My grandchildren have always expressed a polite, if subdued, interest in my history hobby, but when I mentioned that they were related to a vice president of the United States, they perked up considerably.

Even after I told them that Schuyler Colfax had been tarred by a corruption scandal in Grant’s administration and that their relationship to him was extremely distant (third cousins five times removed), they still thought the connection was pretty cool.

What I didn’t know until recently was that Schuyler’s grandfather, William Colfax, was a Revolutionary War hero from New London. Among other achievements, William headed the Commander-in-Chief Guards, an elite military corps commissioned to improve the professionalism of the Continental Army and to protect George Washington from assassination. Something like today’s Secret Service. Now that’s really cool!

Although there’s no Colfax Street in New London, I learned about William from a fellow history enthusiast who helped me research Green Street. When you travel down one road in pursuit of a story, you never know where the path may lead.

William, the seventh generation Colfax in America, was born in 1756. His father, George, is interred in New London’s Ye Antientest Burial Ground. His mother, Lucy Avery, was my fifth great-aunt. The war changed the arc of William’s life and I don’t believe he ever lived in New London afterwards.

During the Revolution, William fought at Bunker Hill, was wounded three times in other battles, suffered at Valley Forge, and witnessed Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown. He was introduced to his future wife, Hester Schuyler, at a dinner party attended by patriotic luminaries including George Washington. (If William recounted the event later to his children, it would have been a classy preview of “how I met your mother.”) The couple settled in Wayne, New Jersey, in the Schuyler-Colfax House, now a museum.

Fast forward to 1854 when William’s grandson, Schuyler, a politician from Indiana, was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Schuyler, an abolitionist, must have been jubilant when, as speaker of the House, he tallied the votes and announced the passage of the 13th Amendment banning slavery.

Schuyler left the House in 1869 to serve as vice president under Grant, but he wasn’t reelected for a second term because of the Credit Mobilier scandal involving illegal financial dealings in the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. Schuyler denied any wrong doing, and even though the charges were probably true, his culpability seems relatively minor.

In spite of his fall from grace, Schuyler was a popular figure on the lecture circuit. In January 1885, while traveling alone to a speaking engagement in Iowa, he suffered a fatal heart attack in a Minnesota train station. The exertion of walking a mile between stations in brutal sub-zero weather was the probable cause of death. Initially nobody even knew who the dead man was until someone searched his pockets. It was an ironic ending for a man whose career had collapsed because of railroads.

Newspapers across the country lamented Schuyler’s death. The Chicago Current opined: “He lived, after 1872, the life of a proud and upright man who had been foully accused. Personally, he was so kind a man that friends gathered around him in unusual numbers, and now, in every State, mourn him with sincere sorrow.”

I stumbled across Schuyler in my mother’s extensive family research, which I’d stored in two large plastic tubs in the attic and ignored for decades. After I retired, I decided to digitize her notebooks and then give them to the New London County Historical Society where they’d be appreciated and preserved. However, a funny thing happened in that process; I got hooked on all the history they represented. I still don’t share Mother’s passion for genealogy, but I owe her a deep debt of gratitude for helping me discover the priceless stories you can find when you shake your family tree.

Carol Sommer of Waterford is a self-proclaimed history nut. She writes a monthly history column inspired by local street signs.