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TEPHEN BENTON ELKINS, United States senator and ex-secretary of war, was born in Perry county, Ohio, September 26, 1841, He came from ancestry of distinction in the Old Dominion, his grandfather being a Virginian of wealth and a large slave-holder. Like many of the thinking men of his time, he was in sympathy with Jefferson's views on emancipation, and removed to Ohio, where he bought a large tract of land in the southern section of the state. He owned about three thousand acres of land in Hocking Valley, in the best part of the coal area; but this now very valuable tract was disposed of by Senator Elkins' father. Colonel Philip D. Elkins, for a very small sum.

Colonel Elkins removed to Missouri during the childhood of his son, who was educated in the schools of that state and in the University of Missouri, where he was graduated in 1860. The years that followed were years of active life. On the outbreak of the Civil war he entered the Federal army as captain, and served for the ensuing two years, leaving the army in 1863; and having pursued a course of legal study, he was admitted to the bar of Missouri. He did not engage in practice, however, but in 1863 joined a cattle-driving party, crossing the plains to New Mexico. Finding in this territory an excellent opportunity for the practice of law, he settled at Albuquerque, studied the Spanish dialect there spoken, and was soon in successful practice in the courts. He made his ability so quickly felt, indeed, that in 1866 he was elected to the legislature, soon after was made attorney-general, and in 1868 was appointed by the president United States district attorney for New Mexico. As such he set himself actively at work in the execution of the constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery or involuntary servitude in the states or territories. Under it, by his exertions, ten thousand peons, the serfs of the Spanish dominion, were set free in New Mexico.

By his activity in this and other directions he made himself very prominent in the territory, and his high popularity was shown by his election to congress in 1873 during his absence on a trip to Europe.