US President Elections of the "8" years

Though there is not a US presidential election in 2018, every 20 years there is a presidential election in an "8" year.  This review of the "8" year elections, will include tidbits of family history and which of our ancestors might have been involved in or interested in the politics of the era.

• 1788 - None of the direct Uible ancestors arrived in the US until the early 1800's but the Hiestands and their ancestral lines were in the Pennsylvania/Virginia  area during the 1780s.  Henry Sprinkle (or Sprenkle) 1741-1814, appears  on the personal property tax records in Winchester, Virginia in 1787.  Henry's daughter, Mary Sarah "Sally" married John Hiestand.  Their son, Joseph S Hiestand was the father of Ira Hiestand, who was the father of Gladys Hiestand.  Therefore Henry is the 4th great-grandfather of the Uible-Horton cousins.
  First Presidential Election in the U.S., with only 69 electors, George Washington was elected for the first of two terms, and John Adams became the first vice president.  Members of Congress made up the electors.
• 1808 - James Morrow, born 1774 in Ireland, died 1825 in Brooke, Virginia.  He was the grandfather of Mary Virginia Morrow Brown who was the mother of Lucie Brown Ballantyne.  James is the 3rd great-grandfather of the Ballantyne-Dailey-Uible [BDU] cousins.
  James Madison, a Democratic-Republican candidate defeated Federalist candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to become the 4th president and the first to succeed a president of the same party.  George Clinton, the vice president under Thomas Jefferson, was renominated for vice president.
• 1828 - John Fawley, born in Virginia in 1805, married Mary Hawk in 1823.  Their oldest son, Noah 1824-1914 was the father of Mary Ellen Fawley Hiestand, who was the grandmother of HH.  John is the 3rd great-grandfather of the Uible-Horton cousins.
  With the collapse of the Democratic-Republican party, the 1828 election was Republican  incumbent John Quincy Adams versus Democrat Andrew Jackson, a rematch of the 1824 election, but instead of Adams winning as in 1824, Jackson was the victor.  Their running mates were Democrat John C. Calhoun and Republican Richard Rush.
• 1848 - James L. Freeman, 1809-1892, 2nd great-grandfather of the BDU cousins, married Priscilla Gamble Freeman who died in 1840 in childbirth at the age of 18.  Fortunately for our family history, her daughter Virginia Irene Freeman Ballantyne was born in New Cumberland, survived until 1906, and became the mother of five children, the second oldest, Nathaniel Wallace Ballantyne being the grandfather of the BDU cousins.
  In the first election to be held on the same day in every state, Tuesday was also chosen as the day on which future elections would be held.  A popular General in the Mexican-American War, Zachary Taylor, a Whig from Louisiana, defeated Democrat Lewis Cass and Martin Van Buren (who had served one term as president 1837-1841) of the Free Soil party.  Millard Fillmore became the Vice President.  Taylor remains the most recent winning candidate from a third party.
• 1868 - David Uible, 1845-1926, married Sarah Elizabeth Smith, 1841-1890 in 1868.  They were the parents of Cecil Uible, and thus the great-grandparents of the Uible-Horton cousins.  1868 was also the year that Nathaniel Ballantyne, father of Jean, was born.  He died in 1949.
  Ulysses S. Grant, Republican and his running mate Schuyler Colfax, defeated the Democratic candidate Horatio Seymour and vp candidate Francis Preston Blair, Jr.
• 1888 - Perry O. Pence, born in Hillsboro in 1888, died in 1957.  Our closest common ancestor was Philip Wilkin, Jr. (1794-1994) his great-grandfather and also the great-grandfather of Gladys Hiestand Uible.
  Republican nominee Benjamin Harrison defeated incumbent Democratic Grover Cleveland, despite Cleveland winning the popular vote.  Levi P. Morton became vice president, the losing vp candidate was Allen G. Thurman.
• 1908 - Gladys's niece Lois Mitchell Schuetz, was the daughter of Luna Hiestand & Robert Glenn Mitchell.  She was born in 1908 and died in 1990.
  Secretary of War Republican nominee William Howard Taft and his running mate James S. Sherman, defeated Democratic team William Jennings Bryan and John W. Kern.
• 1928 - Kenneth "Pat" Kessel, nephew of Nathaniel Wallace Ballantyne, was born in 1928 and lives today in New Manchester, WV, close to New Cumberland. 
  Republican Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover defeated the Democratic Al Smith.  Vice Presidential candidates were Charles Curtis (R) and Joseph T. Robinson (D).  Hoover, from Iowa, became the first president born west of the Mississippi River.
• 1948 - Wedding of Jean & HH
  Harry S. Truman, Democrat incumbent, wan an upset election over Republican Thomas E. Dewey and third party candidate, Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond.  Alben W. Barkley became the VP.  Other VP candidates were Earl Warren (R) and Fielding L. Wright (Dixiecrat)
• 1968 - Death of Cyrus DeHass of Hillsboro (1909-1968), 3rd cousin of HH, their common ancestor being their 2nd great-grandfather, John Fawley (1795-1882).
  In a tumultuous year following the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the Republican team of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey (Edmund Muskie) and American Independent George Wallace (Curtis LeMay).
• 1988 - Death of cartoonist, Milton Caniff, born in Hillsboro in 1907, died in New York City in 1988.  He was a nephew of Uncle Will's (CJ's brother) wife.
  Republican George H.W. Bush, incumbent vice president, defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis.  Running mates were Dan Quayle (R) and Lloyd Bentsen (D).
• 2008 - Death of the first of the Ballantyne-Dailey-Uible cousins, Roger Cochran Ballantyne 1943-2008.
  Barack Obama, Democrat, was elected to his first term with Joe Biden as his running mate, defeating Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin.