1895 in the United States

Decades:	1870s ; 1880s ; 1890s ; 1900s ; 1910s ;
See also:	History of the United States (1865–1918) ; Timeline of the history of the United States (1860-1899) ; List of years in the United States ;

Last updated November 07, 2025

Incumbents

Federal government

Charles Frederick Crisp (D-Georgia) (until March 4)

Thomas Brackett Reed (R-Maine) (starting December 2)

Congress: 53rd (until March 4), 54th (starting March 4)

Governors and lieutenant governors
Governors Governor of Alabama: William C. Oates (Democratic) Governor of Arkansas: William Meade Fishback (Democratic) (until January 18), James Paul Clarke (Democratic) (starting January 18) Governor of California: Henry Markham (Republican) (until January 11), James Budd (Democratic) (starting January 11) Governor of Colorado: Davis Hanson Waite (People's) (until January 8), Albert McIntire (Republican) (starting January 8) Governor of Connecticut: Luzon B. Morris (Democratic) (until January 9), Owen Vincent Coffin (Republican) (starting January 9) Governor of Delaware: until January 15: Robert J. Reynolds (Democratic) January 15-April 8: Joshua H. Marvil (Republican) starting April 8: William T. Watson (Democratic) Governor of Florida: Henry L. Mitchell (Democratic) Governor of Georgia: William Yates Atkinson (Democratic) Governor of Idaho: William J. McConnell (Republican) Governor of Illinois: John Peter Altgeld (Democratic) Governor of Indiana: Claude Matthews (Democratic) Governor of Iowa: Frank D. Jackson (Republican) Governor of Kansas: Lorenzo D. Lewelling (Populist) (until January 14), Edmund N. Morrill (Republican) (starting January 14) Governor of Kentucky: John Y. Brown (Democratic) (until December 10), William O. Bradley (Republican) (starting December 10) Governor of Louisiana: Murphy James Foster, Sr. (Democratic) Governor of Maine: Henry B. Cleaves (Republican) Governor of Maryland: Frank Brown (Democratic) Governor of Massachusetts: Frederic T. Greenhalge (Republican) Governor of Michigan: John T. Rich (Republican) Governor of Minnesota: Knute Nelson (Republican) (until January 31), David M. Clough (Republican) (starting January 31) Governor of Mississippi: John M. Stone (Democratic) Governor of Missouri: William Joel Stone (Democratic) Governor of Montana: John E. Rickards (Republican) Governor of Nebraska: Lorenzo Crounse (Republican) (until January 3), Silas A. Holcomb (Democratic) (starting January 3) Governor of Nevada: Roswell K. Colcord (Republican) (until January 7), John Edward Jones (Silver) (starting January 7) Governor of New Hampshire: John Butler Smith (Republican) (until January 3), Charles A. Busiel (Republican) (starting January 3) Governor of New Jersey: George Theodore Werts (Democratic) Governor of New York: Levi P. Morton (Republican) (starting January 1) Governor of North Carolina: Elias Carr (Democratic) Governor of North Dakota: Eli C. D. Shortridge (Democratic)/(Independent) (until January 10), Roger Allin (Republican) (starting January 10) Governor of Ohio: William McKinley (Republican) Governor of Oregon: Sylvester Pennoyer (Democratic) (until January 14), William Paine Lord (Republican) (starting January 14) Governor of Pennsylvania: Robert E. Pattison (Democratic) (until January 15), Daniel H. Hastings (Republican) (starting January 15) Governor of Rhode Island: D. Russell Brown (Republican) (until May 29), Charles W. Lippitt (Republican) (starting May 29) Governor of South Carolina: John Gary Evans (Democratic) Governor of South Dakota: Charles H. Sheldon (Republican) Governor of Tennessee: Peter Turney (Democratic) Governor of Texas: James Stephen Hogg (Democratic) (until January 15), Charles A. Culberson (Democratic) (starting January 15) Governor of Vermont: Urban A. Woodbury (Republican) Governor of Virginia: Charles Triplett O'Ferrall (Democratic) Governor of Washington: John McGraw (Republican) Governor of West Virginia: William A. MacCorkle (Democratic) Governor of Wisconsin: George W. Peck (Democratic) (until January 7), William H. Upham (Republican) (starting January 7) Governor of Wyoming: John E. Osborne (Democratic) (until January 7), William A. Richards (Republican) (starting January 7) Lieutenant governors Lieutenant Governor of California: until January 11: John B. Reddick (Republican) January 11-October 25: Spencer G. Millard (Republican) starting October 25: William T. Jeter (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Colorado: David Hopkinson Nichols (Democratic) (until January 8), Jared L. Brush (Republican) (starting January 8) Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Ernest Cady (Democratic) (until January 9), Lorrin A. Cooke (Republican) (starting January 9) Lieutenant Governor of Idaho: F. B. Willis (Republican) (until January 7), F. J. Mills (Republican) (starting January 7) Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Joseph B. Gill (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Mortimer Nye (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Warren S. Dungan (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Percy Daniels (Populist) (until January 14), James A. Troutman (Republican) (starting January 14) Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Mitchell Cary Alford (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), William J. Worthington (Republican) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Hiram R. Lott (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Robert H. Snyder (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Roger Wolcott (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: until month and day unknown: J. Wight Giddings (Republican) month and day unknown: Alfred Milnes (Republican) starting month and day unknown: Joseph R. McLaughlin (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: David M. Clough (Republican) (until January 31), Frank A. Day (Republican) (starting January 31) Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: M. M. Evans (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: John B. O'Meara (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Montana: Alexander Campbell Botkin (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska: Thomas J. Majors (Republican) (until January 3), Robert E. Moore (Democratic) (starting January 3) Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: Joseph Poujade (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Reinhold Sadler (Silver) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of New York: Charles T. Saxton (Republican) (starting January 1) Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Rufus A. Doughton (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: Elmer D. Wallace (Democratic) (until January 10), John H. Worst (Republican) (starting January 10) Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: Andrew L. Harris (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: Louis Arthur Watres (Republican) (until January 23), Walter Lyon (Republican) (starting January 23) Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Edwin Allen (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Washington H. Timmerman (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota: Charles N. Herreid (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: William C. Dismukes (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Ernest Pillow (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Martin McNulty Crane (Democratic) (until January 15), George Taylor Jester (Democratic) (starting January 15) Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Zophar M. Mansur (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Robert Craig Kent (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Washington: F. H. Luce (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: vacant (until January 7), Emil Baensch (Republican) (starting January 7)

Events

January 6-9 – Robert William Wilcox leads a rebellion in Hawai'i
February 9 – Mintonette, later known as volleyball, is created by William G. Morgan at Holyoke, Massachusetts.
March 1 – William Lyne Wilson is appointed United States Postmaster General.
May 27 – In re Debs : The Supreme Court of the United States decides that the federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce, legalizing the military suppression of the Pullman Strike.
June 28 – The United States Court of Private Land Claims rules that James Reavis's claim to Barony of Arizona is "wholly fictitious and fraudulent".
July 4 – Katharine Lee Bates' lyrics for "America the Beautiful" are first published.
July 6 – Van Cortlandt Golf Course opens in The Bronx as the country's first and oldest public golf course.^[1]
August 19 – American frontier murderer and outlaw John Wesley Hardin is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.
September 3 – The first professional American football game is played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club (Latrobe wins 12–0).
September 18 – Booker T. Washington delivers the Atlanta Compromise speech.^[2]
November 5 – George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
November 20 – USS Indiana, the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of this time, is commissioned.
November 25 – Oscar Hammerstein opens the Olympia Theatre, the first theatre to be built in New York City's Times Square district.
November 28 – Chicago Times-Herald race: The first American automobile race in history is sponsored by the Chicago Times-Herald . Press coverage first arouses significant U.S. interest in the automobile.^[3]
December 24 – George Washington Vanderbilt II officially opens his Biltmore Estate on Christmas Eve, inviting his family and guests to celebrate his new home in Asheville, North Carolina.

Undated

W. E. B. Du Bois becomes the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
The gold reserve of the U.S. Treasury is saved when J. P. Morgan and the Rothschilds loan $65 million worth of gold to the United States government.
Temple Cup: Cleveland Spiders defeat Baltimore Orioles, 4 games to 1

Ongoing

Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
Gay Nineties (1890–1899)
Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)

Births

January 1
- Bert Acosta, aviator (died 1954)
- J. Edgar Hoover, 1st Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (died 1972)
January 4 – Leroy Grumman, aeronautical engineer, test pilot and industrialist (died 1982)
January 11 – Laurens Hammond, inventor (died 1973)
January 23 – Harry Darby, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1949 to 1950 (died 1987)
February 2 – George Halas, football player (died 1983)
February 6 – Babe Ruth, baseball player (died 1948)
February 25 – Lew Andreas, basketball coach (died 1984)
March 4
- Milt Gross, comic book illustrator and animator (died 1953)
- Shemp Howard, actor and comedian (The Three Stooges) (died 1955)
March 12 – William C. Lee, general (died 1948)
March 15 – Virgil Chapman, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1949 to 1951 (died 1951)
March 27 – Ruth Snyder, murderer (electrocuted 1928)
March 28
- Donald Barnhouse, theologian, pastor, author, and radio pioneer (died 1960)
- Spencer W. Kimball, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (died 1985)
April 20 – Emile Christian, musician (died 1973)
May 2 – Lorenz Hart, lyricist (died 1943)
May 11 – William Grant Still, "the Dean" of African American composers (died 1978)
May 15 – Prescott Bush, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1952 to 1963 (died 1972)
May 25 – Dorothea Lange, documentary photographer and photojournalist (died 1965 in the United States)
May 28 – Samuel D. Jackson, U.S. Senator from Indiana in 1944 (died 1951)
June 10
- William C. Feazel, U.S. Senator from Louisiana in 1948 (died 1965)
- Hattie McDaniel, African American film actress (died 1952)
June 21 – John Wesley Snyder, businessman and Secretary of the Treasury (died 1985)
June 24 – Jack Dempsey, heavyweight boxer (died 1983)
July 1 – Lucy Somerville Howorth, lawyer, feminist and politician (died 1997)
July 3 – Jean Paige, actress (died 1990)
July 4 – Irving Caesar, lyricist and theater composer (died 1996)
July 9 – Joe Gleason, baseball pitcher (died 1990)
July 10 – Andrew Earl Weatherly, philatelist (died 1981)
July 12 – Richard Buckminster Fuller, architect (died 1983)
July 13 – Bradley Kincaid, folk singer (died 1989)
July 19 – Snake Henry, baseball player (died 1987)
July 20 – Chapman Revercomb, politician and lawyer (died 1979)
July 26
- Gracie Allen, comic actress (died 1964)
- Kenneth Harlan, actor (died 1967)
July 30 – Joseph DuMoe, football coach (died 1959)
August 10 – Harry Richman, entertainer (died 1972)
August 12 – Lynde D. McCormick, admiral (died 1956)
September 20 – Lloyd W. Bertaud, aviator (died 1927)
September 22 – Elmer Austin Benson, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1935 to 1936 and 24th Governor of Minnesota from 1937 to 1939 (died 1985)
September 29 – Joseph Banks Rhine, parapsychologist (died 1980)
October 4 – Buster Keaton, born Joseph Frank Keaton, silent film comedian (died 1966)
October 6 – Caroline Gordon, writer and critic (died 1981)
October 13 – Mike Gazella, baseball player (died 1978)
October 14 – Silas Simmons, Pre-Negro league baseball player, longest-lived professional baseball player (died 2006)
October 19 – Lewis Mumford, historian & philosopher of science (died 1990)
October 22 – Johnny Morrison, baseball player (died 1966)
October 23 – Clinton Presba Anderson, U.S. Senator from New Mexico from 1949 to 1973 (died 1975)
October 30 – Dickinson W. Richards, physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1973)
November 10 – John Knudsen Northrop, airplane manufacturer (died 1981)
November 14 – Walter Freeman, neurologist (died 1972)
November 29 – Busby Berkeley, film director and choreographer (died 1976)
December 2 – W. Conway Pierce, chemist (died 1974)
December 20 – Susanne Langer, philosopher (died 1985)
December 24 – Marguerite Williams, African American geologist (died 1991)
December 28 – Carol Ryrie Brink, author (died 1981)

Deaths

January 9 – Aaron Lufkin Dennison, watchmaker (born 1812)
February 20 – Frederick Douglass, African American rights activist and former slave (born 1817)
March 22 – Henry Coppée, historian and biographer (born 1821)
April 22 – James F. Wilson, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1883 to 1895. (born 1828)
May 28 – Walter Q. Gresham, politician (born 1832)
June 23
- Thomas Shaw, buffalo soldier and Medal of Honor recipient (born 1846)
- James Renwick Jr., architect (born 1818)
June 29 – Green Clay Smith, politician (born 1826)
July 28 – Edward Beecher, theologian (born 1803)
August 1 – Hugh O'Brien, 31st Mayor of Boston, Massachusetts (born 1827)
August 6 – George Frederick Root, composer (born 1820)
August 22 – Luzon B. Morris, politician (born 1827)
October 2 – Robert Crozier, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1873 to 1874 (born 1827)
October 6 – L. L. Langstroth, beekeeper (born 1810)
October 8 – William Mahone, civil engineer and Confederate Army major general (born 1826)
October 14 – Clara Doty Bates, poet and children's literature author (born 1838)
November 4 – Eugene Field, children's author (born 1850)
Full date unknown – John Miley, Methodist theologian (born 1813)

References

↑ "Van Cortlandt Park Highlights – Van Cortlandt Golf Course". NYC Parks. Retrieved 2017-01-11.
↑ Gottheimer, Josh; Clinton, Bill; Berry, Mary Frances (2004). Ripples of Hope: Great American Civil Rights Speeches . p. 128.
↑ Berger, Michael L. The Automobile in American History and Culture: a reference guide. p. 278.

External links

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[1] "Van Cortlandt Park Highlights – Van Cortlandt Golf Course". NYC Parks. Retrieved 2017-01-11.

[2] Gottheimer, Josh; Clinton, Bill; Berry, Mary Frances (2004). Ripples of Hope: Great American Civil Rights Speeches . p. 128.

[3] Berger, Michael L. The Automobile in American History and Culture: a reference guide. p. 278.

[1]

[2]

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