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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—New Mexico / West VirginiaStephen Benton ELKINS
(1841-1911)
Senate Years of Service:
1895-1911Party: RepublicanELKINS, Stephen Benton,
(father of Davis Elkins), a Delegate from the Territory of New
Mexico and a Senator from West Virginia; born in Perry County,
Ohio, September 26, 1841; moved with his parents to Westport, Mo.;
attended the public schools and graduated from the law department
of the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1860; during the Civil
War enlisted in the Union Army as a captain in the Kansas Militia;
moved to the Territory of New Mexico in 1864; admitted to the bar
in 1864 and commenced practice in Messila, N.Mex.; member,
Territorial house of representatives 1864-1865; district attorney
for the Territory of New Mexico 1866-1867; attorney general of the
Territory 1867; United States district attorney for the Territory
1867-1870; elected as a Republican Delegate to the Forty-third and
Forty-fourth Congresses (March 4, 1873-March 3, 1877); was not a
candidate for renomination in 1876; moved to Elkins, W.Va., which
he founded, around 1890; extensive interests in developing natural
resources and industry in West Virginia; appointed Secretary of War
by President Benjamin Harrison 1891-1893; elected as a Republican
to the United States Senate in February 1895; reelected in 1901 and
1907, and served from March 4, 1895, until his death in Washington,
D.C., January 4, 1911; chairman, Committee on the Geological Survey
(Fifty-sixth and Fifty-ninth Congresses), Committee on Interstate
Commerce (Fifty-seventh through Sixty-first Congresses); interment
in Maplewood Cemetery, Elkins, W.Va.
Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography; Lambert, Oscar. Stephen
Benton Elkins. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1955; Williams, John Alexander. “New York’s First
Senator From West Virginia: How Stephen B. Elkins Found a New
Political Home.” West Virginia History 31 (January
1970): 73-87.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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