Schuyler COLFAX, Congress, IN (1823-1885)

COLFAX, Schuyler, a Representative from Indiana and a Vice President of the United States; born in New York City March 23, 1823; attended the common schools; in 1836 moved with his parents to New Carlisle, Ind.; appointed deputy auditor of St. Joseph County 1841; became a legislative correspondent for the Indiana State Journal; purchased an interest in the South Bend Free Press and changed its name in 1845 to the St. Joseph Valley Register, the Whig organ of northern Indiana; member of the State constitutional convention in 1850; unsuccessful Whig candidate for election to the Thirty-second Congress; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-fourth and to the six succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1855-March 3, 1869); chairman, Committee on Post Office and Post Roads (Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses); was not a candidate for renomination in 1868, having become the Republican nominee for Vice President; Speaker of the House of Representatives (Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, and Fortieth Congresses); elected Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket headed by Gen. Ulysses Grant in 1868, was inaugurated March 4, 1869, and served until March 3, 1873; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1872, owing to charges of corruption in connection with the Credit Mobilier of America scandal; lecturer; died in Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn., January 13, 1885; interment in City Cemetery, South Bend, Ind.

Bibliography

Smith, Willard Harvey. The Life and Times of Hon. Schuyler Colfax. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1952.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present