Isaac W. Van Schaick


Isaac Whitbeck Van Schaick was a U.S. Representative from Wisconsin. He was the uncle of Aaron Van Schaick Cochrane.

Early life

Van Schaick was born in Coxsackie, New York on 7 December 1817. He married Eliza Sanderson, daughter of John Sanderson and Margaret Whitfield in 1842, in Athens, New York.
Isaac Van Schaick engaged in the manufacture of glue in New York. He moved to Chicago in 1857, and to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1861, where he was in the flour-milling business with the Sanderson family.

Politics

Van Schaick was elected to the Milwaukee Common Council in 1871. He served as member of the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1873 and 1875. He served in the Wisconsin State Senate from 1877 to 1882.
Van Schaick was elected as a Republican to the Forty-ninth Congress in 1884 as the representative of Wisconsin's 4th congressional district. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1886, and was succeeded by Henry Smith of the Union Labor Party.
Van Schaick defeated Smith for election to the 51st United States Congress in 1888, receiving 22,212 votes to 20,685 for Smith, 527 for Socialist John Schuler and 302 for Prohibitionist George Heckendorn. He was not a candidate for renomination to Congress in 1890, and was succeeded by Democrat John Lendrum Mitchell. In 1892 he ran unsuccessfully for State Senator from the Fourth District, losing to Democrat James W. Murphy.

Late life

He moved to Catonsville, Maryland in 1894, where he lived in retirement until his death there August 22, 1901. He was interred in Athens Cemetery, Athens, New York.

Electoral history