At this time the //Glengarrian// (Alexandria) of 7 Oct. 1887 reported that Oscar M’Donell, a native of GC, was to be business manager of the new joint-stock company formed for the publication of //Le Canada// in Ottawa. (This was a re-organization, for //Le Canada// had been published since 1879.) Two months later, in a letter of 10 Dec. 1887 to Big Rory McLennan, Oscar McDonell of //Le Canada// promised to publish GC material if it was supplied to him. At this stage, //Le Canada// was a Conservative newspaper though later in 1891-1894 (probably after McDonell’s time with it) it was Liberal, and McLennan was, of course, a prominent and well-to-do Conservative activist. McDonell was also the proprietor in 1890 of //La Vallée d’Ottawa//, a weekly published as a supplement to //Le Canada//. In 1895, McDonell was editor or city editor of another Ottawa newspaper, //Le Temps//. No further information has come to light about him.


----
<fs small>Ottawa city directories 1881-1896 * F. J. Audet, //Historique des journaux d’Ottawa// (1896) * Duncan McLaren, //Ontario Ethno-Cultural Newspapers 1835-1972: an Annotated Checklist// (1973) * Paul-François Sylvestre, //Les journaux de l’Ontario Français 1858-1983// (1984) * Archives of Ontario-RRM
</fs>
[<6>]