(died Oct. 1946, aged 32), dead man in sensational disappearance case. (Alexander Angus MacDonald?) Parents: Mr and Mrs Archie MacDonald. He was known by the name of Alex and a Half, presumably because he was believed to be weak-witted. (The pronunciation used was Aleck) When he disappeared about 7 October 1946 from Alexandria, where he was a well-known resident, it was at first thought he had left for lumber camp work. Before long, the belief grew that he had been murdered. The body was found in Alexandria on 2 Nov. in the pit of an outdoor privy, where a search had been made following the report that a woman in Alexandria had dreamed that the body was to be found there. In late November, a coroner’s jury was unable to decide whether the death was accidental or not. The historian J. G. Harkness, as crown attorney, was involved in the investigation, and he questioned witnesses at the coroner’s inquest. The mystery of Alex’s death has never been solved. The public interest at the time was immense. Looking back on it, it seems very much an event of the “old Glengarry,” closed-off and intent on its own affairs, which was so soon to be swept away by the forces of modernization. It is hard to believe that any similar event of twenty years later could have created such a sensation. The same may be said of the gruesome Lama murders at Harrisons Corners, Stormont County, in Aug. 1946, and–perhaps the final incident that can be cited from the old system–the disappearance of Reeve W. A. MacEwen in 1957. The Alex and a Half MacDonald story was closely reported in the Alexandria Glengarry News and the Cornwall Standard-Freeholder, and is sketched in some of the remarkable passages of Clarence Ostrom’s typescript history. Surprisingly, Ostrom declared that Alex and a Half, though he had no training, was a painter of ability (presumably he meant painter in sense of artist).

Glengarry News and Standard Freeholder intensively at this time, but see esp. Glengarry News 18 Oct. 1946 (disappearance), 22 & 29 Nov. 1946 (inquest), SFH 31 Oct. 1946 (disappearance), 2 Nov. 1946 (body recovered), 21 Nov. 1946 (inquest) * Ostrom 87, 263, 311