Horace Burton Strait (January 26, 1835 – February 25, 1894) was a

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

from

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

. He was born in Potter County, PA, January 26, 1835 and moved with his parents to

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

in 1846. In 1855 he settled near

Jordan, Minnesota Jordan is a city in Scott County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 6,656 at the 2020 census. History The city of Jordan began on November 27, 1853, when Thomas A. Holmes ordered the construction of a sawmill. This establishment ...

, and engaged in agricultural pursuits. In 1860 he moved to

Shakopee, Minnesota Shakopee ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Minnesota, United States. It is located southwest of Minneapolis. Sited on the south bank bend of the Minnesota River, Shakopee and nearby suburbs comprise the southwest portion of ...

and ran a general store. In 1862, Strait entered the

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

as a captain in the Ninth Regiment, Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, being promoted to major in 1864. He served at the close of the war as inspector general on the staff of General John McArthur and was honorably discharged in 1865. He became a trustee of the Minnesota Hospital for the Insane in 1866 and mayor of Shakopee in 1870, 1871, and 1872, while engaging in mercantile pursuits, manufacturing, and banking. Strait was elected as a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

to the 43rd, 44th, and 45th congresses, but failed in his reelection bid in 1878 to the

46th congress The 46th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1879, ...

. However, two years later he was elected to the 47th and reelected to 48th and 49th congresses. Strait was more than the "tongueless wirepuller" that one enemy labeled him. Certainly he did not speak much. Most congressmen were sparing in their participation on the floor, but with a very few exceptions, Strait never said anything. One might scan the indexes of the Congressional Record for session after session and never find him intervening with a single word. What measures he dealt with mostly handled the public lands, in most cases opening them wider to settlement. He resisted measures that would take the government land grant away from the Northern Pacific Railroad.St. Paul ''Pioneer Press,'' January 28, February 3, 1884. Strait's district, the Third Minnesota, was in the southern half of the state. It had been designed to guarantee a ten thousand vote Republican majority, made the firmer by a heavy Norwegian vote. But the protective tariff made that control less sure as the 1880s went on. Farmers needed cheap lumber and would have been happy to get it from anywhere, Canada included. Wheat growers complained that the tariff did not protect them from massive imports of grain out of Manitoba. Strait therefore had to stand with the shrinking group of low tariff Republicans in the House. During the 1870s, he would have had quite a lot of company; by the end of the 1880s, his stand was a lonely one, virtually on the party's outskirts. He was one of only three Republicans in 1886 to support the Morrison tariff reduction bill. Feeling increasingly isolated, Strait chose not to run for re-election in 1886. Strait served as chairman of the Committee on Militia in the Forty-seventh Congress and resumed banking at Shakopee while also engaging in agricultural pursuits. Strait died February 25, 1894, on a train at

Cd. Juárez A CD or compact disc is a thin plastic silvery disc for audio recordings. CD or cd may also refer to: Science and technology Astronomy and cosmology * Cordoba Durchmusterung, a star catalog of the southern sky * Cosmological decade or CÐ, a u ...

, Chihuahua,

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, en route to the United States and is interred at

Valley Cemetery The Valley Cemetery (or the Valley Street Cemetery) is a public cemetery located in Manchester, New Hampshire, United States. It is bounded on the east by Pine Street, on the north by Auburn Street, on the west by Willow Street, and on the south b ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Strait, Horace Burton 1835 births 1894 deaths Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Minnesota 19th-century American politicians People from Potter County, Pennsylvania People from Jordan, Minnesota People from Shakopee, Minnesota