# 1855 in the United States

Events from the year 1855 in the United States.

## Incumbents
### Federal government

* President: Franklin Pierce (D-New Hampshire)
* Vice President: vacant
* Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Linn Boyd (D-Kentucky)
* Congress: 33rd (until March 4), 34th (starting March 4)
* Governors and lieutenant governors
* Governors
* Governor of Alabama: John A. Winston (Democratic)
* Governor of Arkansas: Elias Nelson Conway (Democratic)
* Governor of California: John Bigler (Democratic)
* Governor of Connecticut: Henry Dutton (Whig) (until May 2), William T. Minor (Know Nothing) (starting May 2)
* Governor of Delaware: William H. H. Ross (Democratic) (until January 16), Peter F. Causey (Know Nothing) (starting January 16)
* Governor of Florida: James E. Broome (Democratic)
* Governor of Georgia: Herschel V. Johnson (Democratic)
* Governor of Illinois: Joel Aldrich Matteson (Democratic)
* Governor of Indiana: Joseph A. Wright (Democratic)
* Governor of Iowa: James W. Grimes (Whig)
* Governor of Kentucky: Lazarus W. Powell (Democratic) (until September 4), Charles S. Morehead (Know Nothing) (starting September 4)
* Governor of Louisiana: Paul Octave Hébert (Democratic)
* Governor of Maine: William G. Crosby (Whig) (until January 3), Anson Morrill (Republican) (starting January 3)
* Governor of Maryland: Thomas W. Ligon (Democratic)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Emory Washburn (Whig) (until January 4), Henry Gardner (Know Nothing) (starting January 4)
* Governor of Michigan: Andrew Parsons (Democratic) (until January 3), Kinsley S. Bingham (Republican) (starting January 3)
* Governor of Mississippi: John J. McRae (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: Sterling Price (Democratic)
* Governor of New Hampshire: Nathaniel B. Baker (Democratic) (until June 7), Ralph Metcalf (Know Nothing) (starting June 7)
* Governor of New Jersey: Rodman M. Price (Democratic)
* Governor of New York: Myron H. Clark (Whig) (starting January 1)
* Governor of North Carolina: Warren Winslow (Democratic) (until January 1), Thomas Bragg (Democratic) (starting January 1)
* Governor of Ohio: William Medill (Democratic)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: William Bigler (Democratic) (until January 16), James Pollock (Whig) (starting January 16)
* Governor of Rhode Island: William W. Hoppin (Whig)
* Governor of South Carolina: James Hopkins Adams (Democratic)
* Governor of Tennessee: Andrew Johnson (Democratic)
* Governor of Texas: Elisha M. Pease (Democratic)
* Governor of Vermont: Stephen Royce (Whig)/(Republican)
* Governor of Virginia: Joseph Johnson (Democratic)
* Governor of Wisconsin: William A. Barstow (Democratic)
* Lieutenant governors
* Lieutenant Governor of California: Samuel Purdy (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Alexander H. Holley (Whig) (starting January 4), William Field (Free Soil) (starting January 4)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Gustavus Koerner (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Ashbel P. Willard (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant (until September 4), James Greene Hardy (Know Nothing) (starting September 4)
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Robert C. Wickliffe (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: William C. Plunkett (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Simon Brown (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: George Griswold (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), George Coe (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Wilson Brown (Democratic) (until August 27), vacant (starting August 27)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Henry Jarvis Raymond (Whig) (starting January 1)
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: James Myers (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: John J. Reynolds (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Anderson C. Rose (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Richard de Treville (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: David Catchings Dickson (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Hardin Richard Runnels (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Ryland Fletcher (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Shelton Leake (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: James T. Lewis (Republican)

## Events

* January – Klamath and Salmon River War: In Klamath County, California, hostility between settlers and the local Native Americans becomes violent. The California State Militia and U.S. Army intervene, ending the war in March.
* January 23 – The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota (a crossing made today by the Hennepin Avenue Bridge).
* January 26 – The Point No Point Treaty is signed in the Washington Territory.
* February 12 – Michigan State University (the "pioneer" land-grant college) is established.
* February 15 – The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the Western North Carolina Railroad to build a rail line from Salisbury to the western part of the state.
* February 22 – Pennsylvania State University is founded as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania.
* March 3 – The U.S. Congress appropriates $30,000 to create the U.S. Camel Corps.
* March 16 – Bates College is founded by abolitionists in Lewiston, Maine.
* March 30 – Elections are held for the first Kansas Territory legislature. Missourian 'Border Ruffians' cross the border in large numbers to elect a pro-slavery body.
* April – Cincinnati riots of 1855: Tension between nativists and German-American immigrants in Cincinnati breaks out into territorial street fighting on election day.
* May 17 – The Mount Sinai Hospital is dedicated (as the Jews' Hospital) in New York City; it opens to patients on June 5.
* June 6 – Portland Rum Riot: A crowd gathers at a storehouse believed to hold alcohol in Portland, Maine. The militia is called in and fires on the crowd to disperse the crowd, killing one person.
* June 28 – The Sigma Chi fraternity is founded at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
* July 1 – Quinault Treaty signed, Quinault and Quileute cede their land to the United States.
* July 2 – The Kansas Territorial Legislature convenes in Pawnee and begins passing proslavery laws.
* July 4 – Walt Whitman's poetry collection Leaves of Grass is published in Brooklyn.
* July 6 – The Kansas Territorial Legislature meets for the last time in Pawnee, voting to relocate to Shawnee, closer to the border of slave state Missouri.
* July 16 – U.S. Indian commissioner Isaac Stevens signs the Hellgate treaty with Native Americans living in modern-day western Montana.
* August 6
** Bloody Monday: Protestant mobs attack Irish and German Catholics on an election day in Louisville, Kentucky, causing 22 deaths.
** John A. Winston is reelected the 15th governor of Alabama defeating George Shortridge.
* September 3 – First Sioux War: Battle of Ash Hollow – U.S. forces defeat a band of Brulé Lakota in present-day Garden County, Nebraska.
* October 5 – Yakima War: Battle of Toppenish Creek – In the Yakima River Valley, a band of Yakama warriors forces a company of U.S. soldiers to retreat in the first battle of the War.
* October 28–31 – First Fiji expedition: The U.S. Navy dispatches the USS John Adams to Viti Levu, Fiji, to protect American interests. One American sailor is killed and two Marines are wounded.
* November 1 – 31 people are killed in the Gasconade Bridge train disaster in Missouri.
* November 9–10 – Yakima War: Battle of Union Gap – American soldiers attack a Yakama village, forcing the village to retreat.
* November 21 – Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins with events leading to the Wakarusa War between antislavery and proslavery forces.

### Ongoing

* Samuel Colt incorporates his business as the Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company and opens a new factory, the Colt Armory, in Hartford, Connecticut. Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson form the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company in New England.
* California Gold Rush (1848–1855)
* Bleeding Kansas (1854–1860)
* Third Seminole War (1855–1858)
* Yakima War (1855–1858)

## Births

* February 4 – George Cope, painter (died 1929)
* February 23 – Jonathan Bourne, Jr., U.S. Senator from Oregon from 1907 to 1913 (died 1940)
* June 14 – Robert M. La Follette, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (died 1925)
* June 17 – Janet Cook Lewis, portrait painter, librarian, and bookbinder (died 1947)
* July 29 – Bowman Brown Law, politician (died 1916)
* August 4 – Jay Hunt, film director (died 1932)
* September 2 – M. Hoke Smith, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1911 to 1920 (died 1931)
* October 21 – Howard Hyde Russell, temperance activist (died 1946)
* October 23 – James S. Sherman, 27th vice president of the United States from 1909 to 1912 (died 1912)
* October 26 – Jessie Wilson Manning, American author and lecturer
* November 5 – Eugene V. Debs, union leader (died 1926)
* November 6 – Annie Keeler, early woman physician (died 1927)
* December 10 – August Spies, labor activist and newspaper editor (died 1887)
* December 28 – John William Wood, Sr., North Carolinan politician, founder of Benson, North Carolina (died 1928)

## Deaths

* March 8 – William Poole, founder of the street gang the Bowery Boys and leader of the Know Nothing political movement (born 1821)
* March 25 – Thomas Fitzgerald, United States Senator from Michigan from 1848 till 1849. (born 1796)
* March 28 – William S. Archer, United States Senator from Virginia from 1841 till 1847. (born 1789)
* May 7 – Walter T. Colquitt, United States Senator from Georgia from 1843 till 1848. (born 1799)
* June 29 – John Gorrie, physician, scientist, inventor, and humanitarian (born 1803)
* August 18 – Thomas Metcalfe, United States Senator from Kentucky from 1848 till 1849. (born 1780)