1841 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President:
• * until March 4: Martin Van Buren
• * March 4–April 4: William Henry Harrison
• * starting April 4: John Tyler
• Vice President:
• * until March 4: Richard M. Johnson
• * March 4–April 4: John Tyler
• * starting April 4: vacant
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter , John White
• Congress: 26th, 27th

  Governors

• Governor of Alabama: Arthur P. Bagby , Benjamin Fitzpatrick
• Governor of Arkansas: Archibald Yell
• Governor of Connecticut: William W. Ellsworth
• Governor of Delaware: Cornelius P. Comegys , William B. Cooper
• Governor of Georgia: Charles J. McDonald
• Governor of Illinois: Thomas Carlin
• Governor of Indiana: Samuel Bigger
• Governor of Kentucky: Robert P. Letcher
• Governor of Louisiana: André B. Roman
• Governor of Maine:
• * until January 12: John Fairfield
• * January 12-January 13: Richard H. Vose
• * starting January 13: Edward Kent
• Governor of Maryland: William Grason
• Governor of Massachusetts: Marcus Morton , John Davis
• Governor of Michigan: William Woodbridge , James Wright Gordon
• Governor of Mississippi: Alexander G. McNutt
• Governor of Missouri: Thomas Reynolds
• Governor of New Hampshire: John Page
• Governor of New Jersey: William Pennington
• Governor of New York: William H. Seward
• Governor of North Carolina: Edward Bishop Dudley , John Motley Morehead
• Governor of Ohio: Thomas Corwin
• Governor of Pennsylvania: David R. Porter
• Governor of Rhode Island: Samuel Ward King
• Governor of South Carolina: John Peter Richardson II
• Governor of Tennessee: James K. Polk , James C. Jones
• Governor of Vermont: Silas H. Jennison , Charles Paine
• Governor of Virginia:
• * until March 20: Thomas Walker Gilmer
• * March 20-March 31: John M. Patton
• * starting March 31: John Rutherfoord

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Charles Hawley
• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Stinson Anderson
• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Samuel Hall
• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Manlius Valerius Thomson
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: George Hull
• Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: James Wright Gordon
• Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Meredith Miles Marmaduke
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: Luther Bradish
• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Byron Diman
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: William K. Clowney
• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: David M. Camp , Waitstill R. Ranney

  Events

• January 30 - A fire destroys 300 of the 500 housing units in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, Spanish Empire.
• February 18-March 11 - First ongoing filibuster in the United States Senate.
• March 4 - William Henry Harrison is sworn in as the ninth President of the United States.
• March 9 - Amistad: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the case that the Africans who seized control of the ship had been taken into slavery illegally.
• April 4 - President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia, becoming the first President of the United States to die in office and at one month, the president with the shortest term served. He is succeeded by Vice President John Tyler, who becomes the tenth President of the United States.
• April 6 - President John Tyler is sworn in.
• April 20 - Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is published in Graham's Magazine . The story will be recognized as the first significant work of detective fiction.
• June 21 - Fordham University is opened in The Bronx by the Society of Jesus as St. John's College.
• July 28 - Mary Rogers, the "Beautiful Cigar Girl", is found murdered in New York City.
• August 16 - U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.
• September 17 - John C. Colt murders Samuel Adams in an argument over a business debt in New York City.
• c. November - The city of Dallas in Texas is founded by John Neely Bryan.
• Frederick Douglass speaks at the Massachusetts Anti-slavery Society Convention.
• Iconic chocolate company Whitman's is established when Stephen F. Whitman opens a small retail "confectionery and fruiterer shop" at Third and Market Streets in Philadelphia.
• P. T. Barnum purchases Scudder's American Museum in New York City.
• The first steam self-propelled fire engine in the U.S. is completed by Paul Rapsey Hodge for use in New York City.

  Ongoing

• Second Seminole War

  Births

• March 1 - Blanche Bruce, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1875 to 1881
• March 10 - Ina Coolbrith, poet
• May 10 - James Gordon Bennett, Jr., newspaper publisher
• April 8 - William J. Babcock, Medal of Honor recipient
• May 15
• * James Henderson Berry, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1885 to 1907
• * Clarence Dutton, geologist
• June 1 - Edward Lyon Buchwalter, businessman
• July 5 - Mary Arthur McElroy, de facto First Lady of the United States from 1881 to 1885
• July 11 - James A. Barber, Medal of Honor recipient
• September 8 - Charles J. Guiteau, assassin of President James A. Garfield
• October 12 - Joseph O'Dwyer, physician
• October 18 - Bishop W. Perkins, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1892 to 1893
• October 29 - William Harris, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1897 to 1903
• November 6 - Nelson W. Aldrich, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island from 1881 to 1911
• November 13 - Edward Burd Grubb, Jr., American Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General
• December 8 - Thomas R. Bard, U.S. Senator from California from 1900 to 1905
• Jennie de la Montagnie Lozier, physician

  Deaths

• February 25 - Philip Pendleton Barbour, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1836 to 1841
• April 4 - William Henry Harrison, ninth President of the United States from March to April 1841
• September 25 - John Chandler, politician
• October 6 - George Childress, lawyer and politician
• October 21 - John Forsyth, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1818 to 1819 and 1829 to 1834