| Friday, July 22,
1887:
Sudden Death.
Mr. Peter BANTA, recently from Turtle Lake, Wis., while passing along the sidewalk near the Terminus Hotel in this city last Sunday morning, was seized with an epileptic fit and falling to the ground expired instantly. The deceased was seventy-two years of age, and had arrived in this city from Wisconsin with his family, consisting of wife and daughter, only four or five days before his sudden death. Through information obtained from the family it was ascertained that Mr. BANTA was a member of the Masonic order, and in compliance with a request that he had many times expressed to his family, his remains were taken charge of and buried with the honors of the order in the temporary cemetery at Sehome on Monday evening last. Mr. BANTA, although a stranger to the citizens of Whatcom, came among us well recommended as a man and a citizen. The circumstances of the sud[den] death is peculiarly sad, and his widow and daughter are prostrated with grief. Only five minutes before death called him, he had partaken of a hearty breakfast, and was in excellent spirits and had remarked that he was really feeling better than he had for years. He was hopeful and believed that he would not have occasion to regret the change from the climate of Wisconsin to that of Puget Sound, and was looking forward in pleasant anticipations of a new lease of life in his new home in this county. In this cheerful condition of mind he left the little family circle for a few moments walk, and within ten minutes thereafter was taken home a corpse. The wife and daughter were very much attached to the kind husband and father, and the extreme suddenness of the terrible announcement fell with crushing effect. As evidence of his sterling manhood, and of the further fact that the deceased was a man possessed of those elements of true citizenship, it is only necessary to state that he was an old army veteran, having served his country and defended his country's flag in both the Mexican war and in the late rebellion. In the latter he was a soldier in the lst Michigan cavalry, and in the capacity of an honest soldier fighting to maintain the constitution of his country, sacrificed his own physical constitution, and for many years past had been incapacitated for manual labor. At the time of his death he was receiving a pension of $36.00 per month.
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