1851 in the United States
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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, later 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–August – The Great Flood of 1851 causes extensive damage in the Midwest; the town of Des Moines is virtually destroyed.
- May 6 – John Gorrie of Apalachicola, Florida is granted Patent No. 8080 for a machine to make ice.
- May 15 – Alpha Delta Pi sorority, the first secret society for women, is founded at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.
- May 29 – Sojourner Truth delivers the first version of her "Ain't I a Woman?" speech, at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
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 3 – The filibustering Lopez Expedition departs New Orleans for Cuba.
- 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.
- 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.
- Hope College is established in Holland, Michigan, as the Pioneer School by Dutch immigrants.
Ongoing
- California Gold Rush (1848–1855)
Births
- January 17 – A. B. Frost, illustrator (died 1928)
- January 19 – David Starr Jordan, ichthyologist, educator, eugenicist and peace activist (died 1924)
- January 24 – Marcus A. Smith, U.S. Senator from Arizona from 1912 to 1921 (died 1924)
- February 2 – Ella Giles Ruddy, author and essayist (died 1917)
- February 13 – Joseph B. Murdock, U.S. Navy admiral and New Hampshire politician (died 1931)
- March 14 – John Sebastian Little, politician, congressman (died 1916)
- March 19 – William Henry Stark, business leader (died 1936)
- March 26 – John Eisenmann, Cleveland architect (died 1924)
- April 13
- Robert Abbe, surgeon (died 1928)
- Helen M. Winslow, editor, author and publisher (died 1938)
- May 14 – Anna Laurens Dawes, author and suffragist (died 1938)
- May 15 – Lillian Resler Keister Harford, church organizer and editor (died 1935)
- 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)
- June 24 – Stuyvesant Fish, entrepreneur (died 1923)
- August 12 – Frank O. Briggs, U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1907 to 1913 (died 1913)
- August 14 – Doc Holliday, born John H. Holliday, gunfighter, gambler and dentist (died 1887)
- September 7 – David King Udall, politician (died 1938)
- September 13 – Walter Reed, army physician, bacteriologist (died 1902)
- October 5 – Thomas Pollock Anshutz, painter and educator (died 1912)
- October 13 – Charles Sprague Pearce, painter (died 1914)
- October 20 – George Gandy, entrepreneur (died 1946)
- November 16
- Minnie Hauk, operatic soprano (died 1929)
- William Elbridge Sewell, naval officer and Governor of Guam (died 1904)
- 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)
- December 30 – Asa Griggs Candler, businessman and politician (died 1929)
- Albery Allson Whitman, African American poet (died 1901)
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)
- March 11 – George McDuffie, 55th Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1846 (born 1790)
- 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)
External links
Media related to 1851 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons
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