PIKE COUNTY, Mo. — Who says one vote doesn’t count?

A Pike County Missouri native helped propel Republican Rutherford Hayes to the White House in the disputed presidential election of 1876.

Dr. John William Watts was one of three Oregon men to serve in the electoral college that year. All three voted for Hayes.

Democrats backing Samuel Tilden challenged Watts’ eligibility when the three electors met on December 6th.

The Constitution forbids anyone who holds a government office from being an elector. Watts was a postmaster when people cast their ballots, but resigned six days later.

Neither Hayes nor Tilden had the required electoral votes to win. Just days before the March 1877 inaugural, a specially-appointed commission gave Watts’ ballot to Hayes. Nineteen other electors went the Republican’s way, and he was declared the winner by one vote.
Watts would later serve as a mayor, Oregon state senator and a federal land office registrar. He died at age 70 in 1901.

As a side note, it should be remembered that until the 20th Amendment, presidents by tradition were inaugurated on March 4th.

But since that was a Sunday in 1877, the ceremony was moved to March 5th. On March 3rd, outgoing President Ulysses S. Grant invited Hayes to the White House for dinner.

Among those attending was Supreme Court Justice Morrison Waite. In what may have been a paranoid effort to keep Tilden from causing problems, Waite secretly swore Hayes into office.

Without disturbance, Hayes took the oath again before 30,000 people on the steps of the Capitol two days later.

As one historian noted, it “was all a sham – he was already president – but, given the circumstances, it was only fitting.”