1839 in the United States

* 1838
* 1837
* 1836
*   *

|  | 1839

the United States |

* 1840
* 1841
* 1842
*   *

|
|
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Decades:|

* 1810s
* 1820s
* 1830s
* 1840s
* 1850s

See also:|

*   * History of the United States (1789–1849)
* Timeline of the history of the United States (1820-1859)
* List of years in the United States

1839 in the United States

1839 in U.S. states
States

* Alabama
*   *   * Arkansas
*   *   * Connecticut
* Delaware
*   * Georgia
*   *   * Illinois
* Indiana
*   *   * Kentucky
* Louisiana
* Maine
* Maryland
* Massachusetts
* Michigan
*   * Mississippi
* Missouri
*   *   *   * New Hampshire
* New Jersey
*   * New York
* North Carolina
*   * Ohio
*   *   * Pennsylvania
* Rhode Island
* South Carolina
*   * Tennessee
*   *   * Vermont
* Virginia
*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *   *

Washington, D.C.
List of years in the United States by state or territory

* v
* t
* e

David H. Burr's 1839 map of the United States (Geographicus Antique Maps)

Events from the year 1839 in the United States.

## Incumbents

[edit]

### Federal government

[edit]

* President: Martin Van Buren (D-New York)
* Vice President: Richard M. Johnson (D-Kentucky)
* Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives:

James K. Polk (D-Tennessee) (until March 4)
Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter (W-Virginia) (starting December 16)

* Congress: 25th (until March 4), 26th (starting March 4)

Governors and lieutenant governors

### Governors

[edit]

* Governor of Alabama: Arthur P. Bagby (Democratic)
* Governor of Arkansas: James Sevier Conway (Democratic)
* Governor of Connecticut: William W. Ellsworth (Whig)
* Governor of Delaware: Cornelius P. Comegys (Whig)
* Governor of Georgia: George R. Gilmer (Whig) (until November 6), Charles J. McDonald (Democratic) (starting November 6)
* Governor of Illinois: Thomas Carlin (Democratic)
* Governor of Indiana: David Wallace (Whig)
* Governor of Kentucky: James Clark (Whig) (until August 27), Charles A. Wickliffe (Whig) (starting August 27)
* Governor of Louisiana: Edward Douglass White Sr. (Whig) (until February 4), André B. Roman (Whig) (starting February 4)
* Governor of Maine: Edward Kent (Whig) (until January 2), John Fairfield (Democratic) (starting January 2)
* Governor of Maryland: Thomas W. Veazey (Whig) (until January 7), William Grason (Democratic) (starting January 7)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Edward Everett (Whig)
* Governor of Michigan: Stevens T. Mason (Democratic)
* Governor of Mississippi:Alexander G. McNutt (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: Lilburn W. Boggs (Democratic)
* Governor of New Hampshire: Isaac Hill (Democratic) (until June 5), John Page (Democratic) (starting June 5)
* Governor of New Jersey: William Pennington (Whig)
* Governor of New York: William H. Seward (Whig) (starting January 1)
* Governor of North Carolina: Edward Bishop Dudley (Whig)
* Governor of Ohio: Wilson Shannon (Democratic)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: Joseph Ritner (Anti-Masonic) (until January 15), David R. Porter (Democratic) (starting January 15)
* Governor of Rhode Island: William Sprague III (Democratic) (until May 2), Samuel Ward King (Rhode Island) (starting May 2)
* Governor of South Carolina: Patrick Noble (Democratic)
* Governor of Tennessee: Newton Cannon (Whig) (until October 14), James K. Polk (Democratic) (starting October 14)
* Governor of Vermont: Silas H. Jennison (Whig)
* Governor of Virginia: David Campbell (Democratic)

### Lieutenant governors

[edit]

* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Charles Hawley (Whig)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Stinson Anderson (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: David Hillis (Whig)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Charles A. Wickliffe (Democratic-Republican) (until August 27), vacant (starting August 27)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: George Hull (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Franklin Cannon (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Luther Bradish (Democratic) (starting January 1)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Joseph Childs (political party unknown) (until May 2), vacant (starting May 2)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Barnabas Kelet Henagan (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: David M. Camp (Whig)

## Events

[edit]

* February 11 - The University of Missouri is established in Columbia, Missouri, becoming the first public university west of the Mississippi River.
* March 5 - Longwood University is founded in Farmville, Virginia.
* March 7 - Baltimore City College, the third public high school in the United States, is established in Baltimore, Maryland.
* March 23 - The Boston Morning Post first records the use of "OK".
* August 3 - Arthur P. Bagby is reelected the tenth governor of Alabama defeating Arthur F. Hopkins.
* August 8 - The Beta Theta Pi fraternity is founded in Oxford, Ohio.
* September 9 - In the Great Fire of Mobile, Alabama hundreds of buildings are burned.
* October - Robert Cornelius takes the first photographic self portrait in the United States.
* November 11 - The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
* November 27 - In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded.

### Undated

[edit]

* The first U.S. state law permitting women to own property is passed in Jackson, Mississippi.
* Episcopal High School, Alexandria, Virginia, is founded, the first in the state.

### Ongoing

[edit]

* Second Seminole War (1835–1842)

## Births

[edit]

* February 9 - Laura Redden Searing, deaf poet and journalist (died 1923)
* March 9 - Phoebe Knapp, hymn writer (d. 1908)
* April 7 - David Baird, Ireland-born U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1918 to 1919 (died 1927)
* July 8 - John D. Rockefeller, oil industry business magnate and philanthropist (died 1937)
* August 1 - Middleton P. Barrow, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1882 to 1883 (died 1903)
* August 23 - George Clement Perkins, U.S. Senator from California from 1893 to 1915 (died 1923)
* August 26 - Hernando Money, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1897 to 1911 (died 1912)
* September 2 - Henry George, writer, politician and political economist (died 1897)
* September 10 - Charles Sanders Peirce, philosopher, logician, scientist, and founder of pragmatism (died 1912)
* September 13 - Thomas J. Mastin, Confederate captain and lawyer (d. 1861)
* September 18 - William J. McConnell, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1890 to 1891 (died 1925)
* September 28 - Frances Willard, American educator, temperance reformer and women's suffragist (died 1898)
* September 29 - James Kimbrough Jones, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1885 to 1903 (died 1908)
* October 20 - Augustus Octavius Bacon, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1895 to 1914 (died 1914)
* November 4 - Thomas M. Patterson, Ireland-born U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1901 to 1907 (died 1916)
* December 5 - George Armstrong Custer, U.S. Army Officer and Cavalry Commander from Ohio from 1861 to 1876 (died 1876)
* December 12 - Caroline Ingalls (b. Caroline Lake Quiner), American pioneer, mother of author Laura Ingalls Wilder (died 1924)

## Deaths

[edit]

* January 14 - John Wesley Jarvis, portrait painter (born c.1781 in Great Britain)
* February 26 - Sybil Ludington, heroine of the American Revolutionary War (born 1761)
* April 1 - Benjamin Pierce, governor of New Hampshire from 1827 to 1828 and from 1829 to 1830, father of the 14th president of the United States, Franklin Pierce (born 1757)
* April 2 - Hezekiah Niles, magazine publisher (born 1777)
* April 5 - John Tipton, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1832 to 1839 (born 1786)
* April 22 - Samuel Smith, U.S. Senator from Maryland from 1822 to 1833 (born 1752)
* May 11 - Thomas Cooper, political philosopher (born 1759)
* June 10 - Nathaniel Hale Pryor, sergeant in the Lewis and Clark Expedition (born 1772)
* July 16 - The Bowl (Di'wali), Cherokee chief, shot (born c.1756)
* August 22 - Benjamin Lundy, abolitionist (born 1789)
* September 28 - William Dunlap, actor-manager, dramatist and painter (born 1766)
* December 4 - John Leamy, merchant (born 1757 in Ireland)

## See also

[edit]

* Timeline of United States history (1820–1859)

## External links

[edit]

* Media related to 1839 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons

* v
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* e

Years in the United States

18th century|

* 1776
* 1777
* 1778
* 1779
* 1780
* 1781
* 1782
* 1783
* 1784
* 1785
* 1786
* 1787
* 1788
* 1789
* 1790
* 1791
* 1792
* 1793
* 1794
* 1795
* 1796
* 1797
* 1798
* 1799
* 1800

19th century|

* 1801
* 1802
* 1803
* 1804
* 1805
* 1806
* 1807
* 1808
* 1809
* 1810
* 1811
* 1812
* 1813
* 1814
* 1815
* 1816
* 1817
* 1818
* 1819
* 1820
* 1821
* 1822
* 1823
* 1824
* 1825
* 1826
* 1827
* 1828
* 1829
* 1830
* 1831
* 1832
* 1833
* 1834
* 1835
* 1836
* 1837
* 1838
* 1839
* 1840
* 1841
* 1842
* 1843
* 1844
* 1845
* 1846
* 1847
* 1848
* 1849
* 1850
* 1851
* 1852
* 1853
* 1854
* 1855
* 1856
* 1857
* 1858
* 1859
* 1860
* 1861
* 1862
* 1863
* 1864
* 1865
* 1866
* 1867
* 1868
* 1869
* 1870
* 1871
* 1872
* 1873
* 1874
* 1875
* 1876
* 1877
* 1878
* 1879
* 1880
* 1881
* 1882
* 1883
* 1884
* 1885
* 1886
* 1887
* 1888
* 1889
* 1890
* 1891
* 1892
* 1893
* 1894
* 1895
* 1896
* 1897
* 1898
* 1899
* 1900

20th century|

* 1901
* 1902
* 1903
* 1904
* 1905
* 1906
* 1907
* 1908
* 1909
* 1910
* 1911
* 1912
* 1913
* 1914
* 1915
* 1916
* 1917
* 1918
* 1919
* 1920
* 1921
* 1922
* 1923
* 1924
* 1925
* 1926
* 1927
* 1928
* 1929
* 1930
* 1931
* 1932
* 1933
* 1934
* 1935
* 1936
* 1937
* 1938
* 1939
* 1940
* 1941
* 1942
* 1943
* 1944
* 1945
* 1946
* 1947
* 1948
* 1949
* 1950
* 1951
* 1952
* 1953
* 1954
* 1955
* 1956
* 1957
* 1958
* 1959
* 1960
* 1961
* 1962
* 1963
* 1964
* 1965
* 1966
* 1967
* 1968
* 1969
* 1970
* 1971
* 1972
* 1973
* 1974
* 1975
* 1976
* 1977
* 1978
* 1979
* 1980
* 1981
* 1982
* 1983
* 1984
* 1985
* 1986
* 1987
* 1988
* 1989
* 1990
* 1991
* 1992
* 1993
* 1994
* 1995
* 1996
* 1997
* 1998
* 1999
* 2000

21st century|

* 2001
* 2002
* 2003
* 2004
* 2005
* 2006
* 2007
* 2008
* 2009
* 2010
* 2011
* 2012
* 2013
* 2014
* 2015
* 2016
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* 2018
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* 2020
* 2021
* 2022
* 2023
* 2024
* 2025
* 2026

By U.S. state/territory|

| States|

* Alabama
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* Arizona
* Arkansas
* California
* Colorado
* Connecticut
* Delaware
* Florida
* Georgia
* Hawaii
* Idaho
* Illinois
* Indiana
* Iowa
* Kansas
* Kentucky
* Louisiana
* Maine
* Maryland
* Massachusetts
* Michigan
* Minnesota
* Mississippi
* Missouri
* Montana
* Nebraska
* Nevada
* New Hampshire
* New Jersey
* New Mexico
* New York
* North Carolina
* North Dakota
* Ohio
* Oklahoma
* Oregon
* Pennsylvania
* Rhode Island
* South Carolina
* South Dakota
* Tennessee
* Texas
* Utah
* Vermont
* Virginia
* Washington
* West Virginia
* Wisconsin
* Wyoming

|

Washington D.C.|

* Washington, D.C.

Territories|

* American Samoa
* Guam
* Northern Mariana Islands
* Puerto Rico
* U.S. Virgin Islands

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Timeline of United States history

Year|

* Before 1760
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General|

* Civil rights movement
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Military|

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Groups|

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Industry|

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* Railroads
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* Years in the United States
* History of the United States
* Outline

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1839 in North America

Sovereign states|

*   *   *   *   *   *   * Costa Rica
*   *   *   *   *   * Guatemala
* Haiti
* Honduras
*   * Mexico
* Nicaragua
* Panama
* Saint Kitts and Nevis
* Saint Lucia
* Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
* Texas
* Trinidad and Tobago
* United States

Dependencies, colonies
and other territories

*   *   * Bermuda
*   * British Virgin Islands
*   *   * Guadeloupe
*   *   *   *   * Newfoundland
*   * Spanish West Indies
*   *

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