Gunnison County CO Archives Biographies.....McConnell, David A. 1827 - ?
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 24, 2006, 1:38 pm

Author: 

Progressive Men of Western Colorado



     The father of David A. McConnell, of near Doyleville, Gunnison county, was

Thomas W. McConnell, a prosperous  manufacturer of furniture at New Salem,

Pennsylvania, and after the death of his wife, whose maiden name was Catherine

Gilchrist, and who departed this life in 1835 while she was still a young woman,

he reared the five children she left with care and judicious consideration for

their future welfare, cultivating in them habits of useful industry and a spirit

of self-reliance and readiness for any emergency.  Some two years afterward he

married Miss Catharine Withrow and raised a second family of six children. 

After the close of the Civil war he moved to Missouri and settled on a farm in

Johnson county, where he died in 1875, aged seventy-four years.  His son David

was born at New Salem, Pennsylvania, in 1827, and lost his mother by death when

he was but eight years old.  He grew to manhood and was educated under the

careful supervision of his father, and when he was twenty-three, in 1850,

removed to Iowa, where he remained two years.  In 1852 he crossed the Isthmus of

Panama to California and during the next twenty or twenty-one years was engaged

in mining and merchandising at various mining camps in the mountains of that

state.  He was successful in his business at times, and also suffered many of

the disasters incident to the precarious life he was living.  He attained to

prominence in politics, aiding in many ways in establishing the forms and

supporting the powers of government in the new country, and serving for a time

as county commissioner of Yuba county.  Then turning his face once more toward

the rising sun, he went to Marquette, Michigan, where for a year or two he was

engaged in the lumber industry.  From Michigan he went to Missouri and, leaving

his family in that state, came himself to Colorado and in 1875 to Lake City, and

there mining several years and serving as county assessor.  In February, 1879,

he took up as a homestead in Gunnison county a portion of the land on which he

now lives, familiarly known as the Evergreen Ranch, which is pleasantly located

on Tomichi creek, and on which he has made unusually good improvements.  Here he

has since been engaged in raising hay and cattle, developing his land and

increasing its value, and taking a leading part in the local affairs of his

district and county, in which he is recognized as a man of intelligence and

enterprise, deeply interested in the progress of the section and worthy of the

high place in the regard of the people which he holds.  He has served the county

well and wisely as county commissioner.  For many years he was a Republican in

politics, but of late has been independent.  Fraternally he has belonged to the

Independent Order of Odd Fellows for a long time.  He was married in 1859 to

Miss Mary E. McMath, a native of Michigan, daughter of Archie and Elizabeth

(Himmell) McMath.  Her parents came overland to California in the early days,

and here they passed the rest of their lives, the father dying in 1879, aged

seventy-four, and the mother in 1899, aged eighty-seven.  Mr. and Mrs. McConnell

have had nine children, six of whom are living, Edward K., Albert H., William

N., Ardelia K., Mary E. and Nellie E.  

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/gunnison/bios/mcconnel381gbs.txt

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