Stephen Columbus Millard

Stephen Columbus Millard (January 14, 1841 – June 21, 1914) was a U.S. Representative from New York and a lawyer active in Republican politics in the late nineteenth century. He was born in Stamford, Bennington County, Vermont, where he spent his early years before pursuing formal education that would prepare him for a professional and political career.

Millard attended the Powers Institute in Bernardston, Massachusetts, a secondary school known in the mid-nineteenth century for preparing students for collegiate study. After completing his preparatory education, he enrolled at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He graduated from Williams College in 1865, at the close of the Civil War, joining a generation of college-educated men who would move into law, business, and public service in the Reconstruction era.

Following his graduation, Millard pursued legal studies at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the leading law institutions in the country. After completing his legal education, he relocated to New York State and was admitted to the bar of the State of New York in May 1867. He then commenced the practice of law in Binghamton, Broome County, New York, establishing himself as an attorney in a growing upstate community that served as a regional commercial and transportation center.

Millard quickly became involved in Republican Party affairs at the local level. In Binghamton and Broome County he emerged as an influential party organizer and strategist. He served as chairman of the Republican county committee from 1872 to 1879, a period during which the party was consolidating its post–Civil War dominance in many parts of New York. In this role he helped manage local campaigns, coordinate with state party leaders, and shape the Republican ticket and platform in his county, thereby building the political base that would later support his candidacy for Congress.

On the strength of his legal career and party leadership, Millard was elected as a Republican to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses, representing New York in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1883, to March 3, 1887. During his two consecutive terms in Congress he served in an era marked by debates over tariffs, civil service reform, and federal economic policy in the Gilded Age. Although specific committee assignments and legislative initiatives are not extensively documented, his service placed him among the Republican majority that shaped national policy in the mid-1880s. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1886, choosing to return to private life at the conclusion of his second term.

After leaving Congress, Millard resumed the practice of law in Binghamton, New York, where he continued to be a respected member of the local bar and remained identified with the Republican Party and civic affairs. He lived in Binghamton for the remainder of his life, maintaining his professional activities into the early twentieth century as the city and region continued to develop industrially and commercially.

Stephen Columbus Millard died in Binghamton on June 21, 1914. He was interred in Spring Forest Cemetery in that city, a burial place for many of Binghamton’s prominent citizens. His career reflected the trajectory of a nineteenth-century New England–educated lawyer who built a professional and political life in upstate New York, combining legal practice with party leadership and service in the national legislature.