McDonell, Hugh

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Allan J. MacDonald, “McDONELL (Aberchalder), HUGH,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mcdonell_hugh_6E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Army and militia officer, land surveyor, politician, and office holder; b. c. 1760 at Aberchalder House, Scotland, son of Alexander McDonell of Aberchalder; m. first a Miss Hughes; m. secondly a Miss Ulich, daughter of the Danish consul in Algiers (Algeria), and they had two sons and eight daughters; d. 1833 in Florence (Italy).
    • In 1773 Hugh McDonell’s father and his uncles John of Leek and Allan of Collachie led a major migration of Highlanders to North America, settling on Sir William Johnson’s estate in the Mohawk valley of New York. In January 1776 McDonell, along with his father and uncles, was taken prisoner by Major-General Philip John Schuyler. He later escaped and returned to Johnstown. Having collected about 100 loyalists, he fled with them to Montreal in May 1777.
    • There he joined the King’s Royal Regiment of New York as an ensign; he was promoted lieutenant in 1781 and retired on half pay when the regiment was disbanded in 1783. The next year he joined his relatives in what was to become Upper Canada, taking up a 500-acre grant in Township No.1 (Charlottenburg). In 1788 he was appointed a deputy land surveyor.
    • Until his retirement from the post in 1794 he plotted lot, concession, and township boundaries through the virgin forest of the Eastern District.
    • In 1792 McDonell and his brother John were elected for Glengarry County to Upper Canada’s first parliament, an indication of his family’s local prominence. Perhaps it was as a politician that McDonell caught the eye of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe. In June 1794, in spite of a modest military background, he was appointed the province’s first adjutant general of militia. 
  • United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=5308
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