U.S. Congressman, Lawyer. He was a United States Representative from the State of Pennsylvania. He was born one of six children as William Shearer Stenger in Fort Loudon, Pennsylvania, to Peter Stenger (1795-1885), and his wife Christiana Shearer Stenger (1806-1875). He was educated locally attending the common public schools. He also attended and later graduated from the distinguished Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the Class of 1858, where he was a Charter Member of the Zeta Chapter of the Chi Phi Fraternity. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1860, and commenced his practice of law in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He then served as the Executive Director of the daily newspaper publication, the Philadelphia Record, and became the District Attorney of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, serving in that position from 1862 to 1871. He then decided to run for a seat in the United States Congress and was elected to succeed the outgoing United States Representative Sobieski Ross (1828-1877), on March 4, 1875. A Member of the Democratic Party, he then served Pennsylvania's 18th District (Forty-Fourth Congress and Forty-Fifth Congress), in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1875, to March 3, 1879. While serving in the United States Congress, he was appointed by then-Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and a member of the Potter committee Samuel Jackson Randall (1828-1890), to investigate charges of fraud in the Hayes-Tilden presidential election. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to serve the Forty-Sixth Congress in 1878. After his term in the United States Congress had expired, he was succeeded in office by the incoming United States Representative Horatio Gates Fisher (1838-1890), on March 4, 1879. After leaving the United States Congress, he served as a Delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Pennsylvania in 1880, and as the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1883 to 1887. He then resumed his practice of law in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and also in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, until his death. He passed away suddenly following a series of ailments including a cold, a throat infection, and heart problems at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 29, 1918, at the age of 78. His funeral service was held in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and he was buried in Falling Spring Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He was married to Helen M. Reid Stenger (1845-1924), with whom he had four children, Walter, Helen, Harriet, Edmund, and Alexander.