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Senate Years of Service: 1881-1883 Party: Republican
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.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography.
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