1850 in the United States
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Events from the year 1850 in the United States.
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Incumbents
Federal government
- Zachary Taylor (W-Kentucky) (until July 9)
- Millard Fillmore (W-New York) (starting July 9)
- 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
State governments
Demographics
Events
JanuaryâMarch
- January â Sacramento floods.[1]
- January 29 â Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to Congress.
- January 31 â The University of Rochester is chartered in Rochester, New York; it admits its first students in November[2]
- c. JanuaryâFebruary â The Liberty Head double eagle first issued for commerce.
- February 8â17 â 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 â The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City.
- March 7 â United States 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 â Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical novel The Scarlet Letter is published in Boston, Massachusetts.
- March 19 â American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.
AprilâJune
- April 4 â Los Angeles is incorporated as a city in California.
- April 15 â San Francisco is incorporated as a city in California.
- April 19 â ClaytonâBulwer 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 â The brigantine USS Advance is loaned to the United States Navy.
- May 23 â The USS Advance puts to sea from New York City to search for Franklin's lost expedition in the Arctic.
- June â Harper's Magazine published as a new monthly in New York City.
- June 1 â The 1850 United States census shows that 11.2% of the population classed as "Negro" are of mixed race.
- June 3 â Traditional date of Kansas City, Missouri's founding: it is incorporated by Jackson County, Missouri as the "Town of Kansas".
JulyâSeptember
- July 1 â St. Mary's Institute (the future University of Dayton) admits its first pupils in Dayton, Ohio.
- July 9 â President Zachary Taylor dies in office; Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th president of the United States the next day.
- July 14 â John Gorrie makes the first public demonstration of his ice-making machine, in Apalachicola, Florida.[3]
- September 9
- California is admitted to the Union as the 31st state (see History of California and An Act for the Admission of the State of California).
- Utah Territory is established.
- New Mexico Territory is organized by order of the U.S. Congress.
- September 18 â The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is passed by the U.S. Congress, requiring Northerners to capture runaway slaves.
OctoberâDecember
- October 19 â Phi Kappa Sigma International Fraternity founded at the University of Pennsylvania.
- October 28 â Delegate Edward Ralph May delivers a speech on behalf of African American suffrage to the Indiana Constitutional Convention.
- December 16 â Steamer South America burns on the Mississippi River in Louisiana; 27 killed including 13 U.S. Army recruits from Newport Barracks in Kentucky[4][5]
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 organization, 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.[6]
Ongoing
- California gold rush (1848â1855)
Births
- January 1 â John Barclay Armstrong, Texas Ranger lieutenant and a U.S. Marshal (died 1913)
- January 10 â John Wellborn Root, Chicago architect (died 1891)
- January 18 â Seth Low, educator (died 1916)
- January 24 â Mary Noailles Murfree, novelist (died 1922)
- January 27 â Samuel Gompers, labor union leader (died 1924)
- January 28 â Edward Merritt Hughes, U.S. Navy officer (died 1903)
- February 1 â Emma Churchman Hewitt, author and journalist (died 1921)
- February 2 â Cassius Aurelius Boone, Mayor of Orlando and businessman (died 1917)
- February 6 â Elizabeth Williams Champney, author (died 1922)[7]
- February 8
- Kate Chopin, writer (died 1904)[8]
- Charles Rockwell Lanman, Sanskrit scholar (died 1941)
- February 15 â 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 â Daniel B. Towner, hymn composer (died 1919)
- March 26 â Edward Bellamy, Utopian novelist and socialist (died 1898)[9]
- March 31 â Charles Doolittle Walcott, invertebrate paleontologist (died 1927)
- April 3 â Zina P. Young Card, Mormon leader and women's rights activist (died 1931)
- April 8 â John Peters, baseball player (died 1924)
- April 10 â Mary Emilie Holmes, geologist and educator (died 1906)
- April 11
- Rosetta Luce Gilchrist, physician and author (died 1921)
- Isidor Rayner, U.S. senator from Maryland from 1905 to 1912 (died 1912)
- April 18 â Joseph Labadie, labor organizer (died 1933)
- April 20 â Daniel Chester French, sculptor (died 1931)
- April 30
- Ruth Alice Armstrong, temperance activist (died 1901)
- Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller, novelist (died 1937)[10]
- May 8 â Ross Barnes, baseball player and manager (died 1915)
- May 12 â Henry Cabot Lodge, statesman (died 1924)
- May 14 â Alva Adams, 3-time Governor of Colorado (died 1922)
- June 3 â Albert M. Todd, businessman and politician (died 1931)
- June 5 â Pat Garrett, bartender and sheriff (died 1908)
- June 15 â Charles Hazelius Sternberg, paleontologist (died 1943)
- June 18
- Cyrus H. K. Curtis, magazine publisher (died 1933)[11]
- Alice Moore McComas, author, editor, lecturer and reformer (died 1919)[12]
- June 21 â Daniel Carter Beard, Scouting pioneer (died 1941)
- July 2 â Robert Ridgway, ornithologist (died 1929)
- July 7 â William E. Mason, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1897 to 1903 (died 1921)
- July 8 â Charles Rockwell Lanman, Sanskrit scholar (died 1941)
- July 11 â Annie Armstrong, Baptist leader (died 1938)
- July 12 â Newell Sanders, businessman and politician (died 1938)
- July 18 â Rose Hartwick Thorpe, poet (died 1939)
- July 20 â John G. Shedd, businessman (died 1926)
- July 25 â Lydia J. Newcomb Comings, educator (died 1946)
- July 28 â William Whittingham Lyman, vintner (died 1921)
- July 31 â Robert Love Taylor, Tennessee congressman (died 1912)
- August 28 â Charles H. Aldrich, Solicitor General of the U.S. (died 1929)
- September 2 â Eugene Field, poet and essayist (died 1895)
- September 6 â Marion Howard Brazier, journalist (died 1935)
- October 1
- David R. Francis, politician (died 1927)
- Thomas Vincent Welch, politician (died 1903)
- October 14 â Newton E. Mason, rear admiral (died 1945)
- October 30 â John Patton, Jr., U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1894 to 1895 (died 1907)
- November 5 â Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (died 1919)
- November 18 â John S. Armstrong, real estate developer (died 1908)
- December 9 â Emma Abbott, operatic soprano (died 1891)
- December 21 â William Wallace Lincoln, third son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln (died 1862)
- December 23 â Louise Reed Stowell, scientist and author (died 1932)[13]
- December 25 â Florence Griswold, art curator (died 1937)
Deaths
- February 1 â Edward Baker Lincoln, second son of Abraham Lincoln (born 1846)
- March 3 â Oliver Cowdery, religious leader (born 1806)
- March 21 â Miguel Pedrorena, early settler of San Diego, California (born c. 1808)
- March 28 â Gerard Brandon, fourth and sixth governor of Mississippi from 1825 to 1826 and from 1826 to 1832 (born 1788)
- March 31 â John C. Calhoun, seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832 (born 1782)
- April 12 â Adoniram Judson, Congregationalist and later Baptist missionary (born 1788)
- April 24 â John Norvell, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1837 to 1841 (born 1789)
- May 16 â William Hendricks, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1825 to 1837 (born 1782)
- July 9 â Zachary Taylor, 12th president of the United States from 1849 to 1850 (born 1784)
- July 19 â Margaret Fuller, journalist, literary critic and women's rights advocate, presumed drowned (born 1810)
- November 19 â 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)
