1850 in the United States
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Events from the year 1850 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal Government
- President: Zachary Taylor (W-Virginia) (until July 9), Millard Fillmore (W-New York) (starting July 9)
- Vice President: Millard Fillmore (W-New York) (until July 9), vacant (starting July 9)
- Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: Howell Cobb (D-Georgia)
- Congress: 31st
Events
January–March
- January 29 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to Congress.
- January 31 – The University of Rochester is chartered in Rochester, New York; it admits its first students in November.
- c. January–February – Liberty Head double eagle first issued for commerce.
- February 8–17 – Battle at Fort Utah: The Nauvoo Legion kills Timpanogos hostile to the Mormon settlement at Fort Utah on the orders of Brigham Young.
- February 28 – The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City.
- March 7 – U.S. Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech in which he endorses the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.
- March 16 – Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical novel The Scarlet Letter is published by William Ticknor and James Thomas Fields in Boston (where it is set), selling 2,500 copies in ten days.
- March 19 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.
April–June
- April 4 – Los Angeles is incorporated as a city in California.
- April 15 – San Francisco is incorporated as a city in California.
- April 19 – Clayton-Bulwer Treaty is signed by the United States and Great Britain, allowing both countries to share Nicaragua and not claim complete control over the proposed Nicaragua Canal.
- May 7 – The brigantine USS Advance is loaned to the United States Navy.
- May 23 – The USS Advance puts to sea from New York City to search for Franklin's lost expedition in the Arctic.
- June – Harper's Magazine published as a new monthly in New York City.
- June 1 – The 1850 United States Census shows that 11.2% of the population classed as "Negro" are of mixed race.
- June 3 – Traditional date of Kansas City, Missouri's founding: it is incorporated by Jackson County, Missouri as the "Town of Kansas".
July–September
July 9: Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes President with the death of President Taylor
- July 1 – St. Mary's Institute (the future University of Dayton) admits its first pupils in Dayton, Ohio.
- July 9 – President Zachary Taylor dies in office; Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States.
- July 10 – Inauguration of Millard Fillmore: President Fillmore is sworn in.
- July 14 – John Gorrie makes the first public demonstration of his ice-making machine, in Apalachicola, Florida.[1]
- September 9
- California is admitted to the Union as the 31st state (see History of California).
- Utah Territory is established.
- New Mexico Territory is organized by order of the U.S. Congress.
- September 18 – The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is passed by the U.S. Congress. Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad.
October–December
- October 19 – Phi Kappa Sigma International Fraternity founded at the University of Pennsylvania.
- October 28 – Delegate Edward Ralph May delivers a speech on behalf of African American suffrage to the Indiana Constitutional Convention.
Undated
- The American system of watch manufacturing starts in Roxbury, Massachusetts, with the Waltham Watch Company.
- Mayer Lehman arrives from Germany to join his siblings in Lehman Brothers merchant business in Montgomery, Alabama.
- Allan Pinkerton forms the North-Western Police Agency, later the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, in Chicago.
- Astronomer Maria Mitchell becomes the first woman member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- The temperance organisation, International Organisation of Good Templars, is established in Utica, New York, as the order of the Knights of Jericho.
- One of the original segments of the historic Pacific Highway in Washington (state) in Clark and Cowlitz counties is established.[2]
Ongoing
- California Gold Rush (1848–1855)
Births
- January 1 – John Barclay Armstrong, Texas Ranger lieutenant and a U.S. Marshal (died 1913)
- January 10 – John Wellborn Root, Chicago architect (died 1891)
- January 18 – Seth Low, educator (died 1916)
- January 24 – Mary Noailles Murfree, novelist (died 1922)
- January 27 – Samuel Gompers, labor union leader (died 1924)
- January 28 – Edward Merritt Hughes, U.S. Navy officer (died 1903)
- February 8 – Kate Chopin, writer (died 1904)
- February 15 – Albert B. Cummins, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1908 to 1926 (died 1926)
- February 27
- Henry E. Huntington, railroad pioneer and art collector (died 1927)
- Laura E. Richards, author (died 1943)
- March 9 – Daniel B. Towner, hymn composer (died 1919)
- March 26 – Edward Bellamy, Utopian novelist and socialist (died 1898)
- March 31 – Charles Doolittle Walcott, invertebrate paleontologist (died 1927)
- April 3 – Zina P. Young Card, Mormon leader and women's rights activist (died 1931)
- April 10 – Mary Emilie Holmes, geologist and educator (died 1906)
- April 18 – Joseph Labadie, labor organizer (died 1933)
- April 20 – Daniel Chester French, sculptor (died 1931)
- May 8 – Ross Barnes, baseball player and manager (died 1915)
- May 12 – Henry Cabot Lodge, statesman (died 1924)
- June 3 – Albert M. Todd, businessman and politician (died 1931)
- June 5 – Pat Garrett, bartender and sheriff (died 1908)
- June 15 – Charles Hazelius Sternberg, paleontologist (died 1943)
- June 18 – Cyrus H. K. Curtis, magazine publisher (died 1933)
- June 21 – Daniel Carter Beard, Scouting pioneer (died 1941)
- July 2 – Robert Ridgway, ornithologist (died 1929)
- July 7 – William E. Mason, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1897 to 1903 (died 1921)
- July 8 – Charles Rockwell Lanman, Sanskrit scholar (died 1941)
- July 11 – Annie Armstrong, Baptist leader (died 1938)
- July 12 – Newell Sanders, businessman and politician (died 1938)
- July 18 – Rose Hartwick Thorpe, poet (died 1939)
- July 20 – John G. Shedd, businessman (died 1926)
- July 28 – William Whittingham Lyman, vintner (died 1921)
- July 31 – Robert Love Taylor, Tennessee congressman (died 1912)
- August 28 – Charles H. Aldrich, Solicitor General of the U.S. (died 1929)
- September 2 – Eugene Field, poet and essayist (died 1895)
- October 14 – Newton E. Mason, rear admiral (died 1945)
- October 30 – John Patton, Jr., U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1894 to 1895 (died 1907)
- November 5 – Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (died 1919)
- November 18 – John S. Armstrong, real estate developer (died 1908)
- December 9 – Emma Abbott, operatic soprano (died 1891)
- December 21 – William Wallace Lincoln, third son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln (died 1862)
- December 25 – Florence Griswold, art curator (died 1937)
Deaths
- February 1 – Edward Baker Lincoln, second son of Abraham Lincoln (born 1846)
- March 3 – Oliver Cowdery, religious leader (born 1806)
- March 21 – Miguel Pedrorena, early settler of San Diego, California (born c. 1808)
- March 28 – Gerard Brandon, fourth and sixth Governor of Mississippi from 1825 to 1826 and from 1826 to 1832 (born 1788)
- March 31 – John C. Calhoun, seventh Vice President of the United States from 1825 to 1832 (born 1782)
- April 12 – Adoniram Judson, Congregationalist and later Baptist missionary (born 1788)
- April 24 – John Norvell, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1837 to 1841 (born 1789)
- May 16 – William Hendricks, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1825 to 1837 (born 1782)
- July 9 – Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States from 1849 to 1850 (born 1784)
- July 19 – Margaret Fuller, journalist, literary critic and women's rights advocate, presumed drowned (born 1810)
- November 19 – Richard Mentor Johnson, ninth Vice President of the United States from 1837 to 1841, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1819 to 1829 (born 1780)
References
- Burke, James (1978). Connections. London: Macmillan. p. 240. ISBN 0-333-24827-9.
- "The Historic Pacific Highway from Vancouver to Castle Rock". pacific-hwy.net.
External links
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