A new article has been added at Newspaper Abstracts > United States > Pennsylvania > Tioga http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/index.php?action=displaycat&catid=1700 Direct link to article: http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=52302 Submitted by: Barbara Article Title: The Wellsboro Agitator Article Date: May 13 1884 Article Description: Ex-Senator Strang's Death Article Text: Ex-Senator Strang's Death After enduring years of ill health he takes his own life - a sketch of his career. News was received in this borough last Saturday to the effect that ex-Senator Butler B. Strang had shot and killed himself at his residence in Westfield. No details of the event were received here during the day, but a subsequent conversation with a citizen of Westfield enables us to give the particulars of the sad event. The fatal shot was fired at 6:15 o'clock Saturday morning while Mrs. Strang was engaged in rubbing her husband's feet as he lay on his bed propped up by pillows. Mrs. Strang thought the pistol was fired out of doors, but it was so near at hand that she was startled by it. The Senator's son Benjamin was in the next room, and when he heard the report he ran into his father's room and found the pistol in his bed and blood flowing from the wounds made by the shot. It was evident that the deceased had placed the revolver at his right temple, and that the ball had passed directly through his head, coming out at the left temple. The spent ball entered the plaster of the ceiling a little distance and then fell back to the bed where it was found. Death was instantaneous, and there was not the slightest tremor or motion of any part of the body to indicate what had happened. For two or three years past Senator Strang had been suffering from ill-health, his trouble apparently involving the digestive organs and the entire nervous system. For the past few months his condition had been almost hopeless, involving acute suffering, inability to sleep, much mental depression and some hallucination. Either his wife or one of his two sons had been with him almost constantly of late, and it was astonishing to them that he had been able to elude their vigilance and secure and secrete the pistol, which was known to be in the room, but which was thought not to be loaded. His bed was made up Friday noon, and it is certain that at that time the weapon was not about the bed. Coroner Francis, of Knoxville, held an inquest on Saturday, and the conclusion arrived at was that the deceased came to his death by his own hand while suffering under mental depression induced by disease. The ex-Senator's funeral is to be held this afternoon at 2 o'clock. Mr. Strang was in his fifty-sixth year at the time of his death, having been born on the 16th of March, 1829, in the town of Greenwood, Steuben county, N. Y. His father was a Methodist preacher who took up his residence at Westfield in 1840, and there Butler resided all the rest of his life. Of the boy's education we have no record. It is probable it was limited to such common English branches as were taught in the district schools of the period, but it is to be inferred from his subsequent career that he made good use of his opportunities. On reaching man's estate he read law with A. J. Monroe, Esq., of Knoxville, and was admitted to the bar of the county in 1852. In 1856 he was elected District Attorney, and for three years, as prosecuting attorney for the county, he discharged the duties of his office with ability and credit. In 1860 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of Harrisburg, and was re-elected the next year. He was again chosen for the same office in 1867, and he was re-elected three successive terms, his career as Representative this covering six years in all. During his term of service he was chairman of the Judiciary General Committee for two sessions, chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means for one session and was Speaker of the House for one session. His standing and influence in the Legislature and his popularity in the county and district are attested by the fact that he was sent directly from the House to the Senate, being elected to the latter body in 1871 for the full term of three years from the old district of Cameron, McKean, Potter and Tioga counties. In 1874 he was re-elected for the term of two years under the provisions of the new constitution. While in the Senate he was chairman of the Judiciary General Committee and chairman of the Finance Committee, and during the session of 1874 he was Speaker of the Senate, being the last man to hold that position under the constitution of 1838, and, we believe, the only man who was ever Speaker of both the House and Senate of Pennsylvania. He was chairman of the Commission appointed by Governor Hartranft to devise a code of laws for the government of the cities of the State, and made an elaborate and well-considered report on that subject, which was accompanied by a bill. Many of the provisions thus recommended have since been adopted by the Legislature. Senator Strang was also an influential member of the Legislative committee appointed to promote the Centennial Exhibition, and he was chairman of the committee that investigated and exposed the bogus diploma business carried on by some so-called "Universities" at Philadelphia. Mr. Strang's conspicuous career as a member of the House and Senate had made him well known throughout the State and prompted many of his friends to urge his nomination for State Treasurer at the Republican State Convention held at Lancaster in 1875. The candidate was rather too independent, however, to suit the managing politicians, and he was not nominated - a fact which he probably never regretted himself, and which his friends had no good reason to regret, for the post was one for which he was not particularly fitted and one that was not commensurate to his abilities. With Speaker Strang's retirement from the Senate his active public career practically closed, although he still continued to feel an interest in political affairs and to take come part in shaping public opinion. In 1880 he attended the State Convention that sent delegates to the Republican National Convention of that year, and on the floor of that State Convention, as the faithful representative of Tioga county Republicans he indignantly exposed and denounced the political usurpers who had set aside Messrs. Schieffelin and Cochran, the delegates chosen by the representatives of the district, to make room for two servile tools of the third term managers. That protest was ineffective at Harrisburg, and the ex-Senator returned home to join heartily in promoting the popular County Convention held in this borough in march, 1880, to condemn the outrage thus consummated. He was elected chairman of that meeting, and made a most effective address showing the manner and nature of the ! usurpation effected at Harrisburg. This was, we believe, Mr. Strang's last appearance as a political speaker. He was afterward appointed United States Marshal of the Territory of Dakota; but he held the office but a short time, resigning it in the spring of 1882, as he found his health was not vigorous enough to enable him to discharge his duties. He returned to his old home at Westfield and to the practice of his profession, but continued and increasing ill-health withdrew him more and more from all active pursuits, and so, at an age when he should have been in the full vigor of mature manhood and in the satisfied enjoyment of his great abilities, he gradually faded from the sight and the companionship of his busy fellow-workers until suddenly, by his own half-conscious act, he passed "from the warm precincts of the cheerful day, nor cast one longing, lingering look behind." Mr. Strang was a man of great natural ability. His common-sense, sagacity and tact enabled him to exert a strong personal influence upon those with whom he cam in contact; but a natural indisposition to continues exertion and a lack of the combative spirit unfitted him for effective leadership of great bodies of men. He had a clear and vigorous intellect that enabled him to see quickly and grasp firmly the essential points of any question, and he possessed that best gift of a debater - the faculty of so marshaling his facts that his mere statement of the case became a strong argument for his position. These qualities gave him great weight in any deliberative body, and, backed by his acquired knowledge of parliamentary law, they insured his rapid advancement to leading positions in the Legislature. In this respect he was probably the ablest representative the county has ever had at Harrisburg, and if he had felt the spur of a more active and persistent ambition and had posses! sed a more pugnacious nature, he might have become a leader in a broader field of action. As a political speaker he was eminently successful. His speeches were always clear, logical and convincing. There was no clap-trap or humbug about them. There were no "oratorical flights" - no straining after effect - no story-telling or attempts to be funny, but there were plain simple statements of fact, a line of argument from whose conclusion there was no logical escape, occasional flashes of quiet humor, exciting a smile but hardly ever a laugh, and more rarely a burst of cutting sarcasm or indignant condemnation. His speeches were not eloquent, but they were most effective and thoroughly convincing. The speaker was never carried off his feet by his theme, and he never labored under it. Speaking without notes, every sentence was perfectly formed and in its proper place, every argument was fully and fairly developed, no essential point was omitted and no extraneous matter was lugged in to distract the hearer's attention. Among Mr. Strang's popular political addresses two! delivered in this borough are worthy of special mention - the one made in August, 1872, in defense of Hartranft, and the one made during the fallacies of the Greenbackers. The deceased ex-Senator was a sound lawyer, and he was gifted in an eminent degree with what the lawyers are wont to call a legal mind - the faculty of accurately applying the rules and principles of jurisprudence to the ever-varying affairs of men. The public offices he held naturally interfered much with the practice of his profession, but for many years he was one of the leaders at the bar here, and his ability as a lawyer was widely recognized. As a man of shining abilities, as a Republican leader and advocate and as a useful public officer Butler B. Strang was a man in whom Tioga county felt a justifiable pride and whose sad death will be regretted throughout the Commonwealth. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ PA-Old-News ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ NewspaperAbstracts.com - Finding our ancestors in the news! TM http://www.NewspaperAbstracts.com