Person Record

Metadata

Name

Colfax, Schuyler

Other Names

Schuyler Colfax, Jr.
Schuyler Colfax II

Born

March 23, 1823

Birthplace

New York

Places of residence

South Bend, Indiana

Father

Colfax Sr., Schuyler

Mother

Matthews, Hannah Stryker (Colfax)

Notes

Founded St. Joseph Valley Register, 1845
Elected to Congress in 1854 (Whig candidate)
Chairman of the Commerce on Post Offices and Post Roads
Speaker of the House (1864-1869)
Vice President under U.S. Grant 1869-1873

Occupation

Newspaper Owner
Congressman
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Vice President of the United States
Lecturer

Role

Political

Spouse

Colfax, Evelyn Clark m. 1844, Colfax, Ellen Wade m. 1869

Children

Colfax III, Schuyler

Biography

Born to his widowed mother on March 23, 1823, Schuyler Colfax Jr. was the son of Schuyler Colfax Sr. and Hannah Stryker Colfax. During his childhood, he was educated and raised in New York until his mother remarried to shopkeeper George W. Matthews in 1834 and the family moved to Indiana in 1836. By 1841, the family had settled in South Bend, IN and Colfax quickly became involved in the community, working with his stepfather as his assistant when Matthews was county auditor.
In 1844 Colfax married a childhood friend from New York, Evelyn Clark, and they made their home in South Bend. While he was employed as the editor for the local newspaper South Bend Free Press, he purchased the paper and renamed it the St. Joseph Valley Register in 1845. At this point in his life, Schuyler Colfax had long been interested in pursuing a political career and used his newspaper to further his Whig ideals and policies.
He would be a delegate to the Whig National Convention in 1848 and, in 1850, was selected by the Whigs to be a member at the State Constitutional Convention. Colfax would be the Whig candidate for Congress twice, losing his bid in 1851 and winning in 1854. In December of 1855 Colfax took his seat in Congress, a seat he would hold for twenty years, seven terms. During his tenure in Congress, he served as the Chairman of the Commerce on Post Offices and Post Roads. Colfax was elected as Speaker of the House in 1863 and served until 1869, during which he voted for President Andrew Johnson's impeachment. His wife, Evelyn, was ill for many of the years he served in Congress and would pass away in July of 1863.
At the 1868 Republican National Convention, Colfax was elected as the Vice-Presidential nominee for Ulysses S. Grant. Shortly after his nomination, Colfax married Ellen Wade and they would have one child together, Schuyler Colfax III, during his Vice Presidency. He would serve one term as Vice President and returned to South Bend in 1873 and began a new career as a lecturer across the nation. It was during one of his many lecture tours that Schuyler Colfax died. On January 13, 1885, he arrived in Minnesota and walked three-fourths of a mile between train stations. When he arrived at the Omaha depot, he collapsed and died of heart attack at age sixty-one. His funeral took place in his South Bend home on Market Street, later renamed Colfax Avenue in his honor, and he was buried in City Cemetery in South Bend.