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ELKINS, Stephen Benton

ELKINS, Stephen Benton
Library of Congress
ELKINS, Stephen Benton
1841–1911

Office

Delegate, Senator

State/Territory

New Mexico, West Virginia

Party

Republican

Congress(es)

43rd (1873–1875), 44th (1875–1877), 54th (1895–1897), 55th (1897–1899), 56th (1899–1901), 57th (1901–1903), 58th (1903–1905), 59th (1905–1907), 60th (1907–1909), 61st (1909–1911)

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Biography

ELKINS, 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.

View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

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External Research Collections

Brigham Young University
Special Collections

Provo, UT
Papers: November 23, 1888. 1 letter. From George Q. Cannon.

Duke University
Special Collections Library

Durham, NC
Papers: Correspondence in Gordon Butcher Gibbens papers, 1884-1904. Finding aid.

Library of Congress
Manuscript Division

Washington, DC
Papers: 1 letter (1891); and correspondence in Jedediah Hotchkiss papers, 1835-1908, available on 61 microfilm reels; and in Louis Theodore Michener papers, 1880-1927. Finding aid.

New-York Historical Society

New York, NY
Papers: February 24, 1885. 1 letter.

Pierpont Morgan Library

New York, NY
Papers: 1891. 1 item.

Syracuse University
George Arents Research Library

Syracuse, NY
Papers: In Levi P. Morton papers, 1860-1912; and W.J. Arkell collection, 1881-1894.

University of Michigan
Bentley Historical Library

Ann Arbor, MI
Papers: Correspondence in Oliver Lyman Spaulding papers, 1861-1921; and Henry Carter Adams papers, 1864-1924. Finding aid.

West Virginia Division of Culture and History

Charleston, WV
Papers: 1 letter and photographs.

West Virginia University
West Virginia and Regional History Collection

Morgantown, WV
Papers: 1861-1946. 24 volumes, 18 boxes, 1 bundle, 7 folders, and ca. 150 items. Correspondence, speeches, maps, legal documents, reports, photographs, and clippings relating to political, business, and family affairs. Includes material on railroads, relationship to Cole Younger and Jesse James, coal and silver mining, lumbering, development of New Mexico and its admission as a state, and research notes by O.D. Lambert for his biography of Elkins.
Additional Papers: Correspondence in Henry Gassaway Davis papers, 1865-1916.
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Bibliography / Further Reading

Lambert, Oscar Doane. Stephen Benton Elkins. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1955.

Michael, M.A. "Middle Man for Peace: Senator Stephen A. Elkins and the Spanish-American War." West Virginia History 57 (1998): 46-61.

U.S. Congress. Stephen Benton Elkins (Late a Senator from West Virginia): Memorial Addresses Delivered in the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States. 61st Cong., 3d sess., 1910-1911. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1912.

Williams, John Alexander. "Davis and Elkins of West Virginia: Businessmen in Politics." Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1967.

___. "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.

___. "Stephen B. Elkins and the Benjamin Harrison Campaign and Cabinet, 1887-1891." Indiana Magazine of History 68 (March 1972): 1-23.

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