1851 in the United States

Decades:	1830s ; 1840s ; 1850s ; 1860s ; 1870s ;
See also:	History of the United States (1849–1865) ; Timeline of the history of the United States (1820-1859) ; List of years in the United States ;

Last updated September 25, 2025

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)

Governors and lieutenant governors
Governors Governor of Alabama: Henry W. Collier (Democratic) Governor of Arkansas: John Selden Roane (Democratic) Governor of California: Peter Hardeman Burnett (Democratic) (until January 9), John McDougall (Democratic) (starting January 9) Governor of Connecticut: Thomas H. Seymour (Democratic) Governor of Delaware: William Tharp (Democratic) (until January 21), William H. H. Ross (Democratic) (starting January 21) Governor of Florida: Thomas Brown (Whig) Governor of Georgia: George W. Towns (Democratic) (until November 5), Howell Cobb (Democratic) (starting November 5) Governor of Illinois: Augustus C. French (Democratic) Governor of Indiana: Joseph A. Wright (Democratic) Governor of Iowa: Stephen P. Hempstead (Democratic) Governor of Kentucky: John L. Helm (Democratic) (until September 2), Lazarus W. Powell (Democratic) (starting September 2) Governor of Louisiana: Joseph Marshall Walker (Democratic) Governor of Maine: John Hubbard (Democratic) Governor of Maryland: Philip F. Thomas (Democratic) (until January 6), Enoch Louis Lowe (Democratic) (starting January 6) Governor of Massachusetts: George N. Briggs (Democratic) (until January 11), George S. Boutwell (Democratic) (starting January 11) Governor of Michigan: John S. Barry (Democratic) Governor of Mississippi: until February 3: John A. Quitman (Democratic) February 3-November 4: John I. Guion (Democratic) starting November 24: James Whitfield (Democratic) Governor of Missouri: Austin Augustus King (Democratic) Governor of New Hampshire: Samuel Dinsmoor, Jr. (Democratic) Governor of New Jersey: Daniel Haines (Democratic) (until January 21), George F. Fort (Democratic) (starting January 21) Governor of New York: Washington Hunt (Whig) (starting January 1) Governor of North Carolina: Charles Manly (Whig) (until January 1), David Settle Reid (Democratic) (starting January 1) Governor of Ohio: Reuben Wood (Democratic) Governor of Pennsylvania: William F. Johnston (Whig) Governor of Rhode Island: Henry B. Anthony (Whig) (until May 6), Philip Allen (Democratic) (starting May 6) Governor of South Carolina: John Hugh Means (Democratic) Governor of Tennessee: William Trousdale (Democratic) (until October 16), William B. Campbell (Whig) (starting October 16) Governor of Texas: Peter Hansborough Bell (Democratic) Governor of Vermont: Charles K. Williams (Whig) Governor of Virginia: John B. Floyd (Democratic) Governor of Wisconsin: Nelson Dewey (Democratic) Lieutenant governors Lieutenant Governor of California: John McDougall (Democratic) (until January 9), David C. Broderick (Democratic) (starting January 9) Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Charles H. Pond (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Green Kendrick (Whig) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: William McMurtry (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: James H. Lane (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant (until September 2), John Burton Thompson (political party unknown) (starting September 2) Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Jean Baptiste Plauche (Whig) Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: John Reed, Jr. (political party unknown) (until January 11), Henry W. Cushman (political party unknown) (starting January 11) Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: William M. Fenton (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), vacant (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Thomas Lawson Price (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of New York: Sanford E. Church (Democratic) (starting January 1) Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Thomas Whipple (political party unknown) (until May 6), William Beach Lawrence (political party unknown) (starting May 6) Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Joshua John Ward (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Texas: John Alexander Greer (Democratic) (until August 4), James Wilson Henderson (Democratic) (starting August 4) Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Julius Converse (Whig) Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Samuel W. Beall (Democratic)

Events

January–March

January 1 – HBCU, University of the District of Columbia is established, the 2nd HBCU in America.
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 9 – Nora Trueblood Gause, humanitarian (died 1955)
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)^[1]
September 21 – Fanny Searls (died 1939), doctor and botanist.^[2]
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 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)
June 21 – Martin Chester Deming, American businessman and politician (b. 1789)^[3]
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)

References

↑ Miller, Dean (January 1, 2014). Immunologists and Virologists. Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC. p. 86. ISBN 978-1-62712-562-8.
↑ Tiehm, Arnold (1985). "Fanny Searls (1851-1939)". Brittonia. 37 (1): 41. doi:10.1007/BF02809668. S2CID 87755152.
↑ Wiley, Edgar J. (1917). Catalogue of Officers and Students of Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, 1800-1915. Middlebury: Middlebury College. pp. 22–23.

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[1] Miller, Dean (January 1, 2014). Immunologists and Virologists. Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC. p. 86. ISBN 978-1-62712-562-8.

[2] Tiehm, Arnold (1985). "Fanny Searls (1851-1939)". Brittonia. 37 (1): 41. doi:10.1007/BF02809668. S2CID 87755152.

[3] Wiley, Edgar J. (1917). Catalogue of Officers and Students of Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, 1800-1915. Middlebury: Middlebury College. pp. 22–23.

[1]

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