President Jefferson had signed an act of…

President Jefferson had signed an act of Congress on February 19, 1803, that approved Ohio's boundaries and constitution.

Congress, however, had never passed a resolution formally admitting Ohio as the seventeenth state.

The current custom of Congress declaring an official date of statehood will not begin until 1812, with Louisiana's admission as the eighteenth state.

Although no formal resolution of admission is required, when the oversight is discovered in 1953, Ohio congressman George H. Bende will introduce a bill in Congress to admit Ohio to the Union retroactive to March 1, 1803.

At a special session at the old state capital in Chillicothe, the Ohio state legislature will approve a new petition for statehood that will be delivered to Washington, D.C., on horseback.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower will sign an act on August 7, 1953 (the year of Ohio's 150th anniversary), that officially declares March 1, 1803, the date of Ohio's admittance into the Union.