in the area. In 1820, Pierre Frieschutz Navarre arrived, representing the American Fur Company (AFC) of John Jacob Astor. He settled near what is now downtown South Bend. Alexis Coquillard, another agent of the AFC, established a trading post known as the Big St. Joseph Station. In 1827, Lathrop Minor Taylor established a post for Samuel Hanna and Company, in whose records the name St. Joseph's, Indiana was used. By 1829, the town was growing, with Coquillard and Taylor emerging as leaders. They applied for a post office. Taylor was appointed postmaster, and the post office was designated as Southold, Allen County, Indiana. The following year, the name was changed to South Bend, probably to ease confusion, as several other communities were named Southold at the time. In 1831, South Bend was laid out as the county seat and as one of the four original townships of St. Joseph County with 128 residents. That same year, Horatio Chapin moved to the settlement, opened the first general store with imported (out of state) goods and helped established the first church and Sunday school. Around the same time, design began on what would become the town of South Bend. The town was formally established in 1835, with Chapin as the first president of the board of town trustees. In 1856, attorney Andrew Anderson, Chapin's son-in-law, founded May Oberfell Lorber, the oldest continuous business in St. Joseph County. He compiled a complete index of South Bend's real estate records. In 1841, Schuyler Colfax was appointed St. Joseph County deputy auditor. Colfax purchased the South Bend Free Press and then turned it into a pro-Whig newspaper, the St. Joseph Valley Register. He was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1850, at which he opposed the barring of African American migration to Indiana. He joined the Republican Party, like many Whigs of his day, and was elected to Congress in 1855, becoming Speaker of the House in 1863 during the administration of Abraham Lincoln. In 1868, he was elected vice president under Ulysses S. Grant. Colfax returned to South Bend after his stint in Washington and is buried in City Cemetery, west of downtown. Early business During the late 1830s through the 1850s, much of South Bend's development centered on the industrial complex of factories located on the two races (man-made canals along the St. Joseph River in South Bend). Several dams were