1837 in the United States

::Martin Van Buren (D-New York) (starting March 4) - Vice President: ::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](24th-united-states-congress) (until March 4), [25th](25th-united-states-congress) (starting March 4) #### State governments ::data[format=table] | Governors and lieutenant governors | |---| | | :: ## Events ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Francis_Alexander_-_Martin_Van_Buren_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" caption="March 4: [[Martin Van Buren]] becomes the eighth U.S. president"] :: ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Richard_Mentor_Johnson_A29919.jpg" caption="[[Richard M. Johnson]] becomes the ninth U.S. vice president"] :: - January 6 – DePauw University founded in Greencastle, Indiana. - January 26 – Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state (see History of Michigan). - February 4 – Seminoles attack Fort Foster. - February 8 – Richard Johnson becomes the only vice president of the United States chosen by the United States Senate. - February 15 – Knox College founded in Galesburg, Illinois. - February 16 – Lake County, Indiana, is established by the European Americans. - 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. - March – 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 – Panic of 1837: New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels. - June 5 – Houston, Texas, is granted a city charter. - June 11 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, fueled by ethnic tensions between the Irish and the Yankees. - July – 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 – Groundbreaking ceremony for St. Charles College (Louisiana), the first Jesuit college established in the South. - October – First publication of *The United States Magazine and Democratic Review*. - October 21 – General Thomas Jesup captures Seminole leader Osceola under pretext of negotiations. - October 31 – The steamboat *Monmouth* disaster on the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge kills over 300 Muscogee being forcibly relocated to the Indian Territory. - November 7 – 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 – 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. - 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. ### Ongoing - Second Seminole War (1835–1842) ## Births ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Grover_Cleveland,_by_Frederick_Gutekunst.jpg" caption="[[Grover Cleveland"] :: - January 9 – Julius C. Burrows, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1895 to 1911 (died [1915](1915-in-the-united-states)) - January 19 – William Williams Keen, brain surgeon (died [1932](1932-in-the-united-states)) - February 5 – Dwight L. Moody, evangelist (died [1899](1899-in-the-united-states)) - March 1 – William Dean Howells, writer, historian, editor and politician (died [1920](1920-in-the-united-states)) - March 7 – Henry Draper, physician and astronomer (died [1882](1882-in-the-united-states)) - March 18 – Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897 (died [1908](1908-in-the-united-states)) - March 27 – Kate Fox, medium (died [1892](1892-in-the-united-states)) - April 3 – John Burroughs, nature writer (died [1921](1921-in-the-united-states)) - April 10 – (Byron) Forceythe Willson, poet (died [1867](1867-in-the-united-states)) - April 17 – J. P. Morgan, financier (died [1913 in Italy](1913-in-italy)) - May 26 - Mary Frances McCray, church founder, leader and preacher (died [1898](1898-in-the-united-states)) - Washington Roebling, civil engineer (died [1926](1926-in-the-united-states)) - May 27 – James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, gunfighter (killed [1876](1876-in-the-united-states)) - May 28 - Samuel D. McEnery, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1897 to 1910 (died [1910](1910-in-the-united-states)) - Tony Pastor, impresario and theater owner (died [1908](1908-in-the-united-states)) - June 22 - Paul Morphy, chess player (died [1884](1884-in-the-united-states)) - Touch the Clouds, Native American Miniconjou chief 7 feet tall (died [1905](1905-in-the-united-states)) - June 25 – Charles Yerkes, financier of rapid transit systems in Chicago and London (died 1905) - July 1 – Henry Rathbone, military officer and diplomat (died [1911 in Germany](1911-in-germany)) - July 21 – Helen Appo Cook, African American community activist (died [1913](1913-in-the-united-states)) - July 22 – George N. Bliss, Medal of Honor recipient (died [1928](1928-in-the-united-states)) - July 31 – William Quantrill, Confederate leader during the American Civil War (died [1865](1865-in-the-united-states)) - August 30 – Nell Arthur, wife of Chester A. Arthur (died [1880](1880-in-the-united-states)) - September 2 – James H. Wilson, Union Army general in the Civil War (died [1925](1925-in-the-united-states)) - September 8 - Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Heine Miller, "Poet of the Sierras" (died [1913](1913-in-the-united-states)) - Raphael Pumpelly, geologist and explorer (died [1923](1923-in-the-united-states)) - October 10 – Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army general in the Civil War and reformer (killed in action [1863](1863-in-the-united-states)) - October 12 – Preston B. Plumb, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1877 to 1891 (died [1891](1891-in-the-united-states)) - October 29 – Harriet Powers, African American folk artist (died [1910](1910-in-the-united-states)) - November 3 – John Leary, politician, 37th Mayor of Seattle (died [1905](1905-in-the-united-states)) - November 20 – Lewis Waterman, inventor and businessman (died [1901](1901-in-the-united-states)) - November 28 – John Wesley Hyatt, inventor and industrial chemist (died [1920](1920-in-the-united-states)) - December 10 – Edward Eggleston, novelist and historian (died [1902](1902-in-the-united-states)) - December 15 – George B. Post, architect (died [1913](1913-in-the-united-states)) - December 26 - Morgan Bulkeley, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1905 to 1911 (died [1922](1922-in-the-united-states)) - George Dewey, U.S. Admiral of the Navy (died [1917](1917-in-the-united-states)) ## Deaths - June 29 – Nathaniel Macon, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1815 to 1828 (born [1757](1757)) - September 28 – David Barton, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1821 to 1831 (born [1783](1783-in-the-united-states)) - October 1 – Robert Clark, politician (born [1777](1777-in-the-united-states)) - October 9 – Oliver H. Prince, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1828 to 1829 (born [1787](1787-in-the-united-states)) - November 7 – Elijah P. Lovejoy, abolitionist (born [1809](1809-in-the-united-states)) - November 11 – Thomas Green Fessenden, poet (born [1771](1771)) - December 20 – Francis Neale, Jesuit, President of Georgetown College (born [1756](1756)) - Date unknown – Mary Dixon Kies, first American recipient of a U.S. patent (born [1752](1752)) ## References ## References 1. <!--no byline-->. (January 6, 1969). ["Observes Anniversary"](https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20032150/depauw_university_founding_anniversary/). *The Tipton Daily Tribune*. 2. William Frederick Howat. (1915). ["A Standard History of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet Region, Volume 1"](https://books.google.com/books?id=NkPWAAAAMAAJ&q=editions%3Artn_UNMRTgQC&pg=PA100). *Lewis Publishing Company*. 3. ["Improvement in Propelling Machinery by Magnetism And Electro-Magnetism"](https://patents.google.com/patent/US132A/en). *Google patents*. 4. "Improvement in Propelling Machinery by Magnetism and Electro-magnetism". 5. <!--no byline-->. (<!--no source date; copyright 2013-->). ["Making of America"](https://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/u/usde/usde.1837.html). *[[Cornell University Library]]*. 6. <!--no byline-->. (October 1837). "Introduction". *Democratic Review*. 7. (2014-11-17). ["BR researcher explores Monmouth steamboat disaster"](https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/br-researcher-explores-monmouth-steamboat-disaster/article_6b281ca6-4308-5292-a5e8-c7ee560c197f.html). 8. <!--no byline-->. (June 2022). ["A Brief History of Little, Brown and Company"](http://www.littlebrown.com/175.html). *Little, Brown and Company*. 9. Glonar, Joža. (2013). ["Höffern, Antonija, pl. (1803–1871)"](https://www.slovenska-biografija.si/oseba/sbi233529/). *[[Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts]]*. 10. ["Summary of Life of Mary F. McCray: Born and Raised a Slave in the State of Kentucky"](https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/mccray/summary.html). ::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1837_in_the_United_States) and is available under the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the [article history page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1837_in_the_United_States?action=history). ::