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![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20090825090931im_/http://bioguide.congress.gov/bioguide/photo/C/C000626.jpg) |
Oil on canvas, Freeman Thorp, 1911, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives |
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.
BibliographySmith, Willard Harvey.
The Life and Times of Hon. Schuyler Colfax. Indianapolis:
Indiana Historical Bureau, 1952.
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