Early Life and Career
McNeil was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to parents descended from Tories who had fled the American Revolution. He received a common school education, and then learned the hatter's trade in Boston, Massachusetts. He engaged unsuccessfully in the business first in New York City and subsequently for twenty years in St. Louis, Missouri. He prospered there, though he lost his fortune to Southern repudiation as the war began. He was a member of the Missouri legislature, 1844–45, and president of the Pacific Insurance Company, 1855-61.
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