[JAMES] FIRST LEGISLATORS OF UPPER CANADA 101 
appears frequently in connection with the surveys and settlement of 
the first townships in his section. 
John Macdonell was chosen Speaker of the Legislature when it 
met in session at Newark in September, 1792. He continued as a 
member for Glengarry in the second legislature, 1796-1800, but his 
brother Hugh was succeeded by Captain Wilkinson. Hugh Mac- 
donell was in 1805 appointed Assistant Commissary-General at Gibral- 
tar, through the recommendation of H.R.H. the Duke of Kent, and 
later (1811 to 1820), Consul-General at Algiers. Sir Alexander 
Macdonell and Sir Hugh Guion Macdonell, who have both won dis- 
tinguished honour in the Imperial service, are his sons. 
Lieutenant-Colonel Chichester Macdonell was a brother of the 
two members. After serving as lieutenant in Butler’s Rangers he 
followed the British service abroad, was under Sir John Moore at 
Corunna, and died in India, leaving behind a worthy record. 
But the relationship of this family to our early legislatures is not 
yet all told, for a sister of the three brothers was married to Alex- 
ander Macdonell of Greenfield, and two of their sons represented 
Glengarry in the Legislature of Upper Canada, Lieutenant-Colonel 
Macdonell, who fell with Brock at Queenston Heights, and Lieutenant- 
Colonel Donald Greenfield Macdonell. 
Before passing on to the next riding, it may be worth calling 
attention to the fact that the first Speaker of the first Legislature of 
Upper Canada was a Roman Catholic, for at that time such a selection 
could not have taken place in the Legislature of Nova Scotia. The 
date of his death is uncertain, but he died at Quebec, and his remains 
lie buried under the Roman Catholic cathedral of that city. 
Stormont.— This county consisted of the townships of Cornwall 
and Osnabruck and all north to the Ottawa River. One member was 
to be selected and the- man first chosen was Lieutenant Jeremiah 
French, who had served seven years in the 2nd Battalion of the King’s 
Royal Regiment of New York. The French family are supposed to 
have come from Manchester, England. They settled in Vermont 
and occupied a farm whereon Manchester, Vermont, now stands. 
There were two brothers, Jeremiah and Gershom. On the breaking 
out of the war, they enlisted as loyalists. Jeremiah French appears 
to have been a man of importance in Vermont; he had a large holding 
of land and was at one time High Sheriff at Manchester. His wife 
(Elizabeth Wheeler) was true to British rule, and after her husband 
departed for Albany, it was considered advisable by the Revolution- 
ists to expel her from the State on account of her outspoken loyalty. 
Jeremiah French’s property had been seized by the State, and now 
part of the chattels were sold to pay for her transportation. Then with 
