Fonds MS-2-87, SF Box 18, Folders 32-33 - Archibald Woodbury McLelan fonds

Archibald Woodbury McLelan was a shipbuilder, merchant and politician, serving as the sixth lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia. He was born in Londonderry, Nova Scotia, in 1824 to Martha Spenser and Gloud Wilson McLelan, a member of the House of Assembly. He was educated in Great Village, Nova Scotia, and Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy in Sackville, New Brunswick, before joining his father's shipping and retail business.

McLelan went into partnership with his brother-in-law, John M. Blaikie, with whom he built ships on the Great Village River into the early 1880s. After his father's death in 1858 he succeeded him in the House of Assembly. He strongly opposed Confederation and was the first elected federal member of parliament for Colchester as an Anti-Confederate. After reconciling himself to Confederation he was summoned to the Canadian Senate in 1869, where he sat as a Liberal-Conservative. He resigned from the Upper House to run again in the 1881 federal election and was returned to parliament as a Conservative. He served as minister of finance from 1885 to 1887 in the second administration of Sir John A. Macdonald. Following this position he became postmaster general and was responsible for introducing the parcel post system into Canada. In 1888 he accepted the position of lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia.

McLelan married Caroline Metzler in 1842, with whom he had three children. McLelan passed away in Halifax at the age of sixty-five in 1889.