1852 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: Linn Boyd (D-Kentucky)
Congress: 32nd

Governors and lieutenant governors
Governors Governor of Alabama: Henry W. Collier (Democratic) Governor of Arkansas: John Selden Roane (Democratic) (until November 15), Elias Nelson Conway (Democratic) (starting November 15) Governor of California: John McDougall (Democratic) (until January 8), John Bigler (Democratic) (starting January 8) Governor of Connecticut: Thomas H. Seymour (Democratic) Governor of Delaware: William H. H. Ross (Democratic) Governor of Florida: Thomas Brown (Whig) Governor of Georgia: Howell Cobb (Democratic) Governor of Illinois: Augustus C. French (Democratic) Governor of Indiana: Joseph A. Wright (Democratic) Governor of Iowa: Stephen P. Hempstead (Democratic) Governor of Kentucky: Lazarus W. Powell (Democratic) Governor of Louisiana: Joseph Marshall Walker (Democratic) Governor of Maine: John Hubbard (Democratic) Governor of Maryland: Enoch Louis Lowe (Democratic) Governor of Massachusetts: George S. Boutwell (Democratic) Governor of Michigan: John S. Barry (Democratic) (until January 1), Robert McClelland (Democratic) (starting January 1) Governor of Mississippi: James Whitfield (Democratic) (until January 10), Henry S. Foote (Democratic) (starting January 10) Governor of Missouri: Austin Augustus King (Democratic) Governor of New Hampshire: Samuel Dinsmoor, Jr. (Democratic) (until June 3), Noah Martin (Democratic) (starting June 3) Governor of New Jersey: George F. Fort (Democratic) Governor of New York: Washington Hunt (Whig) (until end of December 31) Governor of North Carolina: David Settle Reid (Democratic) Governor of Ohio: Reuben Wood (Democratic) Governor of Pennsylvania: William F. Johnston (Whig) (until January 20), William Bigler (Democratic) (starting January 20) Governor of Rhode Island: Philip Allen (Democratic) Governor of South Carolina: John Hugh Means (Democratic) (until December 9), John Lawrence Manning (Democratic) (starting December 9) Governor of Tennessee: William B. Campbell (Whig) Governor of Texas: Peter Hansborough Bell (Democratic) Governor of Vermont: Charles K. Williams (Whig) (until October), Erastus Fairbanks (Whig) (starting October) Governor of Virginia: John B. Floyd (Democratic) (until January 16), Joseph Johnson (Democratic) (starting January 16) Governor of Wisconsin: Nelson Dewey (Democratic) (until January 5), Leonard J. Farwell (Whig) (starting January 5) Lieutenant governors Lieutenant Governor of California: David C. Broderick (Democratic) (until January 8), Samuel Purdy (Democratic) (starting January 8) Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Green Kendrick (Whig) (until month and day unknown), Charles H. Pond (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: William McMurtry (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: James H. Lane (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: John Burton Thompson (political party unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Jean Baptiste Plauche (Whig) Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Henry W. Cushman (political party unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: vacant (until month and day unknown), Calvin Britain (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Thomas Lawson Price (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of New York: Sanford E. Church (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: William Medill (Democratic) (starting January 12) Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: William Beach Lawrence (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Samuel G. Arnold (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Joshua John Ward (Democratic) (until December 9), James Irby (Democratic) (starting December 9) Lieutenant Governor of Texas: James Wilson Henderson (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Julius Converse (Whig) (until October), William Kittredge (Whig) (starting October) Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Shelton Leake (Democratic) (starting January 16) Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Samuel W. Beall (Democratic) (until January 5), Timothy Burns (Democratic) (starting January 5)

Events

January 15 – Nine men representing various Hebrew charitable organizations come together to form what will become the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
February 16 – The Studebaker Brothers Wagon Company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established.
February 19 – The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity is founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
March 2 – The first American experimental steam fire engine is tested.^[1]
March 4 – The Phi Mu fraternity is established at Wesleyan College.
March 20 – Uncle Tom's Cabin an antislavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe is first published in book form, in Boston.
April 23 – More than 150 Wintu people are killed in California by a militia under the guidance of Trinity County sheriff William H. Dixon in the Bridge Gulch Massacre.
July 1 – American statesman Henry Clay is the first to receive the honor of lying in state in the United States Capitol rotunda.
July 5 – Frederick Douglass delivers his famous speech on "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery" in Rochester, New York.
August 3 – The first Boat Race between Yale and Harvard, the first American intercollegiate athletic event, is held.
September 15 – Loyola College opens its doors to students in the City of Baltimore, Maryland.
November 2 – U.S. presidential election, 1852: Democrat Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire defeats Whig Winfield Scott of New Jersey.
November 25 – Monticello Convention: 44 people from the northern parts of Oregon Territory meet and draft a petition to establish a separate territorial government north of the Columbia River (which becomes, in the following months, Washington Territory).^[2]

Undated

In Hawaii sugar planters bring over the first Chinese laborers on 3 or 5 year contracts, giving them 3 dollars per month plus room and board for working a 12-hour day, 6 days a week.
Loyola College in Maryland is chartered in Baltimore.
Tufts University is founded in Medford, Massachusetts.
Mills College is founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in Benicia, California.
Justin Perkins, an American Presbyterian missionary, produces the first translation of the Bible in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, which is published with the parallel text of the Syriac Peshitta by the American Bible Society.
Lowell, Indiana is incorporated
Westminster College, a Presbyterian Liberal Arts School, is founded New Wilmington, PA.

Ongoing

California Gold Rush (1848–1855)

Births

January 8 – James Milton Carroll, Baptist pastor, leader, historian and author (died 1931)
January 11 – Elnora Monroe Babcock, suffragist (died 1934)
January 14 – Cornelia Cole Fairbanks, wife of Charles W. Fairbanks, Second Lady of the United States (died 1913)
February 16 – Charles Taze Russell, Christian restorationist minister (died 1916)
February 18 – Ferdinand Lee Barnett, African American journalist, lawyer and civil rights activist (died 1936)
February 26 – John Harvey Kellogg, Adventist doctor and health reformer (died 1943)
March 12 – Mary Catherine Judd, educator, children's author, peace activist (died 1930s)
March 25 – Charles Loomis Dana, neurologist (died 1935)
April 1 – Edwin Austin Abbey, painter and illustrator (died 1911)
April 13 – F. W. Woolworth, merchant and businessman (died 1919)
April 23 – Edwin Markham, poet (died 1940)
May 1 – Calamity Jane, frontierswoman (died 1903)
May 11 – Charles W. Fairbanks, 26th vice president of the United States from 1905 till 1909 and United States Senator from Indiana from 1897 to 1905 (died 1918)
May 14 – Alton B. Parker, judge and Democratic political candidate (died 1926)
May 18 – Gertrude Käsebier, née Stanton, one of the most influential American portrait photographers of the early 20th century (died 1934)
May 23 – Weldon B. Heyburn, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1903 to 1912 (died 1912)
June 22 – Mary Canfield Ballard, poet and hymnwriter (died 1927)
July 4
- John H. Hill, African American lawyer and educator (died 1936)
- Loretta C. Van Hook, Presbyterian missionary and educator (died 1935)
August 16 – Charles Sanger Mellen, railroad manager (died 1927)
September 15 – Edward Bouchet, African American physicist (died 1918)
October 25 – Byron Andrews, journalist, statesman, author and businessman (died 1910)
October 30 – Jane Kelley Adams, educator (died 1924)
October 31 – Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, short-story and children's fiction writer and poet (died 1930)
November 1 – Eugene W. Chafin, politician (died 1920)
November 10 – Henry van Dyke, author, poet, educator and clergyman (died 1933)
November 15 – Ella Maria Ballou, writer (d. 1937)
November 16 – Joseph R. Burton, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1901 to 1906 (died 1923)

Deaths

February 14 – Thomas Carlin, 7th Governor of Illinois from 1838 to 1842 (born 1789)
February 24 – John Frazee, first American-born sculptor to execute a bust in marble (born 1790)
March 9 – Anson Dickinson, painter of miniature portraits (born 1779)
April 10 – John Howard Payne, actor, playwright, author and consul in Tunis from 1842, lyricist for "Home! Sweet Home!" (born 1791)^[3]
May 6 – William Bellinger Bulloch, U.S. Senator from Georgia in 1813 (born 1777)
May 15 – Louisa Adams, First Lady of the United States as wife of John Quincy Adams from 1825 to 1829 (born 1775)
May 18 – Briscoe Baldwin, planter and Virginia politician (born 1789)
June 8 – Perry Smith, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1837 to 1843 (born 1783)
June 17 – William King, merchant, shipbuilder, army officer and statesman (born 1768)
June 29 – Henry Clay, U.S. Senator from Kentucky 1806–1807, 1810–1811, 1831–1842 and 1849–1852 (born 1777)
July 19 – John McKinley, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1826 to 1831 and in 1837, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1837 to 1852 (born 1780)
August 14 – Margaret Taylor, First Lady of the United States as wife of Zachary Taylor (born 1788)
September 20 – Philander Chase, Episcopal Church bishop, educator, pioneer of the western frontier and founder of Kenyon College (born 1775)
September 23 – John Vanderlyn, neoclassical painter (born 1775)
October 4 – James Whitcomb, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1849 to 1852 (born 1795)
October 13 – John Lloyd Stephens, traveler, diplomat and Mayanist archaeologist (born 1805)
October 24 – Daniel Webster, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts (born 1782)
October 25 – John C. Clark, politician (born 1793)
November 18 – John Andrew Shulze, politician (born 1775)
November 24 – Walter Forward, lawyer and politician, 15th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1841 to 1843 (born 1786)
November 30 – Junius Brutus Booth, actor, father of John Wilkes Booth and Edwin Booth (born 1796 in England)
December 13 – Frances Wright, freethinker (born 1795 in Scotland)
December 18 – Horatio Greenough, sculptor (born 1805)

References

↑ King, William T. (1896). History of the American Steam Fire-Engine.
↑ Settlers met at Monticello to sign a petition asking Congress to create a separate territory north of the Columbia River. Washington Secretary of State.
↑ "Bibliography". American Poetry Full-Text Database. University of Chicago Library. Retrieved March 4, 2009.

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[1] King, William T. (1896). History of the American Steam Fire-Engine.

[2] Settlers met at Monticello to sign a petition asking Congress to create a separate territory north of the Columbia River. Washington Secretary of State.

[3] "Bibliography". American Poetry Full-Text Database. University of Chicago Library. Retrieved March 4, 2009.

[1]

[2]

[3]

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