Courtesy U.S. Senate Historical Office

McDILL, James Wilson, a Representative and a Senator from Iowa; born in Monroe, Butler County, Ohio, March 4, 1834; attended the common schools, Hanover College, and Salem Academy; graduated from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in 1853; studied law in Columbus, Ohio, and was admitted to the bar in 1856; moved to Afton, Iowa, and commenced practice; elected superintendent of Union County, Iowa, in 1859; elected county judge of Union County in 1860; clerk in the office of the Third Auditor of the Treasury, Washington, D.C., 1862-1865, when he resigned and returned to Iowa; circuit judge and then district judge of the third judicial circuit of Iowa; elected as a Republican to the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses (March 4, 1873-March 3, 1877); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1876; resumed the practice of law in Afton, Iowa; member of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Iowa 1878-1881, 1883-1885; appointed and subsequently elected as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Samuel J. Kirkwood and served from March 8, 1881, until March 3, 1883; was not a candidate for reelection; appointed by President Benjamin Harrison a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission and served from 1892, until his death in Creston, Iowa, February 28, 1894; interment in Graceland Cemetery.