Melvin Riley BALDWIN, Congress, MN (1838-1901)

BALDWIN, Melvin Riley, a Representative from Minnesota; born near Chester, Windsor County, Vt., April 12, 1838; moved with his parents to Oshkosh, Winnebago County, Wis., in 1847; attended the common schools; entered Lawrence University, Appleton, Wis., in 1855; studied law but adopted civil engineering as a profession; engaged on the Chicago & North Western Railway until April 19, 1861, when he enlisted as a private in Company E, Second Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry; commissioned captain of his company; was captured at Gettysburg and confined in Libby Prison, Richmond, Va., at Macon, Ga., and at Charleston and Columbia, S.C., being prisoner for eighteen months; after the war engaged in operative railway work in Kansas; general superintendent for four years; moved to Duluth, St. Louis County, Minn., in 1885; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-third Congress (March 4, 1893-March 3, 1895); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress; chairman of the Chippewa Indian Commission 1894-1897; went to Alaska in November 1897; died in Seattle, Wash., April 15, 1901; interment in Forest Hill Cemetery, Duluth, Minn.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present