Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks was born at this site on September 7, 1819. While still a baby, his family moved to Indiana, where he grew up and rose to prominence. Hendricks served consecutively in the Indiana State Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives during the late 1840s and the 1850s. From 1863 to 1869, he was one of Indiana's U.S. Senators. Hoosiers elected him Indiana's sixteenth governor in 1872, making him the first Democrat to win that office in a northern state after the Civil War. In 1876, as the vice-presidential candidate, Hendricks and his running mate Samuel Tilden lost the presidential election to Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. Hendricks joined Grover Cleveland on the Democratic Party's presidential ticket in 1884 and won. He died in 1885 after serving only eight months as vice president.