- SAMUEL SMITH MacDONELL
Was District Clerk in 1850 and 1851, and was Reeve of the Village of Windsor from 1854 to 1857, and elected the first Mayor of Windsor in 1858, and again in the years 1864, 1865, 1866 and 1867; Warden of the County of Essex for the years 1855 and 1856. In 1871 he was appointed Crown Attorney and Clerk of the Peace. He died during the month of April, 1907.
Oddly there are many streets around town that bear the names of prominent early residents, Curry, Crawford, Prince, Dougall, etc… but strangely there is no MacDonell street in Windsor… Seems strange that there is nothing honouring the first Mayor…
Have a good weekend everyone! See you back here Monday.
In your “prominent early residents” category, you’ve forgotten Ouelette, Goyeau, Réaume, Pelissier, Parent, Marentette and all the other founding families of what became Windsor. Then add Ottawa, Huron, Tuscarora, etc. There might not have been any streets left for Mr. MacDonell!
In Walkerville there used to be a park near Chilver Road named McDonald park…at least that is the way I thought it was spelled when I lived there in the 1940s. If it is still there, you might check the spelling…perhaps it is named after this man. It would be pretty far out though for the late 1800s.
According to some other pages he was largest landowner in Windsor during the 1850s. Brodhead Street, that runs off of Howard near erie, was named after his wife.
http://www.walkervilletimes.com/43/Windsors-First-Mayor.html
Our first mayor had awesome mutton chops.
Another legendary figure with mutton chops has an interesting history with Windsor.
In 1975 he was fired from the band Hawkwind after he was arrested at the Canadian/US border in Windsor, Ontario on drug possession charges; he spent five days in jail. He was released without charge as Windsor Police arrested him for possession of cocaine and after testing the evidence it turned out to be speed (“doing the wrong drugs”). So according to Canadian law at the time, he couldn’t be charged with anything and was released with no charge or conviction.
He went on to form a new band called “Bastard”, but he changed the band’s name to “Motörhead” – the title of the last song he had written for Hawkwind.
His name is Ian Fraser Kilmister, also known as Lemmy.