1836 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President: Andrew Jackson
• Vice President: Martin Van Buren
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: James K. Polk
• Congress: 24th

  Governors

• Governor of Alabama: Clement Comer Clay
• Governor of Arkansas:
• * until June 15: William S. Fulton
• * June 15-September 13: vacant
• * starting September 13: James Sevier Conway
• Governor of Connecticut: Henry W. Edwards
• Governor of Delaware: Caleb P. Bennett , Charles Polk, Jr.
• Governor of Georgia: William Schley
• Governor of Illinois: Joseph Duncan
• Governor of Indiana: Noah Noble
• Governor of Kentucky: James T. Morehead , James Clark
• Governor of Louisiana: Edward Douglass White Sr.
• Governor of Maine: Robert P. Dunlap
• Governor of Maryland: James Thomas , Thomas W. Veazey
• Governor of Massachusetts: Samuel Turell Armstrong , Edward Everett
• Governor of Mississippi: John A. Quitman , Charles Lynch
• Governor of Missouri: Daniel Dunklin , Lilburn W. Boggs
• Governor of New Hampshire: William Badger , Isaac Hill
• Governor of New Jersey: Peter Dumont Vroom , Philemon Dickerson
• Governor of New York: William L. Marcy
• Governor of North Carolina: Richard Dobbs Spaight, Jr. , Edward Bishop Dudley
• Governor of Ohio: Robert Lucas , Joseph Vance
• Governor of Pennsylvania: Joseph Ritner
• Governor of Rhode Island: John Brown Francis
• Governor of South Carolina: George McDuffie , Pierce Mason Butler
• Governor of Tennessee: Newton Cannon
• Governor of Vermont: Silas H. Jennison
• Governor of Virginia: Littleton Waller Tazewell , Wyndham Robertson

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Ebenezer Stoddard
• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Alexander M. Jenkins , William H. Davidson
• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: David Wallace
• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Charles A. Wickliffe
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Samuel T. Armstrong , George Hull
• Lieutenant Governor of Missouri:
• * until September 30: Lilburn Boggs
• * September 30-November 21: vacant
• * starting November 21: Franklin Cannon
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: John Tracy
• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Jeffrey Hazard
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Whitemarsh B. Seabrook , William DuBose
• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Silas H. Jennison , David M. Camp

  Events

January–March

• January 5 - Davy Crockett arrives in Texas, which at this time is not part of the United States.
• January 18 - Dade County, Florida, is formed.
• February 3 - United States Whig Party holds its first convention in Albany, New York.
• February 5 - Henry Roe Campbell builds the first 4-4-0, a steam locomotive type that will soon become the most common on all railroads of the United States.
• February 23 - Battle of the Alamo: The siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.
• February 25 - Samuel Colt receives an American patent for the Colt revolver, the first practical adaptation of the revolving flintlock pistol.
• March 1 - At the Convention of 1836, delegates from 57 Texas communities convene in Washington-on-the-Brazos to deliberate independence from Mexico.
• March 2 - At the Convention of 1836, the Republic of Texas declares independence from Mexico.
• March 6 - The Battle of the Alamo ends; 189 Texans are slaughtered by about 1,600 Mexicans.
• March 17 - Texas abolishes the slave trade.
• March 27
• * Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre - Antonio López de Santa Anna orders the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texans at Goliad, Texas.
• * U.S. Survey of the Coast returned to U.S. Treasury Department as the U.S. Coastal Survey.
• March 31 - Marshall College, named for John Marshall, opens in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. It later merges with Franklin College to become Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

  April–June

• April 20 - U.S. Congress passes act creating the Wisconsin Territory.
• April 21 - Texas Revolution: Battle of San Jacinto - Republic of Texas forces under Sam Houston defeat troops under Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
• April 22 - Texas Revolution: A day after the Battle of San Jacinto, forces under Texas General Sam Houston capture Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
• May 4 - The Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish Catholic fraternal organization, is founded in New York City.
• May 19 - Fort Parker massacre: Among those captured by Native Americans is 9-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker; she later gives birth to a son named Quanah, who becomes the last chief of the Comanche.
• June 15 - Arkansas is admitted as the 25th U.S. state.
• June 28 - James Madison, the fourth President of the United States and United States Secretary of State, dies in Montpelier, Virginia.

  July–September

• July 3 - Wisconsin Territory is effective.
• July 11 - President Andrew Jackson issues the Specie Circular, beginning the failure of the land speculation economy that will lead to the Panic of 1837.
• July 13 - U.S. patent #1 is granted after filing 9,957 unnumbered patents.
• July 30 - The first English language newspaper is published in Hawaii.
• August 1 - Abolition Riot of 1836 in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: Two fugitive slave women are freed from the courtroom by spectators.
• August 30 - The city of Houston, Texas, is founded.
• September 1 - Narcissa Whitman, one of the first white women to settle west of the Rocky Mountains, arrives at Walla Walla, Washington.
• September 5 - Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
• September 8 - Transcendental Club founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  October–December

• October 15 - Alexander Twilight becomes the first African American elected to public office, joining the Vermont House of Representatives.
• October 22 - Sam Houston is inaugurated as first elected President of the Republic of Texas.
• December 4 - Whig Party holds its first national convention, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
• December 7 - U.S. presidential election, 1836: Martin Van Buren defeats William Henry Harrison.
• December 10 - Emory College, the forerunner of Emory University, is chartered in Oxford, Georgia.
• December 14 - The Toledo War, the mostly bloodless boundary dispute between Ohio and the adjoining Michigan Territory, is unofficially ended by a resolution passed by the controversial "Frostbitten Convention".
• December 15 - The United States Patent Office burns in Washington, D.C.
• December 20 - Sudden freeze kills many travelers in Illinois.
• December 23 - Georgia Female College, the forerunner of Wesleyan College, is chartered in Macon, Georgia as the first college for women in the U.S.

  Undated

• American Temperance Union established.
• First McGuffey Readers published.
• The first printed literature in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is produced by Justin Perkins, an American Presbyterian missionary.
• The New Board brokerage group is founded in New York City.
• James Peter Allaire's company, the Howell Works, is at its peak.
• George Catlin ends his 6-year tour of 50 tribes in the Dakota Territory.

  Ongoing

• Second Seminole War

  Births

• January 10 - Charles Ingalls, settler father of Laura Ingalls Wilder
• February 9 - Franklin B. Gowen, industrialist
• February 24 - Winslow Homer, landscape painter and printmaker
• February 27 - Russell A. Alger, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1902 to 1907
• March 2 - John W. Foster, journalist and politician
• March 20 - Ferris Jacobs, Jr., politician
• April 27 - Charles Bendire, U.S. Army officer and ornithologist
• May 23 - Touch the Clouds, Native American chieftain of Teton Lakota Sioux
• May 27 - Jay Gould, railroad developer and speculator
• June 15 - George L. Shoup, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1890 to 1901
• June 16 - Wesley Merritt, U.S. Army general
• June 28 - Lyman J. Gage, financier and Presidential Cabinet Officer
• June 29 - Thomas Philander Ryder, composer, organist, teacher, conductor and organ builder
• July 26 - Ellen Maria Colfax, wife of Schuyler Colfax, Second Lady of the United States
• August 5 - John T. Raymond, born John O'Brien, actor
• August 11 - Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt, poet
• August 16 - John Peirce, inventor
• August 25 - Bret Harte, writer of fiction and poetry
• September 10 - Joseph Wheeler, U.S. Army general and politician
• September 11 - Fitz Hugh Ludlow, writer
• September 18 - William Jackson Palmer, railroad civil engineer, Union Army general, industrialist and philanthropist
• November 1 - George E. Spencer, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1868 to 1879
• November 8 - Milton Bradley, game pioneer and businessman
• November 11 - Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor, poet and novelist
• December 19 - Maria Sanford, American educator

  Deaths

• January 30 - Betsy Ross, flagmaker
• February 18 - Cornplanter, Seneca chief
• February 23 - Ezra Ames, portrait painter
• March 6
• * James Bowie Texas revolutionary
• * Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier
• * William Barret Travis, Texas revolutionary
• March 16 - Nathaniel Bowditch, mathematician
• March 27 - James Fannin, Texas Revolutionary
• April 29 - Simon Kenton, frontiersman and Revolutionary War militia general
• June 9 - Supply Belcher, composer and singer
• June 25 - Jesse Bledsoe, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1813 to 1814
• June 28 - James Madison, fourth President of the United States from 1809 to 1817
• September 14 - Aaron Burr, third Vice President of the United States from 1801 to 1805
• October 10 - Martha Jefferson Randolph, Acting First Lady of the United States from 1801 to 1809
• November - Tenskwatawa, Shawnee prophet and political leader
• December 27 - Stephen F. Austin, pioneer