Buckeye Presidents-- Part 2: "Bearded Guys, Old Civil War Soldiers"

The presidential egg roll started under President Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife Lucy in 1878.  President Benjamin Harrison's wife, First Lady Caroline Harrison placed the first White House Christmas tree in 1889 and initiated the tradition of White House china collections.

"Many of the different things that we take for granted in some respects when we hear about them on the news, were actually started by presidents from Ohio," Shererer said.

It was era, the Gilded Age, whose presidents are largely forgotten, said Dustin McLochlin, historian at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museums in Fremont, Ohio.

"They're bearded guys, old Civil War soldiers and generals when the presidency wasn't as powerful as it is today," he said.    "What the Ohio presidents really speak to, if you're going to talk about them as a whole, is it's an era when Ohio is so important to winning an election, particularly to the Republican Party."

--CootGild