Ahnentafel - Generation 5

Again, everyone is present and accounted for.  There are are German immigrants, people born in Vermont, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois all of whom make their way to Wayne County, Illinois. Average age at death is 71 years & 2 months, pretty impressive for the time span.  It comes out to 71.2 years for dad's line and 76.1 years for mom's side. 

The generation spans 137 years from 1820 to 1957. 

• 1817 James Monroe president through 1825
• 1818 Illinois becomes a state
• 1819 Washington Irving publishes Rip Van Winkle
• 1820 Missouri Compromise slippery slope to Civil War
• 1820 public land available for $1.25 per acre, minimum purchase is 80 acres
• 1822 Texas colony established
• 1823 Frankenstein published 
• 1825 Erie Canal completed; John Quincy Adams president
• 1826 John Adams & Thomas Jefferson die on July 4th; U.S. celebrates 50th birthday
• 1828 B&O Railroad construction
• 1829 Andrew Jackson president
• 1830 Indian Removal Act; smallpox & cholera outbreaks
• 1831 McCormick Reaper invented
• 1835 Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain born 
• 1836 first combine harvester invented 
• 1837 Martin Van Buren president; John Deere develops plow
• 1838 Morse code invented
• 1840s-1850s various cholera outbreaks occur
• 1841 William Henry Harrison president for a month; probable cousin John Tyler becomes president
• 1841-1850 approximately 434,626 German immigrants arrive in United States, 2nd only to Ireland
• 1843 first grain elevator built; first hand-cranked ice cream maker invented
• 1845 James Polk president
• 1846 Mexican-American War
• 1848 California gold rush
• 1849 Zachary Taylor president
• 1850 Compromise of 1850 delays Civil War for a decade; Millard Fillmore president
• 1853 Franklin Pierce president; potato chips created
• 1857 financial panic; James Buchanan president
• 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates in Illinois; Mason jars invented
• 1859 John Brown raids Harper's Ferry
• 1860 Abraham Lincoln elected president
• 1861 Civil War begins at Fort Sumter
• 1865 Civil War ends, Lincoln assassinated, Andrew Johnson president
• 1867 barbed wire patented
• 1869 cousin Ulysses Grant president
• 1871 Chicago fire 
• 1872 Montgomery Ward founded
• 1876 Baseball's national league formed
• 1877 Rutherford B. Hayes president
• 1881 James Garfield president for 6 months, assassinated; Chester Arthur president
• 1881 Andrew Carnegie begins library building campaign for every American city
• 1882 Jesse James killed in Missouri
• 1885 Grover Cleveland's first term as president
• 1889 Benjamin Harrison president
• 1892 Sears & Roebuck founded
• 1893 Grover Cleveland's second term as president
• 1897 William McKinley president
• 1898 Spanish American War
• 1901 McKinley assassinated, Teddy Roosevelt becomes president; baseball's American League founded
• 1909 William Howard Taft president
• 1913 Woodrow Wilson president; Henry Ford builds cars on assembly line
• 1917 U.S. enters World War I
• 1919 Black Sox world series
• 1920 19th Amendment - woman's suffrage
• 1921 Warren Harding president
• 1923 Calvin Coolidge president
• 1925 Tri-State Tornado goes through White County, Illinois
• 1929 Herbert Hoover president; Great Depression begins
• 1933 cousin Franklin Roosevelt becomes president
• 1937 Wayne-White Counties Electric Cooperative founded
• 1941 U.S. enters World War II
• 1945 cousin Harry Truman becomes president; World War II ends