Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

whose letters of inquiry and approval
testified their interest.
His final years of life were passed at the
home of his son, George Waldo, Jr., in
Black Rock, Bridgeport, where he died
on April 2, 1921. Civic and professional
bodies paid him honor as he was laid at
rest in the family burial plot in Mountain
Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport.
Mr. Waldo's name and his professional
tradition are carried on by his son, George
C. Waldo, Jr., who succeeded his father as
editor of the "Bridgeport Standard," and
later editor-in-chief of the "Bridgeport
Post and Telegram," which position he
now holds.
McNEIL, Archibald,
Coal Dealer.
The McNeils of Bridgeport have in the
honored head, Archibald (3) McNeil, an
octogenarian descendant of the Scottish
clan of that name, who has been a lead-
ing man of the city in business and poli-
tics and among the foremost men in the
councils of the State for more than three
decades. Essentially a self-made man,
Mr. McNeil has risen virtually by his own
merits to the important place that he occupies
in the commercial, social and municipal
life of Bridgeport and in the commonwealth.
Robust of mind and body,
aggressive in the better meaning of that
term, progressive in his worthy ambition
to excel in business, possessing strong
convictions of the advantages accruing to
dealer and buyer in the application of the
rule of strict honesty, a clear thinker, a
wise legislator when a member of tht
local board of government and of the Gen-
eral Assembly, Mr. McNeil, though far
advanced in years, is an outstanding and
important figure, to whom his three sons
and his fellow citizens may point with
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
pride as a worthy example of that which
is best in the body politic.
Mr. McNeil comes of ancient Scottish
ancestry. It is the theory, held by some
members of the now widely ramifying
family, that the McNeils of this country
can trace their lineage to the pure-blood
MacNeills of Barra and the MacNeills of
Gigha, generally admitted to have a common
origin. Archibald (3) McNeil is in
the fifth generation from Archibald (i)
McNeil, founder of the Connecticut line
and a highly successful trader with the
West Indies, who became a prominent
citizen and a public official of New Haven.
It is interesting to observe in this con-
nection that in the mother country the old
stock—Americanized to McNeil^— ^still is
vigorous in its descendants, who occupy
high social standing, and have figured
conspicuously in the upbuilding of the
nation politically, commercially and spir-
itually. The virility of the family has
been, and still remains, remarkable for
strength of character, patriotism and lon-
gevity. The late General Sir John Carstairs
McNeill was of the house of Mc-
Neill of Colonsay. It is to be supposed
that the family, on account of its branches
and the diversity of service, has a number
of coats-of-arms. Burke, in his "General
Armory," gives the arms of McNeil (Fear
Fergus, Scotland) as
Arms—Quarterly, first and fourth, azure, a lion
rampant argent; second, argent, a sinister hand
couped fesseways in chief and in base, wavy azure
a salmon naiant of the first ; third, or, a galley,
her oars in action gules, on a chief of the last
:
three mullets of the first.
Crest—An armed man, from the shoulder issu-
ing, holding a dagger point upwards, all proper.
Motto—Vincere vel mori. (To conquer or die.)
Honor is the warriors meed,
Or spar'd to live, or doom'd to die
Whether 'tis his lot to bleed.
Or join the shout of victory;
Alike the laurel to the truly brave
That binds the brow or consecrates the grave.
;