Thomas McKee Bayne

Who was Thomas McKee Bayne?

Thomas McKee Bayne was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Bayne was born in Bellevue, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. He attended the public schools and Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. He studied law. During the American Civil War, he entered the Union Army in July 1862 as colonel of the One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

He took part in the Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. He resumed the study of law in 1865, and was admitted to the bar of Allegheny County in April 1866. He was elected as district attorney for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in October 1870 and held the office until January 1, 1874.

Bayne was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1874. He was elected as a Republican to the Forty-fifth and to the six succeeding Congresses. He was renominated as a candidate for reelection to the Fifty-second Congress, but declined to accept the nomination, retiring from public life and active business pursuits.

As a result of concerns about a lung hemorrhage, he shot himself dead, two days after his 58th birthday, in Washington, D.C. in 1894. He was interred in Uniondale Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.