November 22, 1875: Henry Wilson dies in Washington, suffering the latest in a series of strokes that had left him him in ill health for his entire term in office.
President Ulysses S. Grant was good at some things, but picking Vice Presidents was not one of them. In 1868, he ran with Schuyler Colfax, a Representative from Indiana and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who had to drop out of the run for re-election in 1872, when it was revealed he was one of the politicians caught up in the Crédit Mobilier railroad-construction scandal.
So Grant and the Republican Party turned to Wilson. Born on February 16, 1812 in Farmington, New Hampshire, as Jeremiah Jones Coldbath, he was indentured to a nearby farmer, giving him a lifelong hatred of slavery. When he turned 21, in 1833, he legally changed his name. He chose the name Henry Wilson, inspired either by a biography of a Philadelphia teacher, or a portrait from a book on English clergymen.
He couldn't find work in New Hampshire, and walked all the way to Natick, Massachusetts, where he trained as a shoemaker. He made enough money as one to go to law school. He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the Whig Party's William Henry Harrison landslide of 1840. He was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1843, and again in 1850, serving as its President.
In 1854, having become one of the founders of the Republican Party, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. In 1861, just before the American Civil War began, he was named Chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee (now known as the Committed on Armed Services). In 1866, he wrote the bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1866. He seemed an ideal running mate for Grant in 1872.
But on February 13, 1873, as Vice President-elect, Wilson was implicated in Crédit Mobilier. In testimony before a Senate committee, he admitted that he had bought stock from Representatives Oakes Ames of Massachusetts, the leading figure in the scandal, but developed concerns about the propriety of the whole thing, and returned the money. Ames backed this testimony up. Congress took no action against Wilson, who remained popular, but censured Ames.
Both men soon suffered strokes: Ames died from his on May 5, while Wilson suffered his on May 19, just 76 days into his term. His health improved somewhat, and he was able to preside over the Senate. But he wasn't able to give speeches: He was expected to do on December 16, 1873 in Boston, on the 100th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, but, while he attended, he did not give a speech.
In March 1874, he attended the funeral of his former Senate colleague from Massachusetts, the great abolitionist Charles Sumner. On February 27, 1875, he cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate for the Civil Rights Act of 1875 -- which turned out to be the last law to bear the name "Civil Rights Act" until 1957.
On November 10, 1875, he suffered a stroke at the Capitol. His health soon improved to the point where it was thought he had completely recovered. However, on November 22, back at the Capitol, he had another stroke, and died. His remains were accorded the honor of lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. He was buried at Old Dell Park in Natick, a town now best known as the hometown of football quarterback Doug Flutie.
Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, with Wilson's death, the man next in line for the Presidency from Wilson's death on November 22, 1875 until the Inauguration of the next President and Vice President on March 4, 1877 was the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Thomas Ferry of Michigan.
Schuyler Colfax lived on until 1885, outliving Henry Wilson by a little over 9 years, and almost outliving Grant.
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November 22, 1875 was a Monday. There were no scores on this historic day: Baseball season was over, football was in midweek, basketball hadn't yet been invented, and hockey barely existed.
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