of Greenfield (19 April 1785-14 Oct. 1812), soldier, political figure. (Lt.-Col. Donald Macdonell, designation Greenfield associated often with name) Born in Inverness-shire, Scotland. Parents: Alexander Macdonell of Greenfield, and his wife Janet Macdonell, who was the daughter of the Alexander Macdonell of Aberchalder who was one of the leaders of the Pearl emigration group of 1773 to New York colony. John came to Charlottenburgh Township, GC, with his father’s immigration party of 1792.

     In 1808, he was admitted to the bar of Upper Canada. With talent, character and charm, and with the influential friends these qualities, and his family connections no doubt, won for him, he rose quickly in the legal profession. Still only in his mid-20s, he became In Sept. 1811, acting attorney general of Upper Canada, but he did not live to see his confirmation in the office of attorney general in his own right, to which he was nominated in 1812. The year 1812 saw him elected MLA for GC. In April 1812, shortly before the war with the United States began, General Brock, administrator of the Province, appointed Macdonell his aide-de-camp, with the rank of lt.-col. in the militia. Macdonell was prominent in arranging the terms of the surrender of Detroit to the British in the opening stages of the war. At the age of 27, Macdonell was fatally wounded at the Battle of Queenston Heights that autumn. He died the day following the battle, in which Brock himself had been killed. He and Brock are buried together at the site of the battle, where the Brock Monument commemorates them. Macdonell was unmarried. He was originally a Roman Catholic. There seems to be no compelling evidence to support the assumption that he later became an Anglican. If he had lived, and if he did not fall away from the promise of his early career, he would presumably have been one of the eminent men of Canada in the middle years of the 19th century. Through his bravery and early sacrifice for country and the Crown, he became the subject of a Canadian legend. More recently, as the popularity of the great military heroes and consciousness of the British Empire as a part of Canadian history have waned, so has his historical image faded. He does not have a separate entry in the present Canadian Encyclopedia, admirably comprehensive though that work is as a guide to the Canadian psyche. During his boyhood, about which relatively little is known, he presumably lived with his family in GC, but as a lawyer his residence was at York.

     Archibald McLean, the son of Neil McLean, was one of the officers who held him as he was dying. In 1853, John Macdonell’s brother Donald laid the cornerstone for the Brock Memorial at Queenston Heights. Four of John’s brothers have separate entries in the present dictionary. (See the entry for his father, d. 1819, for their names)

Life by Carol Whitfield and R. L. Fraser, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, V, 520-523, and the life of Brock by C. P. Stacey same vol. * Scott, ii * Macdonell, Sketches * Harness: index (has portrait) * Johnson: index * David G. Anderson, GHS Newsletter Feb. 1996, with portrait * genealogy: Chadwick; Macdonald & Macdonald