James W. McDill

James Wilson McDill (March 4, 1834 - February 28, 1894) was a United States Representative and Senator from Iowa.

Born in Monroe, Ohio, he attended the common schools, Hanover College, and South Salem Academy (South Salem, Ohio); he graduated from Miami University (in Oxford, Ohio) in 1853. He studied law in Columbus, Ohio, and was admitted to the bar in 1856. He moved to Afton, Iowa and commenced practice; he was elected superintendent of Union County, Iowa, in 1859 and was elected county judge in 1860. He was a clerk in the office of the Third Auditor of the Treasury in Washington, D.C. from 1862-1865, when he resigned and returned to Iowa. He was circuit judge and then district judge of the third judicial circuit of Iowa, and was elected as a Republican to the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses, serving from March 4, 1873-March 3, 1877. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1876 and resumed the practice of law in Afton. He was a member of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Iowa from 1878 to 1881 and 1883 to 1885, and was appointed and subsequently elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Samuel J. Kirkwood, serving from March 8, 1881, until March 3, 1883. He was not a candidate for reelection, but was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission and served from 1892 until his death in Creston in 1894. Interment was in Graceland Cemetery.

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*CongBio|M000407