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Senate Years of Service: 1889-1902 Party: Republican
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McMILLAN, James, a Senator from Michigan; born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, May 12, 1838;
educated in the public schools of Hamilton; moved to Detroit, Mich., in 1855, where he entered upon
a business career; purchasing agent of the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad; an organizer of the
Michigan Car Co. in 1863; built and became president of the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic
Railroad; largely interested in shipbuilding and lake transportation companies; for three years was
president of the Detroit Board of Park Commissioners and for four years a member of the Detroit
Board of Estimates; presidential elector on the Republican ticket in 1884; elected as a Republican to
the United States Senate in 1889; reelected in 1895 and 1901 and served from March 3, 1889, until
his death; chairman, Committee on Manufactures (Fifty-first and Fifty-second Congresses),
Committee on the District of Columbia (Fifty-fourth through Fifty-seventh Congresses); died in
Manchester, Essex County, Mass., August 10, 1902; interment in Elmwood Cemetery, Detroit, Mich.
BibliographyAmerican 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; Heyda, Marie. Senator James McMillan and the Flowering of the
Spoils System. Michigan History 54 (Fall 1970): 183-200.
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