The parents to my great x 2 grandmother Sophia (McDonnell) Kennedy, John McDonnell and Alice Sergeant, have been well documented and researched by the many descendants of this family. This research has been compiled into a family history book, The McDonnell Saga by Jean (McDonnell) Crawford and further online research by Gary Darby (see his website) with his own book that has followed. I am fortunate to have corresponded with Gary early on and to have contributed to his knowledge of the Kennedy connection. He has located photographs of most of the McDonnell family members by tracking down descendants. I do not want to replicate his website here, but I would like to create my own narrative that summarizes the family through my own understanding of the research. This begins with the visit my mother and I made to John and Alice’s past family homestead in Lanark county, Ontario.
On a drive out to Lanark county around 2005, my mother and I made a visit to three major sites of McDonnell/Sergeant Family milestones: the small town of McDonald’s corners where John and Alice married, Crawford Cemetery outside of town where they’re buried, and the McDonnell family homestead in North Sherbrooke where John was born.
It was a hot summer day and the farm fields in the area nearly glowed. We went to the place of John McDonnell‘s birth, the homestead in North Sherbrooke at lot 12, concession 4. He was born on October 27, 1832 some 173 years prior to our visit. Named after his Scottish-born father, he was the 7th child born into a family of about 13 children to parents John McDonnell Sr. and Margaret Harrower. The farm land now belongs to a young family, but they are aware of the McDonnell history there on the land. An old family burial ground from the time before local cemeteries were built is on the east half of the lot. This site houses the graves of John McDonnell Sr. & Margaret Harrower as well as many of their children. It has been cared for by the family: broken stones repaired, a fence around it and the long grasses sheared. The family who now resides there told us that the original farm house was burned down long ago, but they had found some old objects on the site and had many McDonnell descendants visit. When we pulled up in front of their large farm house we couldn’t help but notice the old wagon wheels now used for display that had likely belonged to and been used by the original land owners. The past connection to this land felt surprisingly recent: the land had been cleared by the McDonnells, the old fencing was also likely hewn from local wood and laid by the men of the family. I took a small sliver off an old fence post and pocketed it as a memento.
I had not been to the place of Alice’s birth, although she also came from North Sherbrooke. Her parents Robert Sergeant and Sophia Calvert both farmed in the area after immigrating from Armagh, Ireland. They are also buried in Crawford Cemetery along with her father’s second wife, Sarah McFarland.
Knox Presbyterian Church, McDonalds corners
When we stopped for lunch in a local cafe off of the gleaming Dalhousie Lake we felt like strangers amid the locals. It was a very small town and the cafe was equally small. John McDonnell married Alice Sergeant at Knox Presbyterian Church in McDonald’s Corners on December 29, 1857. I’d love to go back and locate the church if it still stands. Prior to this marriage, he was a widower. Originally married to Mary Hannah in about 1854, the couple tried to have a child, but poor Mary died giving birth and the child went with her.
At Crawford cemetery, an elderly man who was the grounds-keeper had such a thick Lanark highlands accent you would have sworn he was from Scotland. The park was shaded by so many deciduous trees and was well cared for. Apparently it was one of the first real cemeteries built for the surrounding area after the opinion of private family cemeteries became unfavorable. We picked out many of the McDonnell and Sergeant names amid the headstones, including that of my great x 2 grandfather, Robert Kennedy, and his second wife Minnie Sergeant. This stone was next to that of John and Alice which read:
In loving memory of John McDonnell Born Oct. 27th 1832, Died Mar. 21st, 1897 and his wife Alice Sergeant Born Aug. 14th, 1836 Died Feb. 23, 1899. Blessed are the dead who lie in the Lord.
Both died at their family home in Palmerston township, Frontenac county, Lot 4 concession 9 which I haven’t yet visited. There are obituaries from their deaths which describe the two individuals in favorable terms. John, who had a lingering stomach illness for over a year, “…was a well-known and very highly respected man, and also an elder in the Presbyterian Church” (Elphin News, Perth Courier). Two years after his death, Alice died of pneumonia. She was described as “…a kind mother and neighbor” (Elphin News Perth Courier), and they had many children who bereaved her loss at only 63 years.
Downtown Elphin, circa 1900
This day trip from Ottawa gave us a sense of where my mother’s ancestors came from. Originally the land was rough when the McDonnells and Sergeants first settled it. They would have participated in the small community where Elphin would have been the hub. John and Alice‘s parents, from Scotland and Ireland (respectively), would have carried traditions with them to their communities from the old countries but would have had many ideals for their future in Canada.
The McDonnell family seems to have mostly migrated out of Lanark. Of the 10 surviving children, only 3 stayed in the area to farm. The other 7 were distributed across Canada and into the Unites States. The reason for these moves is largely economic and indicative of the times: 3 moved north to the Sudbury area to mine, 2 moved to Wisconsin and Minnesota to mine, and another 2 moved out west to British Columbia, again to mine. From this exodus, we can see that the older generation of McDonnell farmers in Lanark made way for mining in the Industrial boom of resource exploitation. The children’s stories are as follows (more information can be found on Gary Darby’s website):
Sophia Kennedy(1858-1920), their first born, is my great x 2 grandmother.She married Robert Kennedy and the family moved up north to Cobalt, Ontario, where Robert mined. See her page for more information.
Next came a son and a daughter who may have been twins (although exact birth years haven’t been confirmed). There was John McDonell Jr. who was born Nov. 19, 1860. At age 25 he emigrated to the USA through the port of Cape Vincent and for some time he lived in Ely, Minnesota. He was an Iron miner in the United States and participated in the boom, becoming a full American citizen in 1898. John never married, and apparently died in British Columbia, where he must have followed work. His sister Margaret or “Maggie” as they called her, married a man named John Cosgrove Byrne at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Perth and had a family in Oso Township, Frontenac county. She died young after having two sons, at age 29 from summer cholera.
The fourth child was Robert McDonell, born May 7, 1862. He married Mary Sergeant, the adoptive daughter of Henry Sergeant and his wife. She had been born to an unwed mother and the Sergeants were more than happy to call her their own. Robert and Mary had a family of 9 children in Oso township (lot 24, concession 7), and have been written about in the McDonnell Saga by one of these children, daughter Barbara Crawford. Some beautiful descriptions of Robert from this text are worth repeating. Barbara recalls:
Dad was a quite man, could swear when angry and aroused, a hard worker always, but he depended on Mother to look after the business end of things and he never milked a cow until he was alone on the farm. He was tall, guant and a good looking man who shoulders were as straight when he died as they ever were, he never sat forward in a chair, he sat with his back straight against the chair…Dad loved to play cards with the neighbours, Geordie Scott, big Bob Charlton, etc., and they would thump their fists on the table and break the mantles on Mother’s Aladdin lamp, much to her disgust. He read everything in sight, and lots of times he did not have material to read.
Mary died 19 years prior to Robert in 1926. He lived to be one of the areas oldest citizens in his time. He died at age 82 (1944), and his funeral at St. Paul’s Anglican Church Cemetery, in Zealand was well attended.
Matilda McKinnon, the fifth child, was born March 24, 1864. She married Jack McKinnon on March 13, 1899 and they had 9 children together in McDonald’s Corners. Her obituary describes her as “…of a kind and gentle character… a faithful wife and a kind, devoted mother“. She died at age 53 from a severe form of goiter is is buried in Crawford cemetery, as is her husband who died in 1935. He was remarried after Matilda’s death.
Joseph McDonell, born Apr 22, 1865 married Minnie Kirkham at the Knox Presbyterian church (pictured above in this article) in 1894. They had four children and farmed in Palmerston before moving out to Sudbury, Ontario as his sister Sophia and her husband had. Joseph died there in 1933.
Daniel McDonell, born Jul 09, 1866, left the family in Dalhousie at age 20 to work and live in Ely, Minnesota as his brother John had done. He worked in the mines and woods there. In 1895 he moved to Wittenburg, Wisconsin where he met and married Ledah Van Gilder (previously married) who ran a boarding house in town. They had a child together. Daniel who, according to his obituary, “… strictly minded his own business–was never nosing into other people’s affairs, and …never was heard to complain…never once grumbled or found fault with his lot or those about him through the weeks and months that he suffered pain“, died of Carcinoma on January 5, 1933.
Alice Waite, born February 27, 1870, went to Sudbury, possibly following her brother and sister. This is where she married George Waite, her husband, in 1894. George was a miner, and his work brought the couple and their two sons Harold & Bob out west to British Columbia. They originally lived in Sandon, BC, where George is documented working at Silvana Mine in 1899. Later the family moved to Copper Mountain, BC (1933). George died in Vancouver two months after his son Bob, on November 21, 1944, and is buried in Oceanview cemetery. After his death, Alice lived in Seattle, across the border. She died in 1858 and is buried alongside her husband and son in Vancouver. I plan on visiting their burial site.
Mary Crawford, born November 7, 1871 in Robertsville, also moved out west as her elder sister had done. In 1892 she married Thomas Crawford, from the Crawford Bros. firm, in Robertsville, Frontenac. Her sister Alice was her bridesmaid, and they seem to have had a close relationship. Mary and Thomas first lived in Elphin where they had their first 3 children (Duncan, John & Jessie) and then moved to New Liskard where their next 2 children (Helen & Velma) were born. From New Liskard, the family moved to Vancouver and had another 2 children there (Thomas and Francis). The entire family stayed out west and likely was in contact with Alice Waite and her husband there. Mary died in Burnaby, BC in 1940 and her husband Thomas followed in Vancouver in 1954.
Henry McDonell, the baby of the family, was born in 1879 in Robertsville. He moved out to Cobalt to mine as many others in his family had done, married a woman named Alexina Labelle and had a daughter. It appears that he was originally living in Cobalt as a lodger with the Williams family at age 21. Just like his eldest sister (my great x2 grandmother, Sophia Kennedy) who also lived in Cobalt, Henry died of Cancer in 1921. At such a young age, it makes one question the health of those living in proximity to or working in the nickel mines. While he was living, Henry corresponded with his niece, my great grandmother Mary Bea Leavoy, in lovely letters. I have his portrait (left) from Mary’s possessions. He is buried in Silverland cemetery, Cobalt.
Oh What a Tree 
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