The Champlain Society’s The Donnelly Documents: An Ontario Vendetta back in print

As part of its mission to increase public awareness of, and accessibility to, Canada’s rich store of historical records, The Champlain Society has reprinted The Donnelly Documents: An Ontario Vendetta, in a special paperback edition.

The monograph, edited and introduced by James Reaney, recounts the story of The Biddulph Tragedy of February 4, 1880, where “a body of men, blackened and masked, entered the dwelling of the somewhat notorious Donnelly family and murdered the inmates, the father, the mother, one son, and a girl, a niece”* in Biddulph Township near Lucan, Ontario.

James Reaney heard about the tragedy as a child: “The effect of my first hearing this story was paralyzing… It was my first glimpse of evil close to home.”**

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*London Free Press Weekly, 12 February 1880 (See The Donnelly Documents: An Ontario Vendetta, page xv and page 118)

**From the Introduction to The Donnelly Documents: An Ontario Vendetta, page xxiv.

See also James Reaney’s entry for James Donnelly (1816-1880) in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/donnelly_james_10E.html

James Donnelly in 1863 courtesy the McCord Museum, Montreal, Quebec: https://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/