1821 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: James Monroe
• Vice President: Daniel D. Tompkins
• Chief Justice: John Marshall
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: John W. Taylor , Philip Pendleton Barbour
• Congress: 16th, 17th

  Governors

• Governor of Alabama: Thomas Bibb , Israel Pickens
• Governor of Connecticut: Oliver Wolcott Jr.
• Governor of Delaware: Jacob Stout , John Collins
• Governor of Georgia: John Clark
• Governor of Illinois: Shadrach Bond
• Governor of Indiana: Jonathan Jennings
• Governor of Kentucky: John Adair
• Governor of Louisiana: Thomas Bolling Robertson
• Governor of Maine:
• * until May 28:William King
• * May 28-December 5: William D. Williamson
• * starting December 5: Benjamin Ames
• Governor of Maryland: Samuel Sprigg
• Governor of Massachusetts: John Brooks
• Governor of Mississippi: George Poindexter
• Governor of Missouri: William Clark , Alexander McNair
• Governor of New Hampshire: Samuel Bell
• Governor of New Jersey: Isaac Halstead Williamson
• Governor of New York: DeWitt Clinton
• Governor of North Carolina: Jesse Franklin , Gabriel Holmes
• Governor of Ohio: Ethan Allen Brown
• Governor of Pennsylvania: Joseph Hiester
• Governor of Rhode Island: Nehemiah R. Knight , William C. Gibbs
• Governor of South Carolina: Thomas Bennett Jr.
• Governor of Tennessee: Joseph McMinn , William Carroll
• Governor of Vermont: Richard Skinner
• Governor of Virginia: Thomas Mann Randolph Jr.

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Jonathan Ingersoll
• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Pierre Menard
• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Ratliff Boon
• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: William T. Barry
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: William Phillips Jr.
• Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: James Patton
• Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: William Henry Ashley
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: John Tayler
• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Edward Wilcox , Caleb Earle
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: William Pinckney
• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: William Cahoon

  Events

• February 9 - The George Washington University is chartered as The Columbian College of the District of Columbia by President James Monroe.
• March 5 - James Monroe is sworn in for his second term as President of the United States.
• June 27 - The New Hampton School is founded in the state of New Hampshire.
• July 10 - The U.S. takes possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain.
• August 4 - The Saturday Evening Post relaunched.
• August 10 - Missouri is admitted as the 24th U.S. state.
• September 3 - The 1821 Norfolk and Long Island hurricane strikes New York City.
• September 18 - Amherst College is founded in Massachusetts.
• November 16 - American Old West: The Santa Fe Trail is used by the first White American.
• History of Liberia - The first groups of freed slaves from the U.S. arrive in modern-day Liberia and found Monrovia.

  Ongoing

• Era of Good Feelings

  Births

• January 2 – Napoleon LeBrun, architect
• January 8 – James Longstreet, one of the foremost Confederate generals of the American Civil War
• January 16 – John C. Breckinridge, 14th Vice President of the United States from 1857 to 1861, U.S. Senator from Kentucky in 1861
• February 4 – Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, sonneteer
• February 19 – Francis Preston Blair Jr., U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1871 to 1873
• March 20 – Ned Buntline, publisher, dime novelist and publicist
• April 12
• * Samuel G. Arnold, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island from 1862 to 1863
• * Adonijah Welch, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1868 to 1869.
• April 15 – Joseph E. Brown, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1880 to 1891
• July 6 – Edmund Pettus, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1897 to 1907
• July 8 – Maria White Lowell, poet and abolitionist
• July 13 – Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate Civil War General, first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan
• September 22 – John Conness, Irish-born U.S. Senator from California from 1863 to 1869
• October 7 – Richard H. Anderson, United States Army officer during the Mexican–American War, Confederate general during the American Civil War
• October 10 – Wade Keyes, Acting Confederate States Attorney General in 1861 and 1863–1864
• October 22 – Collis P. Huntington, railroad promoter
• December 25 – Clara Barton, humanitarian and founder of the American branch of the Red Cross.

  Deaths

• January 4 - Elizabeth Ann Seton, saint
• March 13 - Waightstill Avery, lawyer and soldier, fought a duel with Andrew Jackson
• October 11 - John Ross Key, commissioned officer in the Continental Army, judge, lawyer and father of Francis Scott Key
• October 24 - Elias Boudinot, President of the Continental Congress
• Full Date Unknown - Lucy Terry first known African American poet