Jerome Bunty Chaffee

Jerome Bunty Chaffee

Jerome Bunty Chaffee (born April 17, 1825 in Niagara County , New York , † March 9, 1886 in Westchester County , New York) was an American politician .

Life

Career

Chaffee's grave in Oakwood Cemetery in Adrian , Michigan

Jerome Chaffee grew up in the small town of Cambria , New York and attended a school in Lockport , also located in New York, his education. Due to the modest financial income of his parents, Chaffee had to forego high school as a young adult. He earned his first living as an employee in a drugstore .

In 1844, Chaffee moved to Adrian , Michigan and opened a general store there. He also taught as an assistant teacher at a local school. During the next eight years that Chaffee lived in Adrian, he married and had four daughters. However, his wife died early. Chaffee retired in 1852 after Saint Joseph ( Missouri ), where he opened a bank and ran it for three years. In 1855 he moved on to Elmwood in the Kansas Territory , where he made a name for himself as a land speculator. Another four years later, in the course of the gold rush , he moved to the Colorado Territory in 1859 , where he was one of the first settlers on the soil of what is now the metropolis of Denver . Today Chaffee is also considered one of the city fathers of Denver. In 1861 he owned a gold mine in Gilpin County and was soon a wealthy man. Chaffee invested this wealth in the construction of the First National Bank of Denver in 1865 , which he chaired until 1880.

Political career

Chaffee, a Republican party member , was elected to the Colorado Territory House of Representatives in 1861 and remained there until 1863. He was last elected in 1863 as Speaker of the House. After seven years of political hiatus, Chaffee ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in Washington, DC in 1870 , where he represented the Colorado Territory for two terms, from March 4, 1871 to March 3, 1875, as a non-voting delegate. After Colorado's admission to the Union in 1876, Chaffee was elected one of the first two US Senators and served from November 15, 1876 to March 3, 1879. He was not nominated for a new candidacy by his party.

Chaffee was considered a leading Republican in his day, and one of his good friends was US President Ulysses S. Grant . Both also arranged for Chaffee's daughter Fannie to marry Grant's son Ulysses in 1880.

Late life

In 1884, shortly before his death, Chaffee was elected Republican Party Chairman for the state of Colorado. Chaffee died of illness two years later.

legacy

One of the districts in Colorado, Chaffee County , was named in honor of the senator . The small town of Chaffee in the state of Missouri, founded in 1905, also bears his name today.

Web links

• Jerome Bunty Chaffee in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Jerome Bunty Chaffee in the database of Find a Grave (English)