Melvin Baldwin

Melvin Baldwin

Melvin Riley Baldwin (born April 12, 1838 in Chester , Windsor County , Vermont , †  April 15, 1901 in Seattle , Washington ) was an American politician . Between 1893 and 1895 he represented the state of Minnesota in the US House of Representatives .

Career

In 1847, Melvin Baldwin came to Oshkosh , Wisconsin with his parents . There he attended public schools. He then studied until 1855 at Lawrence University in Appleton . Baldwin also studied law, but without becoming legally active. Instead, he got involved in the railroad business. Until 1861 he worked for the Chicago and North Western Railway . During the civil war he rose to the rank of captain in the Union army. In Gettysburg he was taken prisoner of war in July 1863. He spent the next 18 months in various Confederate prison camps . Among them was the infamous Libby Prison in Richmond ( Virginia ).

After the war, Baldwin worked in Kansas railroad construction. In 1885 he moved to Duluth , Minnesota. There he began a political career as a member of the Democratic Party . In the congressional elections of 1892 he was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the then newly created sixth constituency of Minnesota , where he took up his new mandate on March 4, 1893. Since he was defeated by the Republican Charles A. Towne in the elections of 1894 , he was only able to complete one term in Congress until March 3, 1895 .

After serving in the House of Representatives, Baldwin was chairman of the Chippewa Indian Commission until 1897. In November 1897 he moved to Alaska . He died in Seattle on April 15, 1901 and was buried in Duluth.

Web links

• Melvin Baldwin in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Melvin Baldwin in the database of Find a Grave (English)