1839 in the United States

← 1838 1837 1836 1839 in the United States → 1840 1841 1842
Decades:	1810s 1820s 1830s 1840s 1850s
See also:	History of the United States (1789–1849) Timeline of the history of the United States (1820-1859) List of years in the United States

David H. Burr's 1839 map of the United States (Geographicus Antique Maps)

Events from the year 1839 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government

• President: Martin Van Buren (D-New York)
• Vice President: Richard M. Johnson (D-Kentucky)
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives:

James K. Polk (D-Tennessee) (until March 4)

Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter (W-Virginia) (starting December 16)

• Congress: 25th (until March 4), 26th (starting March 4)

Governors and lieutenant governors

Governors Governor of Alabama: Arthur P. Bagby (Democratic) Governor of Arkansas: James Sevier Conway (Democratic) Governor of Connecticut: William W. Ellsworth (Whig) Governor of Delaware: Cornelius P. Comegys (Whig) Governor of Georgia: George R. Gilmer (Whig) (until November 6), Charles J. McDonald (Democratic) (starting November 6) Governor of Illinois: Thomas Carlin (Democratic) Governor of Indiana: David Wallace (Whig) Governor of Kentucky: James Clark (Whig) (until August 27), Charles A. Wickliffe (Whig) (starting August 27) Governor of Louisiana: Edward Douglass White Sr. (Whig) (until February 4), André B. Roman (Whig) (starting February 4) Governor of Maine: Edward Kent (Whig) (until January 2), John Fairfield (Democratic) (starting January 2) Governor of Maryland: Thomas W. Veazey (Whig) (until January 7), William Grason (Democratic) (starting January 7) Governor of Massachusetts: Edward Everett (Whig) Governor of Michigan: Stevens T. Mason (Democratic) Governor of Mississippi:Alexander G. McNutt (Democratic) Governor of Missouri: Lilburn W. Boggs (Democratic) Governor of New Hampshire: Isaac Hill (Democratic) (until June 5), John Page (Democratic) (starting June 5) Governor of New Jersey: William Pennington (Whig) Governor of New York: William H. Seward (Whig) (starting January 1) Governor of North Carolina: Edward Bishop Dudley (Whig) Governor of Ohio: Wilson Shannon (Democratic) Governor of Pennsylvania: Joseph Ritner (Anti-Masonic) (until January 15), David R. Porter (Democratic) (starting January 15) Governor of Rhode Island: William Sprague III (Democratic) (until May 2), Samuel Ward King (Rhode Island) (starting May 2) Governor of South Carolina: Patrick Noble (Democratic) Governor of Tennessee: Newton Cannon (Whig) (until October 14), James K. Polk (Democratic) (starting October 14) Governor of Vermont: Silas H. Jennison (Whig) Governor of Virginia: David Campbell (Democratic) Lieutenant governors Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Charles Hawley (Whig) Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Stinson Anderson (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: David Hillis (Whig) Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Charles A. Wickliffe (Democratic-Republican) (until August 27), vacant (starting August 27) Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: George Hull (political party unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Franklin Cannon (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of New York: Luther Bradish (Democratic) (starting January 1) Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Joseph Childs (political party unknown) (until May 2), vacant (starting May 2) Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Barnabas Kelet Henagan (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: David M. Camp (Whig)

Events

• February 11 – The University of Missouri is established in Columbia, Missouri, becoming the first public university west of the Mississippi River.
• March 5 – Longwood University is founded in Farmville, Virginia.
• March 7 – Baltimore City College, the third public high school in the United States, is established in Baltimore, Maryland.
• March 23 – The Boston Morning Post first records the use of "OK".
• August 8 – The Beta Theta Pi fraternity is founded in Oxford, Ohio.
• October – Robert Cornelius takes the first photographic self portrait in the United States.
• October 7 – Much of downtown Mobile, Alabama is destroyed by a wind-fueled fire. ^[1]
• November 11 – The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
• November 27 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded.

Undated

• The first U.S. state law permitting women to own property is passed in Jackson, Mississippi.
• Episcopal High School, Alexandria, Virginia, is founded, the first in the state.

Ongoing

• Second Seminole War (1835–1842)

Births

• February 9 – Laura Redden Searing, deaf poet and journalist (died 1923)
• March 9 – Phoebe Knapp, hymn writer (d. 1908)
• April 7 – David Baird, Ireland-born U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1918 to 1919 (died 1927)
• July 8 – John D. Rockefeller, oil industry business magnate and philanthropist (died 1937)
• August 1 – Middleton P. Barrow, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1882 to 1883 (died 1903)
• August 23 – George Clement Perkins, U.S. Senator from California from 1893 to 1915 (died 1923)
• August 26 – Hernando Money, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1897 to 1911 (died 1912)
• September 2 – Henry George, writer, politician and political economist (died 1897)
• September 10 – Charles Sanders Peirce, philosopher, logician, scientist, and founder of pragmatism (died 1912)
• September 13 – Thomas J. Mastin, Confederate captain and lawyer (d. 1861)
• September 18 – William J. McConnell, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1890 to 1891 (died 1925)
• September 28 – Frances Willard, American educator, temperance reformer and women's suffragist (died 1898)
• September 29 – James Kimbrough Jones, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1885 to 1903 (died 1908)
• October 20 – Augustus Octavius Bacon, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1895 to 1914 (died 1914)
• November 4 – Thomas M. Patterson, Ireland-born U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1901 to 1907 (died 1916)
• December 5 – George Armstrong Custer, U.S. Army Officer and Cavalry Commander from Ohio from 1861 to 1876 (died 1876)
• December 12 – Caroline Ingalls (b. Caroline Lake Quiner), American pioneer, mother of author Laura Ingalls Wilder (died 1924)

Deaths

• January 14 – John Wesley Jarvis, portrait painter (born c.1781 in Great Britain)
• February 26 – Sybil Ludington, heroine of the American Revolutionary War (born 1761)
• April 1 – Benjamin Pierce, governor of New Hampshire from 1827 to 1828 and from 1829 to 1830, father of the 14th president of the United States, Franklin Pierce (born 1757)
• April 2 – Hezekiah Niles, magazine publisher (born 1777)
• April 5 – John Tipton, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1832 to 1839 (born 1786)
• April 22 – Samuel Smith, U.S. Senator from Maryland from 1822 to 1833 (born 1752)
• May 11 – Thomas Cooper, political philosopher (born 1759)
• June 10 – Nathaniel Hale Pryor, sergeant in the Lewis and Clark Expedition (born 1772)
• July 16 – The Bowl (Di'wali), Cherokee chief, shot (born c.1756)
• August 22 – Benjamin Lundy, abolitionist (born 1789)
• September 28 – William Dunlap, actor-manager, dramatist and painter (born 1766)
• December 4 – John Leamy, merchant (born 1757 in Ireland)

See also

• Timeline of United States history (1820–1859)

References

1. "7 Oct 1839 - 500 Buildings & Homes Destroyed by Fire - Including home of Duke W. Goodman". The Semi-Weekly Mississippi Free Trader. October 14, 1839. p. 1. Retrieved September 27, 2025.

External links

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   Media related to 1839 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons