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Mckinnon, Archibald, first counselor to John M. Baxter (president of the Woodruff Stake of Zion), is the youngest of a family of nine children, and was born June 20, 1837, in Argyleshire, Scotland. When he was nine years old, his parents moved to Greenock, where they resided nine months, during which time his father and a grown sister (Catharine) died of typhoid fever. Three months later, the family moved to Paisley. At the age of thirteen, Archibald was apprenticed to learn the shoemaking trade. He was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints July 26, 1852, and in 1855 he emigrated to Zion, crossing the Atlantic in the ship "Samuel Curling," and the plains in Milo Andrus' company, which arrived in Salt Lake City Oct. 24, 1855. After spending a few weeks in the city, he went to Provo, where he found employment as a shoemaker with a firm, which also carried on a tanning business. Here also he was ordained to the office of a Teacher. Early in the following spring, he went to Palmyra, an adobe fort, situated about two miles from the present site of Spanish Fork, where Stephen Markham acted as Bishop. Late in the fall of 1859. Archibald returned to Salt Lake City where he worked at his trade for John W. Jenkins about five months. He was then engaged by Howard Egan to take charge of the mail and pony express station, near the Point of the Mountain, about nineteen miles south of Salt Lake City. Later he resumed his labors in the city, and on Aug. 9, 1861, he married Miss Mary McKay. In the spring of 1862 he joined the artillery and was a member of the expedition sent to the Morrisite camp, on the Weber, in June, 1862. During certain perilous times he stood guard in Pres. Brigham Young's office and acted as a special policeman in the Theatre for many years. In 1864, in company with Foster Curtis, he opened a harness shop on Main Street, and the following year built a home in the Eighth Ward, where he subsequently was called to act as superintendent of the Sunday school. Agreeable to council from Pres. Brigham Young, he removed with his family to Bear River valley and settled in Randolph, Rich county, Utah. Soon after his arrival he was called to act as second counselor to Bishop Randolph H. Stewart June 23, 1871, assisted by Geo. A. Peart and Wm. Rex, he organized a Sunday school with fifteen pupils. From 1872 to 1878 inclusive, he served as assessor and collector of Rich county. In 1876, he became first counselor to Bishop Stewart, and on July 10, 1879, he yielded obedience to the law of plural marriage by taking to wife Jane Brough, who was sealed to him in the Endowment House, Salt Lake City. In 1880 he served as a member of the Territorial legislature, and in August, of that year, he was ordained a Bishop and succeeded Bishop Stewart in taking charge of the Randolph Ward. With some regret he was now obliged to resign his positions as Sunday school superintendent and choir leader which he had held since the first organization of the Ward. Sept. 3, 1888, he was arrested on the charge of unlawful cohabitation and cited to appear before U. S. Commissioner Goodwin, at Logan, Cache county, within ten days. Bishop Wm. H. Lee, of Woodruff, had been arrested the day previous on the same charge, and, together with his wife Lizzie, he had been ordered to appear in Logan at the same time. The three therefore started for Logan together, and presented themselves before Mr. Goodwin, who put them all under bonds to appear before the grand jury at Ogden on the 20th. On the day appointed Bro. McKinnon and wives and Wm. H. Lee and wives were at Ogden; but the brethren made the appearance of their wives before the grand jury unnecessary, as they furnished sufficient evidence themselves to have indictments made out for unlawful cohabitation. Accordingly, on Dec. 24, 1888, Bro. McKinnon was sentenced to three months' imprisonment in the Territorial penitentiary, with costs of suit, and Wm. H. Lee to four months' imprisonment. One month after his incarceration Bishop McKinnon learned by letter from home that his little boy George, 2 1/2 years old, had died. He was released from imprisonment March 9, 1889, and in the following October he moved his wife Jane and her family to Fish Haven, Bear Lake county, Idaho where he had purchased a home for them and where they now resided five years. In 1900, Bishop McKinnon was elected collector and treasurer for Rich county by a large majority. May 4, 1901, he was set apart as first counselor to Pres. John M. Baxter, by Apostle Abraham O. Woodruff.
Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia: A Compilation of Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4 vols. Salt Lake City 1:332.
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Biographies 
