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Few states have an inaugural history deeper or more colorful than Ohio

Posted at 11:34 PM, Jan 19, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-19 23:34:42-05

Donald Trump is the first U.S. President from New York since Franklin Roosevelt and will be the seventh president with ties to the Empire State.

Ohio and Virginia still lead the pack in that category with each laying claim to eight U.S. Presidents who were born or lived in their states with both claiming William Henry Harrison who was born in Virginia but elected from Ohio as their own.

Harrison was elected as the nation's 9th president in 1840 and anxious to show his intelligence he compiled an inaugural address that was 8,445 words long and that was even after it was edited down by Daniel Webster.

It was the longest inaugural address in history which in turn led to Harrison's term being the shortest in history. You see it was delivered in a cold March rain and Harrison became sick immediately after and died a month later.

Harrison would become the first president to die in office. Spoiler alert of the eight presidents Ohio would lay claim to over the next 82 years, half would die in office.

Ulysses S. Grant was not one of them, he took the oath of office as in 1869 as the 18th president. Presidents 19 and 20 were also Ohioans.

In 1876 Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote (sounds familiar.) He was followed by Cuyahoga County's own James Garfield, who we know by his Lake View Cemetery Memorial, like Harrison also died in office. His demise coming at the hand of an assassin in 1881.

Benjamin Harrison, who was the grandson of William Henry Harrison was born in Ohio then moved to Indiana. He was elected the nation's 23rd president. He kept his inaugural address shorter than his grandfather's and as a result lived out his entire term as the 23rd president.

William McKinley was the next Ohioan to hold the office he survived a re-election challenge in 1900 only to be gunned down months later in Buffalo at the start of his second term as the 25th president. He is buried in Canton.

It snowed 10 inches the day Ohioan William Howard Taft was sworn in. Taft later in becoming Chief Justice of the Supreme Court became the only man ever both take and administer the presidential oath which he did with Calvin Coolidge.

The last Ohioan to call 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home was Warren Harding who became the 29th president after his election in 1920 but just like Harrison, Garfield and McKinley before him it would be his final home dying of a heart attack in his third year in office.

Despite the efforts of Ohioans like John Glenn, Robert Taft and John Kasich it's been 94 years and counting now since an Ohioan has occupied the White House.