1808 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania explained

Election Name:	United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania, 1808
Country:	Pennsylvania
Type:	legislative
Ongoing:	no
Previous Election:	United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania, 1806
Previous Year:	1806
Next Election:	United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania, 1810
Next Year:	1810
Seats For Election:	All 18 Pennsylvania seats to the United States House of Representatives
Election Date:	October 11, 1808
Party1:	Democratic-Republican
Last Election1:	15
Seats1:	16
Seat Change1:	1
Party2:	Federalist Party (United States)
Last Election2:	3
Seats2:	2
Seat Change2:	1

Elections to the United States House of Representatives were held in Pennsylvania on October 11, 1808, for the 11th Congress.

Background

Eighteen Representatives had been elected in the previous election, 15 Democratic-Republicans and 3 Federalists. All three Federalists and two of the Democratic-Republicans were quids, an alliance of moderate Democratic-Republicans and Federalists. One seat held by a Democratic-Republican had become vacant prior to this election and was filled in a special election held at the same time as this election.

Congressional districts

Pennsylvania was divided into 11 districts, of which four were plural districts with 11 Representatives between them, with the remaining 7 Representatives elected from single-member districts. The districts were:

The (3 seats) consisted of Delaware and Philadelphia counties (including the City of Philadelphia)
The (3 seats) consisted of Bucks, Luzerne, Montgomery, Northampton, and Wayne Counties
The (3 seats) consisted of Berks, Chester, and Lancaster Counties
The (2 seats) consisted of Cumberland, Dauphin, Huntingdon, and Mifflin Counties
The consisted of Centre, Clearfield, Lycoming, McKean, Northumberland, Potter, and Tioga Counties
The consisted of Adams and York Counties
The consisted of Bedford and Franklin Counties
The consisted of Armstrong, Cambria, Indiana, Jefferson, Somerset, and Westmoreland Counties
The consisted of Fayette and Greene Counties
The consisted of Washington County
The consisted of Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Crawford, Erie, Mercer, Venango, and Warren Counties

Luzerne County's western border was altered between the 1806 and 1808 elections, altering the boundary between the 2nd and 5th districts

Note: Many of these counties covered much larger areas than they do today, having since been divided into smaller counties

Election results

Thirteen incumbents (10 Democratic-Republicans and 3 Federalists) ran for re-election, of whom 11 won re-election. The incumbents Jacob Richards (DR) of the, John Hiester (DR) of the, Daniel Montgomery (DR) of the and William Hoge (DR) of the did not run for re-election. There was also a vacancy in the 1st district. One seat changed from Federalist to Democratic-Republican control.

**1808 United States House election results**
District	colspan="3"	Democratic-Republican	Quid			colspan="3"	Federalist
3 seats		Benjamin Say^[1]		7,598		18.5%		Joseph Hemphill	6,123	14.9%
		John Porter (I)		7,589		18.5%	Derick Peterson	6,098	14.9%
		William Anderson		7,559		18.4%	Charles W. Hare	6,052	14.8%
3 seats		Robert Brown (I)		9,218		16.9%		John Ross^[2]		9,167		16.8%
	John Pugh (I)	9,090	16.7%		William Milnor^[3] (I)		9,095		16.7%
	John Hahn	9,026	16.6%	Roswell Wells	8,941	16.4%
3 seats	John Whitehill	10,216	16.4%		Matthias Richards (I)		10,652		17.1%
	Roger Davis	10,161	16.3%		Daniel Hiester		10,652		17.1%
	William Witman	10,121	16.2%		Robert Jenkins (I)		10,542		16.9%
2 seats		Robert Whitehill (I)		8,807		36.7%		John Gloninger	3,228	13.5%
2 seats		David Bard (I)		8,774		36.6%	William Alexander	3,165	13.2%
		George Smith		7,191		82.3%				John Bull	1,549	17.7%
		William Crawford		3,506		52.4%				James Kelly (I)	3,188	47.6%
		John Rea (I)		3,496		61.5%				Andrew Dunlap	2,191	38.5%
	John Kirkpatrick	1,732	29.1%		William Findley (I)		2,718		45.7%
	Robert Philson	1,502	25.2%
		John Smilie (I)		3,183		67.3%				Thomas Meason	1,550	32.7%
		Aaron Lyle (I)		3,425		76.5%	John Hamilton	1,053	23.5%
		Samuel Smith (I)		6,206		68.3%				Alexander Foster	2,885	31.7%
(special)		Benjamin Say		7,598		55.7%				Charles W. Hare	6,046	44.3%

Special election

Benjamin Say (DR) of the resigned in June, 1809, and a special election was held to fill the resulting vacancy

**1809 Special election results**
District	colspan="3"	Democratic-Republican
		Adam Seybert		5,936	59.5%
	Richard R. Smith^[4]	4,043	40.5%

References

Electoral data and information on districts are from the Wilkes University Elections Statistics Project

Won special election to 10th Congress
Aligned with the Democratic-Republicans
Aligned with the Federalists
Ran as "American Republican"