# 1858 in the United States

Events from the year 1858 in the United States.

## Incumbents
### Federal government

* President: James Buchanan (D-Pennsylvania)
* Vice President: John C. Breckinridge (D-Kentucky)
* Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: James Lawrence Orr (D-South Carolina)
* Congress: 35th
* Governors and lieutenant governors
* Governors
* Governor of Alabama: Andrew B. Moore (Democratic)
* Governor of Arkansas: Elias Nelson Conway (Democratic)
* Governor of California: J. Neely Johnson (Know Nothing) (until January 8), John B. Weller (Democratic) (starting January 8)
* Governor of Connecticut: Alexander H. Holley (Republican) (until May 5), William A. Buckingham (Republican) (starting May 5)
* Governor of Delaware: Peter F. Causey (Know Nothing)
* Governor of Florida: Madison S. Perry (Democratic)
* Governor of Georgia: Joseph E. Brown (Democratic)
* Governor of Illinois: William Henry Bissell (Republican)
* Governor of Indiana: Ashbel P. Willard (Democratic)
* Governor of Iowa: James W. Grimes (Whig) (until January 13), Ralph P. Lowe (Republican) (starting January 13)
* Governor of Kentucky: Charles S. Morehead (Know Nothing)
* Governor of Louisiana: Robert C. Wickliffe (Democratic)
* Governor of Maine: Joseph H. Williams (Republican) (until January 6), Lot M. Morrill (Democratic) (starting January 6)
* Governor of Maryland: Thomas W. Ligon (Democratic) (until January 13), Thomas H. Hicks (Know Nothing)/(Republican) (starting January 13)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Henry Gardner (Know Nothing) (until January 7), Nathaniel Prentice Banks (Republican) (starting January 7)
* Governor of Michigan: Kinsley S. Bingham (Republican)
* Governor of Minnesota: Samuel Medary (Democratic) (until May 24), Henry H. Sibley (Democratic) (starting May 24)
* Governor of Mississippi: William McWillie (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: Robert Marcellus Stewart (Democratic)
* Governor of New Hampshire: William Haile (Republican)
* Governor of New Jersey: William A. Newell (Republican)
* Governor of New York: John Alsop King (Republican) (until end of December 31)
* Governor of North Carolina: Thomas Bragg (Democratic)
* Governor of Ohio: Salmon P. Chase (Republican)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: James Pollock (Whig) (until January 19), William F. Packer (Democratic) (starting January 19)
* Governor of Rhode Island: Elisha Dyer (Republican)
* Governor of South Carolina: Robert Francis Withers Allston (Democratic) (until December 10), William Henry Gist (Democratic) (starting December 10)
* Governor of Tennessee: Isham G. Harris (Democratic)
* Governor of Texas: Hardin R. Runnels (Democratic)
* Governor of Vermont: Ryland Fletcher (Republican) (until October 10), Hiland Hall (Republican) (starting October 10)
* Governor of Virginia: Henry A. Wise (Democratic)
* Governor of Wisconsin: Coles Bashford (Republican) (until January 4), Alexander W. Randall (Republican) (starting January 12)
* Lieutenant governors
* Lieutenant Governor of California: Robert M. Anderson (Know Nothing) (until month and day unknown), John Walkup (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Alfred A. Burnham (Republican) (until May 5), Julius Catlin (Republican) (starting May 5)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: John Wood (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Abram A. Hammond (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Oran Faville (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: William F. Griffin (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Henry W. Benchley (Republican) (until January 7), Eliphalet Trask (Republican) (starting January 7)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: George Coe (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: William Holcombe (Democratic) (starting May 24)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Hancock Lee Jackson (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Henry R. Selden (Republican) (until end of December 31)
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: Thomas H. Ford (Democratic) (until January 11), Martin Welker (Democratic) (starting January 11)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Thomas G. Turner (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Gabriel Cannon (Democratic) (until December 10), M. E. Carn (Democratic) (starting December 10)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Francis R. Lubbock (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: James M. Slade (Republican) (until October 10), Burnham Martin (Republican) (starting October 10)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: William Lowther Jackson (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Arthur MacArthur, Sr. (Democratic) (until January 4), Erasmus D. Campbell (Democratic) (starting January 4)

## Events

* March 4 – A speech by James Henry Hammond in the United States Senate promotes the idea of "King Cotton" and the "mudsill theory" in support of slave labor.
* April 19 – The United States and the Yankton Sioux Tribe sign a treaty.
* May 11 – Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state (see History of Minnesota).
* May 19 – The Marais des Cygnes massacre is perpetrated by pro-slavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
* June 16 – Abraham Lincoln makes his "House Divided" Speech at the State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, on accepting the Republican Party nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
* July – Forty-Niners stream into the Rocky Mountains of the western United States during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.
* July 8 – The Paulist Fathers, a Roman Catholic society of apostolic life for men, is founded in New York City by Isaac Hecker.
* July 29 – Treaty of Amity and Commerce (United States–Japan) ("Harris Treaty") signed on the deck of USS Powhatan in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) Bay.
* August 16 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria. However, a weak signal forces a shutdown of the service on September 1.
* August 21 – The first of the seven Lincoln–Douglas debates is held.
* September 1–2 – 'Staten Island Quarantine War'.
* September 14 – Fordyce Beals patents his six shooter revolver which will be produced by E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York as the Remington Model 1858.
* November 17 – Denver is founded.
* December 8 – Rensselaer, Indiana is incorporated.

### Ongoing

* Bleeding Kansas (1854–1860)
* Third Seminole War (1855–1858)
* Utah War (1857–1858)

## Births

* January 6 – Albert Henry Munsell, painter, teacher of art and inventor of the Munsell color system (died 1918)
* January 9 – Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, botanist (died 1934)
* January 11 – Harry Gordon Selfridge, department store magnate (died 1947)
* February 6 – Jonathan P. Dolliver, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1900 to 1910 (died 1910)
* February 15 – John Joseph Montgomery, glider pioneer (died 1911)
* February 19 – Charles Alexander Eastman, Native American author, physician, reformer and co-founder of Boy Scouts of America (died 1939)
* February 28 – Richard P. Ernst, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1921 to 1927 (died 1934)
* March 9 – Gustav Stickley, furniture designer and architect (died 1942)
* March 12 – Adolph Ochs, newspaper publisher (died 1935)
* March 24 – Elia Goode Byington, newspaper proprietor, editor, and manager (died 1936)
* March 30 – DeWolf Hopper, musical theater performer (died 1935)
* April 23 – Leonor F. Loree, railroad executive (died 1940)
* April 29 – Georgia Hopley, journalist, political figure and temperance advocate (died 1944)
* June 17 – Mary F. Hoyt, first woman appointed to the U.S. federal civil service, in 1883 (died 1958)
* June 20 – Charles Waddell Chesnutt, African American author, essayist and political activist (died 1932)
* June 28 – Otis Skinner, actor (died 1943)
* July 1 – Velma Caldwell Melville, editor and writer (died 1924)
* August 18 – Thomas S. Rodgers, admiral (died 1931)
* September 1 – Andrew Jackson Zilker, philanthropist (died 1934)
* September 12 – J. H. Smith, politician and pioneer (died 1956)
* September 30 – Estelle M. H. Merrill, journalist (died 1908)
* October 2 – Emma Amelia Cranmer, prohibition reformer and suffragist (died 1937)
* October 7 – Joseph E. Ransdell, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1913 to 1931 (died 1954)
* October 12 – John L. Sullivan, heavyweight boxer (died 1918)
* October 15 – William Sims, admiral (died 1936)
* October 27 – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909, 25th vice president of the United States from March to September 1901 (died 1919)
* October 30 – Wilson Eyre, architect (died 1944)
* November 8 – Lawrence Yates Sherman, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1913 to 1921 (died 1939)
* November 21 – Charles A. Towne, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1900 to 1901 (died 1928)
* November 26 – Katharine Drexel, Roman Catholic foundress, first American canonized as a saint, in 2000 (died 1955)
* December 15 – Elizabeth Eggleston Seelye, biographer (died 1923)
* December 24 – Harriet Pritchard Arnold, author (died 1901)
* December 25 – Herman P. Faris, temperance movement leader (died 1936)
* December 31 – Harry Stewart New, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1917 to 1923 (died 1937)
* Unknown – Sarah Jim Mayo, Washoe basket weaver (died 1918)

## Deaths

* January 10 – Hezekiah Augur, sculptor and inventor (born 1791)
* March 4 – Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, naval officer (born 1794)
* April 10 – Thomas Hart Benton, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1821 to 1851 (born 1782)
* August 23 – Calvin Willey, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1825 to 1831 (born 1776)
* September 17 – Dred Scott, slave (born c. 1795)
* September 21 – Arthur P. Bagby, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1837 to 1841 (born 1794)
* November 16 – Robert Hanna, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1831 to 1832 (born 1786)
* December 14 – Michael Woolston Ash, U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania from 1835 to 1837 (born 1789)
* December 18 – Thomas Holley Chivers, poet and physician (born 1809)