The recent election got me thinking about the campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too!" This catchy ditty was also one of the first campaign songs. As you may know, Tippecanoe was the nickname of our 9th President, William Henry Harrison, who served only 32 days as he caught pneumonia after giving his inaugeration speech in the rain. He was succeeded by his Vice President, John Tyler, our 10th President.

Though you might guess that he got the nickname "Tippecanoe" from a canoe that was prone to capsize, it was actually the name of the place where an historic battle was fought in Indiana in 1811. The name is an anglicization of "Kethtippecanoogi", a Miami term meaning "place of the succor fish people."
(Kriebel, Robert C. - Tippecanoe at 2000: A Hoosier County Recalls Its Past).

As Governor of the Indiana territories, William Henry Harrison led the charge against the Indian tribes who were resisting Western expansion. The tribes were led by Tecumseh, whose name meant "Panther in the Sky." Now the story gets weird. Tecumseh or his brother Tenskwatawa (also known as "the Prophet") laid a curse on Harrison (or so the legend goes), who died in office, and every twenty years thereafter the President who was elected in that year died in office; and the curse held up to Ronald Reagan, who was elected in 1980, but didn't die in office--though he was shot by John Hinckley Jr. in an unsuccessful assassination attempt. The jinx was broken, and George W. Bush, selected in 2000, did not die in office, either. One President, Zachary Taylor, also died in office, but he was not elected in one of the 20 year cycles that fit the pattern.

The 'curse' was first mentioned in a 1931 Ripley's Believe It Or Not, and then again in a similar weird cartoon feature called Strange As It Seems published just before the election in 1940.

The Presidents in the line of Tecumseh's Curse

1840: William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia on 1841-04-04
1860: Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and died on 1865-04-15
1880: James A. Garfield was assassinated and died on 1881-09-19
1900: William McKinley was assassinated and died 1901-09-14
1920: Warren G. Harding died of an undetermined cause, either heart attack, stroke, or possibly poison on 1923-08-02
1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 1945-04-12
1960: John F. Kennedy was assassinated and died on 1963-11-22

Though this pattern held up for 120 years, both Reagan and George W. Bush have escaped it, and President Elect Obama was not elected on a 20 year cycle, and wouldn't be a part of the curse in any event.

If you are interested in the history of Presidents past, the Whitehouse has some information at their website:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/h...

For some other thought provoking information about what more recent Presidents accomplished during their first 100 days in office, check out this chart from Good Magazine:
 
http://awesome.goodmagazine...

Good Magazine can be found at this URL:

http://www.good.is/

Chris Craddock, Realtor
The Key to Bakersfield Real Estate

www.ChrisCraddockRealtor.com