Thomas J. Strait

Thomas J. Strait, 1896

Thomas Jefferson Strait (born December 25, 1846 in Chester County , South Carolina , † April 18, 1924 in Lancaster , South Carolina) was an American politician . Between 1893 and 1899 he represented the state of South Carolina in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Thomas Strait attended public schools in Mayesville and then the Cooper Institute in Mississippi . During the Civil War , he was a soldier in the Confederate States Army between 1862 and 1865 . After the war, Strait worked in agriculture and as a teacher. In 1885 he completed a medical degree at South Carolina Medical College in Charleston . For the rest of his life, Thomas Strait worked intermittently as a doctor. Politically, he was a member of the Democratic Party . Between 1890 and 1893 he was a member of the South Carolina Senate .

In 1892, Strait was elected to the United States House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the fifth constituency of South Carolina , where he succeeded John J. Hemphill on March 4, 1893 . After two re-elections, he was able to complete three legislative terms in Congress by March 3, 1899 . During this time the Spanish-American War of 1898 fell . In addition to the areas won by the war, including the Philippines , the Kingdom of Hawaii came under American control.

Strait was no longer nominated by his party for another legislature in 1898. In the following years he worked as a doctor in Lancaster. He died there in 1924.

Web links

• Thomas J. Strait in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Thomas J. Strait in the database of Find a Grave (English)