MEMBERS OF COMMITTEE AT QUEENSTON HEIGHTS
Alexander Fraser, LL.D., Dr. Alexander Dame, Col. Geo. S. Ryerson, Miss Helen M. Merrill, John Stewart Carstairs, B.A., Allen W. Johnston.
APPENDIX I.
HIGHLAND HEROES IN THE WAR OF
1812-14[1]
By Dr. Alexander Fraser, Toronto
While with a fine sense of fitness the part taken by the men of Glengarry, Ontario, in the 1812-14 war is rarely referred to by the descendants of those who fought so well and fell for their country, it is but meet on a centennial occasion as is now being celebrated that the distinguished services of the clansmen should not be forgotten. Much, indeed, could be said of the Macdonells, Macdonalds, Macleans, MacMillans, Chisholms, Camerons and Grants, as well as of other kindred families, who displayed all the ardour of the Highland mountaineer in defence of home and country, and who occupied second place then nor subsequently when the war-note sounded. These brief lines, however, must deal only with Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonell, who fell mortally wounded at Queenston Heights, and whose name cannot be disassociated in history from that of Brock, the chief hero of the war.
The many intermarriages in the course of generations between members of different houses of the Glengarry branch of Clan Donald have created genealogical intricacies not always threaded by the general reader. The identity of Colonel John Macdonell, the Queenston hero, however, need never have been in doubt. He was descended from Angus Macdonell of Greenfield, a grandson of Ranald, the ninth chief of Glengarry—in Gaelic, styled "Mac-ic-Alasdair." The Macdonells of Greenfield are nearer the main line of the Glengarry family than the cadet branches of Aberchalder, Cullachie and Leek—many of whom settled in Canada, who left the parent stock at an earlier period. They might reasonably be regarded as representative of all the Glengarry Macdonells of Canada.
Angus Macdonell of Greenfield had one son, Alexander, who came to Canada in 1792. He was married in Scotland to a daughter of Alexander Macdonell of Aberchalder (Captain 1st Battalion, King's Royal Regiment of New York), and among the issue of that marriage were Duncan, who succeeded his father, John, who fell with Brock, and Donald, who figured at Ogdensburg, 1813.