1802 in the United States

Events from the year 1802 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government

• President: Thomas Jefferson (DR-Virginia)
• Vice President: Aaron Burr (DR-New York)
• Chief Justice: John Marshall (Virginia)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nathaniel Macon (DR-North Carolina)
• Congress: 7th

State governments

Events

• March 16 – Congress authorizes the establishment of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
• April 19 – The Judiciary Act of 1802 is enacted, reorganizing the federal court system.
• April 30 – The Enabling Act of 1802 authorizes the creation of Ohio from the Northwest Territory and sets a precedent for the creation of future states from the western territories.
• June 1 – William Thornton is appointed the first superintendent of the United States Patent Office.
• July 4 – At West Point, New York, the United States Military Academy opens.
• October 2 – First Barbary War: Fighting ends between Sweden and Tripoli. The United States also negotiates peace, but war continues over the size of compensation.
• October 12 – Joseph Gardner Swift and Simeon Magruder Levy become the first graduates of the United States Military Academy.

Undated

• U.S. House of Representatives elections: 142 representatives are elected, 36 more than the 7th Congress, following reapportionment from the 1800 United States census.

Ongoing

• First Barbary War (1801–1805)

Births

• January 22 – Richard Upjohn, Gothic architect (died 1878)
• February 4 – Mark Hopkins, educator and president of Williams College (died 1887)
• February 11 – Lydia Maria Child, abolitionist, women's rights activist, novelist and journalist (died 1880)
• February 21 – George D. Ramsay, 6th Chief of Ordnance of the United States Army (died 1882)
• March 16 – George A. McCall, Union Army brigadier general (died 1868)
• April 2 – Archibald Dixon, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1852 to 1855 (died 1876)
• April 4 – Dorothea Dix, mental health reformer (died 1887)
• May 10 – James Westcott, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1845 to 1849 (died 1880)
• June 10 – James W. Bradbury, U.S. Senator from Maine from 1847 to 1853 (died 1901)
• June 30 – Benjamin Fitzpatrick, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1848 to 1849 and from 1853 to 1861 (died 1869)
• July 1 – Gideon Welles, 24th United States Secretary of the Navy (died 1878)
• July 9 – Thomas Davenport, inventor and blacksmith (died 1851)
• July 21 – David Hunter, Union Army major general (died 1886)
• August 10 – Dixon Hall Lewis, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1844 to 1848 (died 1848)
• September 4 – Marcus Whitman, physician and missionary (died 1847)
• October 1 – Oliver Blake, American-born Canadian businessman and political figure (died 1873)
• November 5 – James F. Trotter, U.S. Senator from Mississippi in 1838 (died 1866)
• November 9 – Elijah Parish Lovejoy, newspaper publisher and abolitionist (died 1837)
• November 19 – Solomon Foot, Vermont politician (died 1866)
• December 2 – Melancthon S. Wade, Union Army general (died 1868)

Deaths

• February 26 – Esek Hopkins, Commander in Chief of the Continental Navy during the Revolution (born 1718)
• May 22 – Martha Washington, the wife of George Washington, the first president of the United States (born 1731)
• July 6 – Daniel Morgan, soldier and United States Representative from Virginia (born 1736)
• December 31 – Francis Lewis, signer of the Declaration of Independence from New York (born 1713)

See also

• Timeline of United States history (1790–1819)

References

Further reading

• A Register of Marriages and Deaths, 1802. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 24, No. 2 (1900), pp. 207–211
• W. L. McAtee. Journal of Benjamin Smith Barton on a Visit to Virginia, 1802. Castanea, Vol. 3, No. 7/8 (November – December, 1938), pp. 85–117
• C. Richard Arena. Philadelphia-Mississippi Valley trade and deposit closure of 1802. Pennsylvania History, Vol. 30, No. 1 (January 1963), pp. 28–45
• Howard A. Ohline. Georgetown, South Carolina: Racial Anxieties and Militant Behavior, 1802. The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 73, No. 3 (July, 1972), pp. 130–140

External links