He left no record of civic work; he was a stu-dent and worker in a limited field; but the spirituality of his writings will cause him to be remembered as long as the story of the Revolution is the background of the wonderful tales of 98 THE McDONALD PAPERS
Cooper, and Irving, and a host of others, story-tellers, poets and historians, who have immortalized the territory now known as Bronx and Westchester Counties.
WILLIAM S. HADAWAY
New Rochelle, N. Y. November 25, 1927.
Note: In the records of his alma mater (Columbia 1810), Macdonald's name is written John McLain Macdonald. As the names of students are copied from Registrar's forms, this arrangement is presumably that preferred by the author him-self. It will be noted that "Mc" and "Mac" here occur in juxtaposition; also that "Lain" is written with a capital and "donald'' without. This further illustrates the perplexing variations in spelling of names of Scottish derivation and the difficulties encountered in genealogical researches based on phonetic name similarities. Under these circumstances it appears permissible to adopt the modern spelling of "MacLean" and "McDonald" as the equivalent of the forms accepted by family tradition and usage.
It will be noted that "Mc" and "Mac" here occur in juxtaposition; also that "Lain" is written with a capital and "donald'' without. This further illustrates the perplexing variations in spelling of names of Scottish derivation and the difficulties encountered in genealogical researches based on phonetic name similarities. Under these circumstances it appears permissible to adopt the modern spelling of "MacLean" and "McDonald" as the equivalent of the forms accepted by family tradition and usage.