(31 March 1896-27 Jan. 1973), soldier, township officer. (James Macdonell, Jim, Jim Alex John) Born in the Glen Nevis area, in the 7th Concession of Lancaster Township. Parents: Alexander John Macdonell and his wife Catherine MacDonald. He attended school at Glen Nevis, and worked as a bank employee. Enlisting in the Signal Corps, Black Watch, he was sent overseas in 1916 and served in France. He was promoted to sergeant, and turning down the offer of an army commission, chose to join the Royal Air Force as an observer and air gunner. As a member of the Royal Air Force (until April 1918, known as the Royal Flying Corps) he was one of the Canadians who served in Russia during the Allied intervention there following the Russian Revolution. He was in Russia for some 9 months, arriving at Archangel in Sept. 1918, and leaving in June 1919. For his service in France, he received the Croix de Guerre and the Military Medal. He was named to receive the Cross of St. Anne, but presumably with the failure of the Czarist cause was not actually awarded this Russian imperial decoration. We may assume this was the cross of the Order of St. Anne, a prestigious order which, depending on the rank at which it was awarded, gave the recipient either personal or hereditary nobility.

     Returned to Canada, and to civilian life, he was a bank employee in Western Ontario, and in Alberta at Chinook, Calgary and Lethbridge, and at Crowsnest Pass on the B.C.-Alberta border, before returning to GC to take over the family farm. For a quarter century, from 1938 till March 1963, he was clerk-treasurer of Lancaster Township. When he took over this position, the township was still faced with the task of clearing up the financial problems of Archibald John Macdonald’s tenure as clerk-treasurer. A month after his retirement, he was honoured at a testimonal dinner at Glen Nevis hall. (Glengarry News 6 June 1963) James Macdonell died at the Hotel Dieu, Cornwall. He was married to Grace MacDonald. Roman Catholic. Burial was at Glen Nevis. (four children, three surviving him)

     At least one other GC soldier served in the Allied intervention in Russian, Donald McDonald (12 Jan. 1896-23 June 1974), who was a mule-team driver at Vladivostok.

Glengarry News 1 Feb. 1973, repr. Fraser Obits. 173 * Glengarry Life 1991: biog. sketch by his daughter Eleanor Macdonell (with portraits), and additional material by Marion MacMaster on “Glengarrians in Siberia, 1918-1919” * Donald McDonald: biog. sketch by his niece Betty McDonald, same issue Glengarry Life (with portrait) * James Macdonell receives RAF commission, GN 18 Oct. 1918