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Senate Years of Service: 1889-1895 Party: Republican
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WASHBURN, William Drew, (brother of Israel Washburn, Jr., Elihu Benjamin Washburne, and Cadwallader Colden Washburn),
a Representative and a Senator from Minnesota; born in Livermore, Androscoggin
County, Maine, on January 14, 1831; attended the common schools and graduated from Bowdoin
College, Brunswick, Maine, in 1854; studied law in Bangor, Maine; admitted to the bar in 1857 and
commenced practice in Minneapolis, Minn., where he had settled early in 1857; appointed as United
States surveyor general of Minnesota by President Abraham Lincoln 1861-1865, residing in St. Paul
while holding that office; unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives in
1864; returned to Minneapolis and engaged in the newspaper, railway, milling, and waterpower
businesses; several times a member of the State house of representatives; elected as a Republican to
the Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, and Forty-eighth Congresses (March 4, 1879-March 3, 1885);
elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1889, to March 3,
1895; unsuccessful candidate for reelection; chairman, Committee on the Improvement of the
Mississippi River and its Tributaries (Fifty-first and Fifty-second Congresses); resumed manufacturing
pursuits and also engaged in railroad building; died in Minneapolis, Minn., July 29, 1912; interment in
Lakewood Cemetery.
BibliographyDictionary of American Biography;
Upham, Warren. Memorial Address in Honor of Senator William Drew Washburn. Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society 15 (May 1915): 816-17.
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