Schuyler Colfax

Schuyler Colfax (1823-85), 17th vice president of the United States. Born in New York City on March 23, 1823, he moved to Indiana in 1836 and acquired a newspaper in South Bend in 1845. He made the paper the most influential journal of the Whig Party in northern Indiana. He was a delegate to the Whig national conventions of 1848 and 1852, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1854 by the newly formed Republican Party. He served until 1869 and was Speaker of the House for three terms. In 1868 he was elected vice president of the U.S. and held that office during the first term of President Ulysses S. Grant. Colfax was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1872, and the following year he was implicated in the political scandal of the Crédit Mobilier of America. He spent the remainder of his life in political retirement. Colfax died January 13, 1885.