1837 in the United States
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Events from the year 1837 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
- Andrew Jackson (D-Tennessee) (until March 4)
- Martin Van Buren (D-New York) (starting March 4)
- Martin Van Buren (D-New York) (until March 4)
- Richard M. Johnson (D-Kentucky) (starting March 4)
- Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: James K. Polk (D-Tennessee)
- Congress: 24th (until March 4), 25th (starting March 4)
State governments
Events
- January 6 â DePauw University founded in Greencastle, Indiana.[1]
- January 26 â Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state (see History of Michigan).
- February 4 â Seminoles attack Fort Foster.
- February 8 â Richard Johnson becomes the only vice president of the United States chosen by the United States Senate.
- February 15 â Knox College founded in Galesburg, Illinois.
- February 16 â Lake County, Indiana, is established by the European Americans.[2]
- February 25
- In Philadelphia, The Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) is founded as the first institution for the higher education of coloreds.
- Thomas Davenport obtains the first United States patent on an electric motor.[3][4][non-primary source needed]
- March â Victor Séjour's short story "Le Mulâtre", the earliest known work of African American fiction, is published in the French abolitionist journal Revue des Colonies.
- March 4
- Martin Van Buren is sworn in as the eighth president of the United States, and Richard M. Johnson is sworn in as the ninth vice president.
- Chicago is granted a city charter by Illinois.
- May 10 â Panic of 1837: New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels.
- June 5 â Houston, Texas, is granted a city charter.
- June 11 â The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, fueled by ethnic tensions between the Irish and the Yankees.
- July â Charles W. King sets sail on the American merchant ship Morrison. In the Morrison incident, he is turned away from Japanese ports with cannon fire.
- July 31 â Groundbreaking ceremony for St. Charles College (Louisiana), the first Jesuit college established in the South.
- October â First publication of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review.[5][6][non-primary source needed]
- October 21 â General Thomas Jesup captures Seminole leader Osceola under pretext of negotiations.
- October 31 â The steamboat Monmouth disaster on the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge kills over 300 Muscogee being forcibly relocated to the Indian Territory.[7]
- November 7 â In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot and killed by a pro-slavery mob while he attempts to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a fourth time.
- November 8 â Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which will later become Mount Holyoke College.
- John Deere (inventor) begins his agricultural implement manufacturing business, John Deere, in Grand Detour, Illinois.
- The Little, Brown and Company publishing house opens its doors in Boston.[8]
- John Greenleaf Whittier's first poetry book, Poems Written During the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, is published by Boston abolitionists.
- Antonija Höffern becomes the first Slovene woman to immigrate to the United States.[9]
Ongoing
- Second Seminole War (1835â1842)
Births
- January 9 â Julius C. Burrows, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1895 to 1911 (died 1915)
- January 19 â William Williams Keen, brain surgeon (died 1932)
- February 5 â Dwight L. Moody, evangelist (died 1899)
- March 1 â William Dean Howells, writer, historian, editor and politician (died 1920)
- March 7 â Henry Draper, physician and astronomer (died 1882)
- March 18 â Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897 (died 1908)
- March 27 â Kate Fox, medium (died 1892)
- April 3 â John Burroughs, nature writer (died 1921)
- April 10 â (Byron) Forceythe Willson, poet (died 1867)
- April 17 â J. P. Morgan, financier (died 1913 in Italy)
- May 26
- Mary Frances McCray, church founder, leader and preacher (died 1898)[10]
- Washington Roebling, civil engineer (died 1926)
- May 27 â James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, gunfighter (killed 1876)
- May 28
- Samuel D. McEnery, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1897 to 1910 (died 1910)
- Tony Pastor, impresario and theater owner (died 1908)
- June 22
- Paul Morphy, chess player (died 1884)
- Touch the Clouds, Native American Miniconjou chief 7 feet tall (died 1905)
- June 25 â Charles Yerkes, financier of rapid transit systems in Chicago and London (died 1905)
- July 1 â Henry Rathbone, military officer and diplomat (died 1911 in Germany)
- July 21 â Helen Appo Cook, African American community activist (died 1913)
- July 22 â George N. Bliss, Medal of Honor recipient (died 1928)
- July 31 â William Quantrill, Confederate leader during the American Civil War (died 1865)
- August 30 â Nell Arthur, wife of Chester A. Arthur (died 1880)
- September 2 â James H. Wilson, Union Army general in the Civil War (died 1925)
- September 8
- Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Heine Miller, "Poet of the Sierras" (died 1913)
- Raphael Pumpelly, geologist and explorer (died 1923)
- October 10 â Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army general in the Civil War and reformer (killed in action 1863)
- October 12 â Preston B. Plumb, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1877 to 1891 (died 1891)
- October 29 â Harriet Powers, African American folk artist (died 1910)
- November 3 â John Leary, politician, 37th Mayor of Seattle (died 1905)
- November 20 â Lewis Waterman, inventor and businessman (died 1901)
- November 28 â John Wesley Hyatt, inventor and industrial chemist (died 1920)
- December 10 â Edward Eggleston, novelist and historian (died 1902)
- December 15 â George B. Post, architect (died 1913)
- December 26
- Morgan Bulkeley, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1905 to 1911 (died 1922)
- George Dewey, U.S. Admiral of the Navy (died 1917)
Deaths
- June 29 â Nathaniel Macon, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1815 to 1828 (born 1757)
- September 28 â David Barton, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1821 to 1831 (born 1783)
- October 1 â Robert Clark, politician (born 1777)
- October 9 â Oliver H. Prince, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1828 to 1829 (born 1787)
- November 7 â Elijah P. Lovejoy, abolitionist (born 1809)
- November 11 â Thomas Green Fessenden, poet (born 1771)
- December 20 â Francis Neale, Jesuit, President of Georgetown College (born 1756)
- Date unknown â Mary Dixon Kies, first American recipient of a U.S. patent (born 1752)
