Melvin Baldwin

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Melvin Riley Baldwin, (April 12, 1838 – April 15, 1901), was a Representative from Minnesota.

1 Early life and education
2 Career and service in the Civil War
3 US Representative
4 Later life

[edit] Early life and education

Baldwin was born near Chester, Windsor County, Vermont on April 12, 1838 and moved with his parents to Oshkosh, Winnebago County, Wisconsin, in 1847. He attended the common schools there and entered Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1855. He studied law but adopted civil engineering as a profession.

[edit] Career and service in the Civil War

He was 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 He was commissioned captain of his company and was later captured at Gettysburg and confined in Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia, at Macon, Georgia, and at Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina, being prisoner for eighteen months.

After the war, he engaged in operative railway work in Kansas, being general superintendent for four years. He moved to Duluth, St. Louis County, Minnesota, in 1885.

[edit] US Representative

Baldwin was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-third Congress (March 4, 1893 – March 3, 1895), but lost his bid for reelection in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress.

[edit] Later life

Baldwin was chairman of the Chippewa Indian Commission from 1894 – 1897. He traveled to Alaska in November 1897 and died in Seattle, Washington, April 15, 1901. He is interred in Forest Hill Cemetery, Duluth, Minnesota.