Events from the year 1837 in the United States.
Incumbents
:Andrew Jackson (D-Tennessee) (until March 4)
:Martin Van Buren (D-New York) (starting March 4)
:Martin Van Buren (D-New York) (until March 4)
:Richard M. Johnson (D-Kentucky) (starting March 4)
State governments
Events
- January 6 â DePauw University founded in Greencastle, Indiana.
- January 26 – Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state (see History of Michigan).
- February 4 â Seminoles attack Fort Foster.
- February 8 â Richard Johnson becomes the only vice president of the United States chosen by the United States Senate.
- February 15 â Knox College founded in Galesburg, Illinois.
- February 16 – Lake County, Indiana, is established by the European Americans.
- February 25
- In Philadelphia, The Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) is founded as the first institution for the higher education of coloreds.
- Thomas Davenport obtains the first United States patent on an electric motor.
- March â Victor Séjour's short story "Le Mulâtre", the earliest known work of African American fiction, is published in the French abolitionist journal Revue des Colonies.
- March 4
- Martin Van Buren is sworn in as the eighth president of the United States, and Richard M. Johnson is sworn in as the ninth vice president.
- Chicago is granted a city charter by Illinois.
- May 10 â Panic of 1837: New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels.
- June 5 â Houston, Texas, is granted a city charter.
- June 11 â The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, fueled by ethnic tensions between the Irish and the Yankees.
- July â Charles W. King sets sail on the American merchant ship Morrison. In the Morrison incident, he is turned away from Japanese ports with cannon fire.
- July 31 â Groundbreaking ceremony for St. Charles College (Louisiana), the first Jesuit college established in the South.
- October â First publication of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review.
- October 21 â General Thomas Jesup captures Seminole leader Osceola under pretext of negotiations.
- October 31 â The steamboat Monmouth disaster on the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge kills over 300 Muscogee being forcibly relocated to the Indian Territory.
- November 7 â In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot and killed by a pro-slavery mob while he attempts to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a fourth time.
- November 8 â Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which will later become Mount Holyoke College.
- John Deere (inventor) begins his agricultural implement manufacturing business, John Deere, in Grand Detour, Illinois.
- The Little, Brown and Company publishing house opens its doors in Boston.
- John Greenleaf Whittier's first poetry book, Poems Written During the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, is published by Boston abolitionists.
- Antonija Höffern becomes the first Slovene woman to immigrate to the United States.
Ongoing
Births
- January 9 – Julius C. Burrows, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1895 to 1911 (died 1915)
- January 19 â William Williams Keen, brain surgeon (died 1932)
- February 5 – Dwight L. Moody, evangelist (died 1899)
- March 1 – William Dean Howells, writer, historian, editor and politician (died 1920)
- March 7 – Henry Draper, physician and astronomer (died 1882)
- March 18 – Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897 (died 1908)
- March 27 – Kate Fox, medium (died 1892)
- April 3 – John Burroughs, nature writer (died 1921)
- April 10 – (Byron) Forceythe Willson, poet (died 1867)
- April 17 – J. P. Morgan, financier (died 1913 in Italy)
- May 26
- Mary Frances McCray, church founder, leader and preacher (died 1898)
- Washington Roebling, civil engineer (died 1926)
- May 27 – James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, gunfighter (killed 1876)
- May 28
- Samuel D. McEnery, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1897 to 1910 (died 1910)
- Tony Pastor, impresario and theater owner (died 1908)
- June 22
- Paul Morphy, chess player (died 1884)
- Touch the Clouds, Native American Miniconjou chief 7 feet tall (died 1905)
- June 25 – Charles Yerkes, financier of rapid transit systems in Chicago and London (died 1905)
- July 1 – Henry Rathbone, military officer and diplomat (died 1911 in Germany)
- July 21 – Helen Appo Cook, African American community activist (died 1913)
- July 22 – George N. Bliss, Medal of Honor recipient (died 1928)
- July 31 – William Quantrill, Confederate leader during the American Civil War (died 1865)
- August 30 – Nell Arthur, wife of Chester A. Arthur (died 1880)
- September 2 – James H. Wilson, Union Army general in the Civil War (died 1925)
- September 8
- Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Heine Miller, "Poet of the Sierras" (died 1913)
- Raphael Pumpelly, geologist and explorer (died 1923)
- October 10 – Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army general in the Civil War and reformer (killed in action 1863)
- October 12 – Preston B. Plumb, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1877 to 1891 (died 1891)
- October 29 – Harriet Powers, African American folk artist (died 1910)
- November 3 – John Leary, politician, 37th Mayor of Seattle (died 1905)
- November 20 – Lewis Waterman, inventor and businessman (died 1901)
- November 28 – John Wesley Hyatt, inventor and industrial chemist (died 1920)
- December 10 – Edward Eggleston, novelist and historian (died 1902)
- December 15 – George B. Post, architect (died 1913)
- December 26
- Morgan Bulkeley, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1905 to 1911 (died 1922)
- George Dewey, U.S. Admiral of the Navy (died 1917)
Deaths
See also
References
External links