(29 Dec. 1843-12 Oct. 1907), mining man, businessman, political figure. (Hon. A. J. McDonell, sp. McDonnell also found, Archie J. McDonnell, called Archy or Archie) Born in Charlottenburgh Township, GC, on the South Branch, at Cashions Glen. Parents: Charles McDonell (d. 1856), and his wife Ann (Nancy) Stuart (d. 1850), who was born in Scotland. Archibald’s formal education was limited, but he was remembered as having attended one of the log schools. At an early age, he lost his parents. For several years, from about the age of 16, he was a schoolteacher.

     About 1864, the year in which Nevada territory became a state, Archibald went to the newly-founded mining town of Virginia City, Nev. Nevada, and the Virginia City area, seem to have been his home for the remainder of his life. Beginning as a manual labourer in the mines, he rose to being a mine engineer, foreman and superintendent. In his later years he was active as a stockbroker in the firm McDonell and Ryan (the Nevada Historical Society has a general stock ledger 1900-1907 from this firm). His partner in the firm, the Hon. D. M. Ryan, was state treasurer. McDonell was president of the San Francisco Stock and Exchange Board for some months in 1901, resigning on becoming superintendent of the Union Consolidated Mine at Virginia City. When he died, the San Francisco stock exchange closed for a half day in tribute to him. He was also a member of the San Francisco Board of Trade. San Francisco, a few hundred miles from Virginia City, is intimately linked to it by geography. Up to the end of his life, McDonell also remained superintendent of a number of mines.

     He was recorder of Storey County 1875-1876 (elected Nov. 1874). In Nevada’s two-house legislature, he represented Storey County (which includes Virgina City) first in the state Assembly (13th Session, 1887) and then in the state Senate (15th and 16th Sessions, 1891, 1893). He was also the speaker of the Assembly in the 13th Session, 1887. The statement sometimes found that he represented Nevada as a U. S. senator at Washington is mistaken; he was a member of the state not the U. S. Senate. He was long associated with the Republican Party, and was a delegate at the Republican National Convention at Minneapolis in 1892 (the candidate chosen by the Republicans was defeated by Grover Cleveland, the Democrat, in November).

     At the end of his life, when his health was failing, he spent four months in Europe, apparently at least in part for health reasons. At this time, he took the medicinal waters at Carlsbad. He died at Virginia City. His death was sudden, but he “had been suffering from tuberculosis.” (Nevada obit.) The body was taken back to Canada for burial at St. Columban’s, Cornwall. He was a Roman Catholic. He seems not to have been married.

     In his long association with Virginia City, he watched its growth into one of the most famous mining cities in the world, and the beginning of what proved to be its hardly less astonishing decline into what is, today, a mere tourist hamlet. He must have seen some of the most remarkable sights of the wildest days of the American frontier. When he died, it was stated, “His honesty was unquestioned, and his right hand never knew what the left was doing, as his liberality was extended to aid many battered about in life’s struggle.” (Nevada obit.) He gives the impression of being an easygoing man’s man who fitted well into the boisterous, unpretentious mining society in which he made his career. The journalist Alfred Doten noted that “Speaker McDonell” was among the legislators who attended a “bloody” boxing match in a room above a dry goods store at the end of the 13th Session of the legislature in 1887. In his old home, he was seen as “one of the ‘Men from Glengarry’ who acquired fame and fortune” in the United States.

     He or his father was a “cousin” of Bishop W. A. Macdonell of Alexandria. Archibald was also the brother-in-law of Donald Macdonell, of Cornwall the SDG gaoler.

     The present dictionary also includes the following speakers of legislative assemblies: John Sandfield Macdonald, John Macdonell of Aberchalder, Alexander Macdonell of Collachie, George Norman Johnston.

Daily Territorial Enterprise (Nevada; a newspaper of the Comstock Lode mining region), 13 Oct. 1907; Glengarry News (QF) 25 Oct. 1907; Cornwall Standard 25 Oct. &15 Nov. 1907 * his birth, death of his parents: St. Andrews R. C. Parish 1804-1856: Births Deaths Marriages, ed. Duncan (Darby) MacDonald, Part II (1984) 214, 330, 338, see also 241 * Thomas Wren, ed., A History of the State of Nevada (1904) 559-561 (biog. sketch, valuable) * Political History of Nevada, 9th edn. (1990) 203-205 * Reproduction of Thompson and West’s History of Nevada 1881 (1958) 607 * The Journals of Alfred Doten 1849-1903, ed. Walter Van Tilburg Clark (3 vols., 1973): index (personal glimpses, brief but valuable, of the man himself) * Joseph L. King, History of the San Francisco Stock and Exchange Board (1910) 326-327, 373 * visits Cornwall area, CF 13 July 1888, cited DTL Standard Freeholder 15 July 1944 * elections to Nevada legislature, CF 26 Nov. 1886, 21 Nov. 1890, cited DTL SFH 25 Nov. 1944, 23 Nov. 1946 resp.