Schuyler Colfax

U. S. House of Representatives, Indiana, 1855-1869
U. S. Vice-President, 1869-1873

Born: March 23, 1823, New York City, New York.

• Attended the common schools.
  
• Moved with his parents to New Carlisle, Indiana, 1836.
  
• Appointed Deputy Auditor of St. Joseph County, Indiana, 1841, by his stepfather, George W. Mathews, with office in South Bend, Indiana.
  
• Became a legislative correspondent in Indianapolis, Indiana.
  
• 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.
  
• Delegate to the Whig National Conventions in 1848 and 1852.
  
• Member of the Indiana State Constitutional Convention, 1850.
  
• Unsuccessful Whig candidate for election to the Thirty-second U. S. Congress.
  
• Elected from Indiana as a Republican to the Thirty-fourth and to the six succeeding U. S. Congresses, March 4, 1855 - March 3, 1869.
  
• Was not a candidate for renomination in 1868, having become the Republican nominee for Vice President.
  
• Served as U. S. Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, and Fortieth U. S. Congresses.
  
• Elected U. S. Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket headed by Gen. U. S. Grant, in 1868, was inaugurated March 4, 1869, serving until March 3, 1873.
  
• Unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1872.
  
• Declined the Chief Editorship of the New York Tribune, 1872.
  
• Fully exonerated from charges of corruption brought against Members of Congress, 1873, in connection with the Crédit Mobilier of America.
  Devoted his time to lecturing.

Died: January 13, 1885, Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minnesota.
Buried: City Cemetery, South Bend, Indiana.

(Source: U.S. Congress. House. Biographical Directory Of The American Congress 1774-1949, 85th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Doc. 607 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950), pp. 759-2057.)