WILLIAM McKINLEY
William McKinley, President, was born at Niles, Trumbull County, Ohio, January 29, 1843; was educated in the public schools, Poland Academy, and Allegheny College; before attaining his majority he taught in the public schools; enlisted as a private in the Twenty-Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry June 11, 1861; promoted to commissary-sergeant April 15, 1862, to second lieutenant September 23, 1862, to first lieutenant February 7, 1863, to captain July 25, 1864; served successively on the staffs of Generals R. B. Hayes, George Crook, and Winfield S. Hancock, and was brevetted major in the United States Volunteers by President Lincoln for gallantry in battle March 13, 1865; detailed as acting assistant adjutant-general of the First Division, First Army Corps, on the staff of Gen. S. S. Carroll; mustered out of the service July 26, 1865; returning to civil life, he studied law in Mahoning County; took a course at the Albany (N. Y.) Law School, and in 1867 was admitted to the bar and settled at Canton, Ohio, which has since been his home; in 1869 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Stark County. and served a term in that office; in 1876 was elected a member of the National House of Representatives, and for fourteen years represented the congressional district of which his county was a part; as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee he reported the tariff law of 1890, but in November following was defeated for Congress in a gerrymandered district, although reducing the usual adverse
