Hartland St. Clair MacDougall was born on November 11, 1840, in Buckfastleigh, Devon, England.

In 1860, he immigrated to Canada. He was a stockbroker, one of the founders of the Montreal Stock Exchange (1874). He served as its chairman in 1894–95 and 1897–99.

In 1867, he married Elizabeth Adelaide Smith. He died on April 1, 1917.

Dr. Richard Lea MacDonnell (1856-1891) was a son of Dr. Robert Lea MacDonnell (1818-1878) ¬– a well-known Dublin-born surgeon, author (founder of the Canadian Medical Journal), professor, and director of the Department of Clinical Medicine at McGill University. Richard MacDonnell grew up in Montreal, and was educated at Bishop’s College School in Lennoxville, QC before studying medicine at McGill University. MacDonnell graduated from McGill in 1876, then studied for a year in Europe and obtained an M.R.C.S. Upon his return, he was appointed one of the Demonstrators of Anatomy and subsequently assumed the position of senior demonstrator in charge of the Department of Practical Anatomy. MacDonnell was also appointed assistant physician and then physician at the Montreal General Hospital, as well as professor of clinical medicine at McGill until his death. In addition to his work as a clinician and professor, MacDonnell was a regular contributor to the Montreal Medical Journal with many articles to his name. On July 31st, 1878, at the young age of 35, MacDonnell died of pulmonary disease, survived by his wife, mother, and sister. His friend and McGill colleague, Sir William Osler, wrote an obituary in the New York Medical Journal that stated: “Although only thirty-five years old, he had reached a position which gave scope to abilities of first-class order and afforded opportunities of impressing upon a large class of students those qualities of mind so essential in the teacher, so priceless to the taught – honesty, system, and painstaking care” (NYMJ, 54: 162, 1891).

John Macdonell (spelled McDonell prior to 1830s) was born on November 30, 1768, in Scotland, and died on April 17, 1850, in Pointe-Fortune, Upper Canada. He was the son of John McDonell of Scothouse. Macdonell, his family, and six-hundred members of the Macdonell clan of Glengarry immigrated to the Mohawk Valley of New York in 1773. In May of 1788 Macdonell entered the service of the North West Company as a clerk and was sent to Qu’Appelle valley (Saskatchewan) to work. Here, he earned the name Le Prêtre, for his piety and his insistence that his men observe the feasts of the Roman Catholic Church. Around 1797, Macdonell married a Metis woman named Magdeleine Poitras, “a la façon du pays,” and they had four sons and two daughters. Despite signing a marriage contract in 1813, they were never seen as legally married, and Magdeleine went through an act of posthumous marriage in 1853 to ensure that she and her children would be seen as Macdonell’s legal heirs. Later in 1788, Macdonell moved to Quebec and settled in present-day Cornwall, and was ensigned in the Cornwall and Osnabruck battalion of militia. In 1796, he became a wintering partner in the North West Company, and three years later, oversaw the Upper Red River department. Macdonell retired from the North West Company in 1812, and after hearing news of the war in the United States, he became commissioned captain in the Corps of Canadian Voyageurs where he was taken prisoner at the battle of Saint-Regis three weeks later. In 1813, Macdonell established himself in the lower Ottawa valley and purchased one-thousand acres of land in the Hawkesbury Township near Pointe-Fortune. Four years later, he was established in the Upper Canadian side of Pointe-Fortune where he became a businessman. Macdonell was appointed a judge of the Ottawa District Court in 1816 and held this post for nine years while serving as a district roads commissioner. From 1817 to 1820, Macdonell represented Prescott in the Upper Canadian House of Assembly and in 1822, was made a colonel in the Prescott Reserve Militia. Macdonell’s diary of his time as a fur trader can be found in the book titled Five Fur Traders of the Northwest: Being the Narrative of Peter Pond and the Diaries of John Macdonell, Archibald N. McLeod, Hugh Faries, and Thomas Connor.

It is unknown where and when Aeneas MacDonell (also spelled McDonell) was born, he was killed in 1809 at the fight at Eagle Lake. MacDonell was the brother of Alexander McDonell, who was the brother-in-law of William McGillivray. In 1809, the Hudson’s Bay Company was in Eagle Lake and in mid-September, a party of workers for the North West Company commanded by MacDonell camped close to the post. An Indigenous man who sold his furs to the Hudson’s Bay Company was about to leave for his camp with the goods he had purchased from the company, when MacDonell stole the man’s canoe and goods because of a prior debt contracted with the North West Company. When two men went to assist the Indigenous man, MacDonell wounded one of them with a sword and the other man threatened to shoot MacDonell. Men from both camps intervened and MacDonell had continued to attack those opposed to him, injuring another person with his sword. A man named John Mowat shot and killed MacDonell and agreed to surrender and was sent to Montreal for trial.

Sir William Christopher Macdonald was born on February 10, 1831, in Glenaladale, Prince Edward Island.

He was a Canadian tobacco manufacturer and major education philanthropist. He was educated at Central Academy in Charlottetown. As a youth, he rebelled against the authoritarian rule of his father and his Roman Catholic upbringing. At the age of 16, he renounced the church, choosing to become a non-practising Christian. At 18 he left home, making his way to the United States, where he found clerical work in Boston. Although he had limited education, Macdonald quickly showed an entrepreneurial spirit, and, joined by his brother Augustine, he organized himself as a broker to handle the shipping of American-made goods to merchants in his native Prince Edward Island. The brothers moved to the Province of Canada and settled in Montreal wherein 1858, they started McDonald Brothers and Co., a company that made tobacco products. The American Civil War opened up opportunities for export and brought them enormous financial success. About 1866 McDonald Brothers and Co. was dissolved and Macdonald was operating under his own name. He soon began using the great wealth he had earned to undertake philanthropic endeavors. He had a close relationship with John William Dawson, the principal of McGill University, and he found his life’s mission in McGill University. He practically re-founded the institution, transforming it from a medical school attached to an arts college into a full-scale university with particular strength in science. Macdonald’s gifts and bequests to McGill exceeded $13,000,000 – a sum unparalleled in Canada and other countries. A lifelong bachelor, Macdonald bequeathed his tobacco company to Walter and Howard Stewart, the two sons of company manager David Stewart. Macdonald and/or the Macdonald Stewart Foundation funded several McGill University facilities, e.g., Macdonald Campus, Macdonald Engineering Building, Macdonald-Harrington Building, and Macdonald-Stewart Library Building.

He died on June 9, 1917, in Montreal, Quebec.