====== McLeod, Archibald Angus ====== (4 May 1844-19 April 1902), businessman. (A. A. McLeod, Archibald A. McLeod) The //Glengarry New//s obituary says he was born at Curry Hill, GC, on 4 May 1844. Other sources give the place of birth as New York City and a farm in Compton County, Que. (in a family where he was said to be the first of fifteen children), and the year as 1847 and 1848. Parents: Alexander McLeod, a native of Scotland, and his wife Anna Sutherland Wood (Anne Wood), the widow of Solomon Curry. Alexander and Anne were married 22 July 1843 by the Rev. Thomas Macpherson, who was perhaps still a minister across the St. Lawrence from GC, but was about to be inducted as minister at St. Andrew’s, South Lancaster. Alexander, described in his marriage record as being of “Lancaster” (whether the tp or village was meant) was later to be postmaster at Curry Hill, GC, 1874-1881. His son A. A. McLeod’s first work in life was farming, presumably on the homestead at Curry Hill, which he followed till he left home at age 20. “He worked in several minor positions in the Central and Western States until he became identified with Mr. Austin Corbin. From that time his rise was rapid till ultimately when only 44 years of age he succeeded Mr. Corbin as president of the Reading Railway, being known as the boy president. His salary was $50,000 a year.” In his early years in the United States, he was involved in a small way in businesses in Texas, Minnesota and Colorado, being also, at some time in these years, an employee in railroad construction. Later, rising quickly, by the mid-1880s he was general manager of the Elmira, Cortland and Northern Railroad. His //New York Times// obituary notes that obscure as he was when he took this position, within a few years “he was known either personally or by reputation to every railroad man from coast to coast.” He became acting general manager of the Reading Railroad in 1886, and in 1890 he succeeded his patron Austin Corbin as president of the Reading Railroad. McLeod is said as president to have revived for a time the declining fortunes of the important but troubled railroad, but the railroad went into receivership all the same. McLeod was named as receiver, but resigned the presidency, and thereafter lived privately and with little public notice. He was described at his death as a “wealthy financier and railroad man” (//Glengarry News//) and as “the millionaire railroad operator “ (//New York Times//). He died at his home in New York, at an age which may have been not quite 58. He had never fully recovered from an appendicitis operation some weeks earlier. He was married to Libbie Atkins, and had at least one child. At the time of McLeod’s death, his half brother Joseph A. Curry was “living on the homestead at Curry Hill” and he was the half brother also of Solomon Curry the younger. The sources on McLeod’s life contains a remarkable amount of conflicting information. The historian James L. Holton, who notes the lack of reliable biographical data on McLeod, speaks of “the McLeod enigma” and says that McLeod “remains a fascinating puzzle, a century after he strode so boldly on the stage of American corporate affairs.” He had a full brother, John A. McLeod, a medical doctor. ---- //The New York Times//, 20 April 1902 (considerable biog. detail) * //Glengarry News// (QF) 2 May 1902 repr. Fraser //Obits.// 241-242 * Fraser, //Gravestones//, II, 213 (parents) * marriage of parents, names of siblings, post office date, kindly supplied by Alex Fraser and Rhoda Ross * “President M’Leod. Something about the Man at the Head of the Reading Combination,” //The New York Times//, 13 Feb. 1892 p. 3 (considerable biog. detail; salary reported to be $50,000 per year) * biog. sketch (with line-drawing portrait) in //National Cyclopaedia of American Biography//, Vol. 13 p. 115 * James L. Holton, //The Reading Railroad: History of a Coal Age Empire//, Vol. I (1989) 328-329 * Austin Corbin, financier: his life in //DAB// and //ANB// * McLeod’s death recalled, 20 Years Ago column, //Cornwall Freeholder// 27 April 1922 [<6>]