Archibald McKinnon was born in the parish of Duirinish on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, around the year 1845. He came to the Colony of Victoria with his parents and sisters on the ship "Star of the South" in 1857. The family went first to Buninyong, then settled near the gold town of Creswick. Arch took up the itinerant profession of a bullockey (a driver of bullock teams) and bushman, and spent many years travelling through the bush.
One story that he liked to recount in later life was was about the time when, in the middle of the night, he interrupted a thief who was trying to steal a horse from camp. The thief got away, but years later when Ned Kelly was caught and hung at Melbourne Gaol, and his photo was in the papers, Arch said that he recognized him as the man who had once tried to steal his horse - at least, that's how the family story goes....

With his wife Marion he established a farm and raised a family at Narrewillock in northern Victoria. It was here that an unknown traveling photographer found him in late 1903 and took a series of photographs of his family and farm which have fortunately survived. His daughter Kate recalled that in this photo (below) he was wearing a MacLeod tartan.