James McMillan (Senator)
|
|
James McMillan (May 12, 1838–August 10, 1902) was a U.S. Senator from the state of Michigan
McMillan was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and was educated in the public schools of Hamilton. He moved Detroit, Michigan in 1855, where he entered upon a business career. He was first a purchasing agent of the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad and, along with John Stoughton Newberry, was an organizer of the Michigan Car Company in 1863. He built and became president of the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railroad and was largely interested in shipbuilding and lake transportation companies. For three years he was president of the Detroit Board of Park Commissioners and for four years a member of the Detroit Board of Estimates.
McMillan was a presidential elector on the Republican ticket in 1884. He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1889 and was reelected in 1895 and 1901, serving from March 3, 1889, until his death. He was chairman of the Committee on Manufactures in the Fifty-first and Fifty-second Congresses, and of the Committee on the District of Columbia in the Fifty-fourth through Fifty-seventh Congresses.
McMillan died in Manchester, Massachusetts and is interred in Elmwood Cemetery, in Detroit.
Bibliography
- American National Biography
- Dictionary of American Biography
- Drutchas, Geoffrey G. "Gray Eminence in a Gilded Age: The Forgotten Career of Senator James McMillan of Michigan." Michigan Historical Review 28 (Fall 2002): 78-113
- Drutchas, Geoffrey G. "The Man With a Capital Design." Michigan History 86 (March/April 2002): 36-38.
- Heyda, Marie. "Senator James McMillan and the Flowering of the Spoils System." Michigan History 54 (Fall 1970): 183-200
- Michigan. Legislature. In Memory of Hon. James McMillan, Senator in the Congress of the United States from Michigan. Lansing: R. Smith Printing Co., 1903.
- Moore, Charles. "James M’Millan, United States Senator from Michigan." Michigan Historical Collections 39 (1915): 173-87.
- U.S. Congress. James McMillan: (Late a Senator from Michigan). Memorial Addresses Delivered in the Senate and House of Representatives. 57th Cong., 2d sess., 1902-1903. Washington: Government Printing Office.
This article incorporates facts obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.