1851 in the United States
1851 in the United States |
---|
Flag |
31 stars (1851–58) |
Timeline of United States history |
History of the United States (1849–65) |
Events from the year 1851 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal Government
- President: Millard Fillmore (W-New York)
- Vice President: vacant
- Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: Howell Cobb (D-Georgia) (until March 4), Linn Boyd (D-Kentucky) (starting December 1)
- Congress: 31st (until March 4), 32nd (starting March 4)
Events
January–March
- January 15 – Christian Female College, now Columbia College, receives its charter from the Missouri General Assembly.
- January 23 – The flip of a coin determines whether a new city in the Oregon Territory is named after Boston, Massachusetts, or Portland, Maine, with Portland winning.
- January 28 – The Illinois General Assembly grants a charter to create Northwestern University.
April–June
- April 9 – San Luis, the oldest permanent settlement in the state of Colorado, is founded by settlers from Taos, New Mexico.
- April 28 – Santa Clara College is chartered in Santa Clara, California.
- May 6 - John Gorrie of Apalachicola, Florida was granted Patent No. 8080 for a machine to make ice
- May – August – Great Flood of 1851 causes extensive damage in the Midwest, town of Des Moines virtually destroyed.
- May 15 – Alpha Delta Pi Sorority, the first secret society for women, is founded at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.
July–September
- July 10 – The University of the Pacific is chartered as California Wesleyan College in Santa Clara, California.
- August 1 – Virginia closes its Reform Constitutional Convention deciding that all white men have the right to vote.
- August 22 – The yacht America of the New York Yacht Club wins the first America's Cup race, off the coast of England.
- September 15 – Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- September 18 – The New York Times is founded.
October–December
- October 15 – The City of Winona, Minnesota is founded.
- October – Sojourner Truth delivered her Aint I a Woman? speech in 1851 at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio
- November 13 – The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what later becomes Seattle, Washington.
- November 14 – Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; or The Whale is published in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers, New York, after being first published on October 18 in London by Richard Bentley, in 3 volumes as The Whale.
- December 29 – The first YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
Undated
- Western Union is founded as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company.
- House sparrows first released in the U.S., in Brooklyn.
- Stephen Foster's minstrel song "Old Folks at Home" is first published.
Ongoing
- California Gold Rush (1848–1855)
Births
- January 24 – Marcus A. Smith, U.S. Senator from Arizona from 1912 to 1921 (died 1924)
- May 21 – Moses E. Clapp, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1901 to 1917 (died 1929)
- May 29 – Fred Dubois, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1891 to 1897 and from 1901 to 1907 (died 1930)
- August 12 – Frank O. Briggs, U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1907 to 1913 (died 1913)
- August 14 – Doc Holliday, gunfighter and gambler (died 1887)
- December 9 – Thomas H. Paynter, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1907 to 1913 (died 1921)
- December 10 – Melvil Dewey, born Melville Dewey, librarian (died 1931)
Deaths
- January 17 – Thomas Lincoln, farmer and father of the President of the United States Abraham Lincoln (born 1778)
- January 27 – John James Audubon, naturalist and illustrator (born 1785 in Saint-Domingue)
- January 31 – David Spangler Kaufman, Congressman from Texas (born 1813)
- February 3 – Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, Congressman from Massachusetts, secretary of U.S. Navy (born 1772)
- May 3 – Thomas Hickman Williams, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1838 to 1839 (born 1801)
- May 22 – Mordecai Manuel Noah, Jewish playwright, diplomat, journalist and utopian (born 1785)
- July 6 – Thomas Davenport, electrical engineer (born 1802)
- August 24 – James McDowell, politician (born 1795)
- September 10 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, minister, educator, co-founder of the first permanent school for the deaf in North America (born 1787)
- September 11 – Sylvester Graham, nutritionist and inventor (born 1794)
- September 14 – James Fenimore Cooper, historical novelist (born 1789)
- September 24 – Lucius Lyon, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1843 to 1845 (born 1800)
- November – Willis Buell, politician and portrait painter (born 1790)
See also
External links
Media related to 1851 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons
This article is issued from
Wikipedia.
The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike.
Additional terms may apply for the media files.