Page:Autobiographies and portraits of the President, cabinet, Supreme court, and Fifty-fifth Congress (IA autobiographiesp02neal).pdf/167

 JAMES MCMILLAN

, of Detroit, Mich., was born in Hamilton, Ontario, of Scotch parents, May 12, 1838; in 1855 he removed to Detroit, where he engaged first in the hardware business, and afterwards in railroad building and railroad purchasing. In 1868 he became a member of a company organized to build freight cars; was president of the company and of numerous affiliated companies. He engaged extensively in shipbuilding, in freight and passenger navigation on the Great Lakes, and in various lines of manufacturing, in all of which enterprises he is also still interested. He was largely instrumental in building the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railway and the International bridge at Sault Ste. Marie, and until he entered the Senate was president of both corporations. The Grace Hospital, Detroit; the McMillan Hall and the McMillan Shakespeare Library at the University of Michigan; a large entomological collection at the Michigan Agricultural College; a hall at the Mary Allen Seminary, Crockett, Texas, and the McMillan Chemical Laboratory at Albion College, Michigan, are some of the more conspicuous examples of his generosity. At the death of Senator Zachariah Chandler, Mr. McMillan became chairman of the Michigan Republican State central committee, which office he held for ten years. He was a park commissioner and a member of the board of estimates in Detroit, and was a presidential elector in 1884. In 1889 he was elected to the United States Senate, and six years later was unanimously reëlected. In the Senate he has been chairman of the committees on manufactures, the joint select committee on charities in the District of Columbia, and the committee on the District of Columbia, and is still chairman of the two committees last mentioned. He is also a member of the committees on commerce and on naval affairs.