When President Harrison visited Seattle in 1891, he was taken around the lake on the sidewheeler Kirkland, with the Calkins (and other ships) travelling as escorts, with the steam calliope on Calkins playing Home Sweet Home.
Calkins was elected as a Republican to the Forty-fifth and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1877, to October 20, 1884, when he resigned.
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He served as chairman of the Committee on Elections (Forty-seventh Congress).