(7 June 1855-16 March 1941), planter. (date of birth June 1860 also found, and age at death as 86) (sp. McDonald also found) Born at Bridge End, which is on the eastern edge of GC. Parents: Angus A. McDonell and his wife Betsy McGillis. John Macdonell went to the United States in 1875. He was married, in his second marriage, about 1883 to a woman whose Christian name was Frances. She was born in Michigan and died about 15 years before her husband. John and Frances lived in Ottumwa, Iowa, from about 1895 to about 1912. There they operated a millinery business. After a few years in Ottumwa, they felt prosperous and secure enough to move to a more affluent part of town; their new house was good enough to be pictured in a contemporary publication, Ottumwa in 1898. They had three children, two of them born in Colorado in the late 1880s and one born later in Colorado or Ottumwa.

     About 1912, Macdonell, now in his 50s, and his wife left Ottumwa and they settled then or soon afterwards on an 800-acre plantation which they purchased, probably all in one parcel on 16 Nov. 1909, in Louisiana at a location called the “narrows” on the south shore of Lake Arthur, Vermilion Parish, near Jennings, La. Living for nearly three decades in his new home, about 30 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, John Macdonell seems to have succeeded in what would have been in terms of his GC background and experience an unfamiliar form of farming. He is described at his death as an “Outstanding Planter and Cattleman,” and “a successful cattleman and farmer, producer of fine oranges and other fruits.” Mindful of his origins, he “returned to Bridge End in 1920 with Mrs. Macdonell to spend the summer with relatives.” He died at his plantation home. (children surviving him: 3) Roman Catholic. He is unusual in being a GC-area man who became a southern planter. In fact, it was comparatively rare for Glengarrians to settle in any of the Deep South states, or in the South at all unless Texas and Florida are counted as part of the South. The house he extensively restored and rebuilt on his plantation in 1910-1912 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, under the name of “Narrows Plantation House,” as a distinguished example of the “Arts and Crafts” style.

Jennings Daily Times Parish News (Jennings, La.) 18 March 1941 & (largely from the Jennings obit.) GN 11 April 1941 (QF these sources) * Ottumwa city directories 1894-1914 and U. S. federal and state census for same period, all kindly researched by Edward Alan Sisk, of Ottumwa * National Register of Historic Places: listings on internet * 1920 visit: GN 10 Sept. 1920; GN obit. * State of Louisiana, Dept. of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, Office of Cultural Development, “National Register of Historic Places Inventory–Nomination Form,” with description, history of house (pp. 7)