James S. Havens

Who was James S. Havens?

James Smith Havens was a U.S. Representative from New York.

Born in Weedsport, New York. He attended the public schools and Munro Collegiate Institute, Elbridge, New York and graduated from Yale College in 1884. He moved to Rochester the same year and studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1887 and commenced practice in Rochester.

He was the father of noted artist James D. Havens. He learned of research being done by Banting and Best in Canada, and his son Jim became the first American to use insulin.

He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1904. He was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-first Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of James B. Perkins. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1910, and resumed the practice of his profession in Rochester.

He declined the Democratic nomination for mayor of Rochester in 1913. He was vice president and secretary of the Eastman Kodak Company, and head of its legal department from 1919 until his death and interment in Mount Hope Cemetery in 1927.