1850 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President: Zachary Taylor , Millard Fillmore
• Vice President: Millard Fillmore , vacant
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Howell Cobb
• Congress: 31st

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–March

• January 29 - Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to Congress.
• January 31 - The University of Rochester is chartered in Rochester, New York; it admits its first students in November.
• c. January-February - Liberty Head double eagle first issued for commerce.
• February 8-17 - Battle at Fort Utah: The Nauvoo Legion kills Timpanogos hostile to the Mormon settlement at Fort Utah on the orders of Brigham Young.
• February 28 - The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City.
• March 7 - U.S. Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech in which he endorses the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.
• March 16 - Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical novel The Scarlet Letter is published by William Ticknor and James Thomas Fields in Boston, selling 2,500 copies in ten days.
• March 19 - American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.

  April–June

• April 4 - Los Angeles is incorporated as a city in California.
• April 15 - San Francisco is incorporated as a city in California.
• April 19 - Clayton-Bulwer Treaty is signed by the United States and Great Britain, allowing both countries to share Nicaragua and not claim complete control over the proposed Nicaragua Canal.
• May 7 - The brigantine is loaned to the United States Navy.
• May 23 - The puts to sea from New York City to search for Franklin's lost expedition in the Arctic.
• June - Harper's Magazine published as a new monthly in New York City.
• June 1 - The 1850 United States Census shows that 11.2% of the population classed as "Negro" are of mixed race.
• June 3 - Traditional date of Kansas City, Missouri's founding: it is incorporated by Jackson County, Missouri as the "Town of Kansas".

  July–September

• July 1 - St. Mary's Institute admits its first pupils in Dayton, Ohio.
• July 9 - President Zachary Taylor dies in office; Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States.
• July 10 - Inauguration of Millard Fillmore: President Fillmore is sworn in.
• July 14 - John Gorrie makes the first public demonstration of his ice-making machine, in Apalachicola, Florida.
• September 9
• * California is admitted to the Union as the 31st state.
• * Utah Territory is established.
• * New Mexico Territory is organized by order of the U.S. Congress.
• September 18 - The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is passed by the U.S. Congress. Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad.

  October–December

• October 19 - Phi Kappa Sigma International Fraternity founded at the University of Pennsylvania.
• October 28 - Delegate Edward Ralph May delivers a speech on behalf of African American suffrage to the Indiana Constitutional Convention.

  Undated

• The American system of watch manufacturing starts in Roxbury, Massachusetts, with the Waltham Watch Company.
• Mayer Lehman arrives from Germany to join his siblings in Lehman Brothers merchant business in Montgomery, Alabama.
• Allan Pinkerton forms the North-Western Police Agency, later the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, in Chicago.
• Astronomer Maria Mitchell becomes the first woman member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• The temperance organisation, International Organisation of Good Templars, is established in Utica, New York, as the order of the Knights of Jericho.
• One of the original segments of the historic Pacific Highway in Washington in Clark and Cowlitz counties is established.

  Ongoing

• California Gold Rush

  Births

• January 1 - John Barclay Armstrong, Texas Ranger lieutenant and a U.S. Marshal
• January 10 - John Wellborn Root, Chicago architect
• January 18 - Seth Low, educator
• January 24 - Mary Noailles Murfree, novelist
• January 27 - Samuel Gompers, labor union leader
• January 28 - Edward Merritt Hughes, U.S. Navy officer
• February 1 - Emma Churchman Hewitt, author and journalist
• February 2 – Cassius Aurelius Boone, Mayor of Orlando and businessman
• February 8 - Kate Chopin, writer
• February 15 - Albert B. Cummins, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1908 to 1926
• February 27
• * Henry E. Huntington, railroad pioneer and art collector
• * Laura E. Richards, author
• March 9 - Daniel B. Towner, hymn composer
• March 26 - Edward Bellamy, Utopian novelist and socialist
• March 31 - Charles Doolittle Walcott, invertebrate paleontologist
• April 3 - Zina P. Young Card, Mormon leader and women's rights activist
• April 10 - Mary Emilie Holmes, geologist and educator
• April 18 - Joseph Labadie, labor organizer
• April 20 - Daniel Chester French, sculptor
• May 8 - Ross Barnes, baseball player and manager
• May 12 - Henry Cabot Lodge, statesman
• June 3 - Albert M. Todd, businessman and politician
• June 5 - Pat Garrett, bartender and sheriff
• June 15 - Charles Hazelius Sternberg, paleontologist
• June 18 - Cyrus H. K. Curtis, magazine publisher
• June 21 - Daniel Carter Beard, Scouting pioneer
• July 2 - Robert Ridgway, ornithologist
• July 7 - William E. Mason, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1897 to 1903
• July 8 - Charles Rockwell Lanman, Sanskrit scholar
• July 11 - Annie Armstrong, Baptist leader
• July 12 - Newell Sanders, businessman and politician
• July 18 - Rose Hartwick Thorpe, poet
• July 20 - John G. Shedd, businessman
• July 28 - William Whittingham Lyman, vintner
• July 31 - Robert Love Taylor, Tennessee congressman
• August 28 - Charles H. Aldrich, Solicitor General of the U.S.
• September 2 - Eugene Field, poet and essayist
• October 14 - Newton E. Mason, rear admiral
• October 30 - John Patton, Jr., U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1894 to 1895
• November 5 - Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet
• November 18 - John S. Armstrong, real estate developer
• December 9 - Emma Abbott, operatic soprano
• December 21 - William Wallace Lincoln, third son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln
• December 25 - Florence Griswold, art curator

  Deaths

• February 1 - Edward Baker Lincoln, second son of Abraham Lincoln
• March 3 - Oliver Cowdery, religious leader
• March 21 - Miguel Pedrorena, early settler of San Diego, California
• March 28 - Gerard Brandon, fourth and sixth Governor of Mississippi from 1825 to 1826 and from 1826 to 1832
• March 31 - John C. Calhoun, seventh Vice President of the United States from 1825 to 1832
• April 12 - Adoniram Judson, Congregationalist and later Baptist missionary
• April 24 - John Norvell, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1837 to 1841
• May 16 - William Hendricks, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1825 to 1837
• July 9 - Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States from 1849 to 1850
• July 19 - Margaret Fuller, journalist, literary critic and women's rights advocate, presumed drowned
• November 19 - Richard Mentor Johnson, ninth Vice President of the United States from 1837 to 1841, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1819 to 1829