1837 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President: Andrew Jackson , Martin Van Buren
• Vice President: Martin Van Buren , Richard M. Johnson
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: James K. Polk
• Congress: 24th, 25th

  Governors

• Governor of Alabama:
• * until July 17: Clement Comer Clay
• * July 17-November 30: Hugh McVay
• * starting November 30: Arthur P. Bagby
• Governor of Arkansas: James Sevier Conway
• Governor of Connecticut: Henry W. Edwards
• Governor of Delaware: Charles Polk, Jr. , Cornelius P. Comegys
• Governor of Georgia: William Schley , George R. Gilmer
• Governor of Illinois: Joseph Duncan
• Governor of Indiana: Noah Noble , David Wallace
• Governor of Kentucky: James Clark
• Governor of Louisiana: Edward Douglass White Sr.
• Governor of Maine: Robert P. Dunlap
• Governor of Maryland: Thomas W. Veazey
• Governor of Massachusetts: Edward Everett
• Governor of Michigan: Stevens T. Mason
• Governor of Mississippi: Charles Lynch
• Governor of Missouri: Lilburn W. Boggs
• Governor of New Hampshire: Isaac Hill
• Governor of New Jersey: Philemon Dickerson , William Pennington
• Governor of New York: William L. Marcy
• Governor of North Carolina: Edward Bishop Dudley
• Governor of Ohio: Joseph Vance
• Governor of Pennsylvania: Joseph Ritner
• Governor of Rhode Island: John Brown Francis
• Governor of South Carolina: Pierce Mason Butler
• Governor of Tennessee: Newton Cannon
• Governor of Vermont: Silas H. Jennison
• Governor of Virginia: Wyndham Robertson , David Campbell

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Ebenezer Stoddard
• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: William H. Davidson
• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: David Wallace , David Hillis
• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Charles A. Wickliffe
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: George Hull
• Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Franklin Cannon
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: John Tracy
• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Jeffrey Hazard , Benjamin Babock Thurston
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: William DuBose
• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: David M. Camp

  Events

• January 6 – DePauw University founded in Greencastle, Indiana.
• January 26 - Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state.
• February 4 – Seminoles attack Fort Foster.
• February 8 – Richard Johnson becomes the only Vice President of the United States chosen by the United States Senate.
• February 15 – Knox College founded in Galesburg, Illinois.
• February 25
• * In Philadelphia, The Institute for Colored Youth 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 – 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.
• * Chicago is granted a city charter by Illinois.
• May 10 – Panic of 1837: New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels.
• June 5 – Houston, Texas, is granted a city charter.
• June 11 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, fueled by ethnic tensions between the Irish and the Yankees.
• July – 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 – Groundbreaking ceremony for St. Charles College, the first Jesuit college established in the South.
• October – First publication of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review.
• October 21 – General Thomas Jesup captures Seminole leader Osceola under pretext of negotiations.
• November 7 – 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 – Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which will later become Mount Holyoke College.
• John Deere 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.

  Ongoing

• Second Seminole War

  Births

• January 9 - Julius C. Burrows, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1895 to 1911
• January 19 – William Williams Keen, brain surgeon
• February 5 - Dwight L. Moody, evangelist
• March 1 - William Dean Howells, writer, historian, editor and politician
• March 7 - Henry Draper, physician and astronomer
• March 18 - Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897
• March 27 - Kate Fox, medium
• April 3 - John Burroughs, nature writer
• April 10 - Forceythe Willson, poet
• April 17 - J. P. Morgan, financier
• May 26 - Washington Roebling, civil engineer
• May 27 - James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, gunfighter
• May 28
• * Samuel D. McEnery, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1897 to 1910
• * Tony Pastor, impresario and theater owner
• June 22
• * Paul Morphy, chess player
• * Touch the Clouds, Native American Miniconjou chief 7 feet tall
• June 25 - Charles Yerkes, financier of rapid transit systems in Chicago and London
• July 1 - Henry Rathbone, military officer and diplomat
• July 21 - Helen Appo Cook, African American community activist
• July 22 - George N. Bliss, Medal of Honor recipient
• July 31 - William Quantrill, Confederate leader during the American Civil War
• August 30 - Nell Arthur, wife of Chester A. Arthur
• September 2 - James H. Wilson, Union Army general in the Civil War
• September 8
• * Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Heine Miller, "Poet of the Sierras"
• * Raphael Pumpelly, geologist and explorer
• October 10 - Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army general in the Civil War and reformer
• October 12 - Preston B. Plumb, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1877 to 1891
• October 29 - Harriet Powers, African American folk artist
• November 3 - John Leary, politician, 37th Mayor of Seattle
• November 20 - Lewis Waterman, inventor and businessman
• November 28 - John Wesley Hyatt, inventor and industrial chemist
• December 10 - Edward Eggleston, novelist and historian
• December 15 - George B. Post, architect
• December 26
• * Morgan Bulkeley, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1905 to 1911
• * George Dewey, U.S. Admiral of the Navy

  Deaths

• September 28 - David Barton, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1821 to 1831
• October 1 - Robert Clark, politician
• October 9 - Oliver H. Prince, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1828 to 1829
• November 7 - Elijah P. Lovejoy, abolitionist
• November 11 - Thomas Green Fessenden, poet