# 1837 in the United States

Events from the year 1837 in the United States.

## Incumbents
### Federal government

* President:
       Andrew Jackson (D-Tennessee) (until March 4)
       Martin Van Buren (D-New York) (starting March 4)
* Vice President:
       Martin Van Buren (D-New York) (until March 4)
       Richard M. Johnson (D-Kentucky) (starting March 4)
* Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: James K. Polk (D-Tennessee)
* Congress: 24th (until March 4), 25th (starting March 4)
* Governors and lieutenant governors
* Governors
* Governor of Alabama:
* until July 17: Clement Comer Clay (Democratic)
* July 17-November 30: Hugh McVay (Democratic)
* starting November 30: Arthur P. Bagby (Democratic)
* Governor of Arkansas: James Sevier Conway (Democratic)
* Governor of Connecticut: Henry W. Edwards (Democratic)
* Governor of Delaware: Charles Polk Jr. (Whig) (until January 17), Cornelius P. Comegys (Whig) (starting January 17)
* Governor of Georgia: William Schley (Democratic) (until November 8), George R. Gilmer (Whig) (starting November 8)
* Governor of Illinois: Joseph Duncan (Whig)
* Governor of Indiana: Noah Noble (Whig) (until December 6), David Wallace (Whig) (starting December 6)
* Governor of Kentucky: James Clark (Whig)
* Governor of Louisiana: Edward Douglass White Sr. (Whig)
* Governor of Maine: Robert P. Dunlap (Democratic)
* Governor of Maryland: Thomas W. Veazey (Whig)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Edward Everett (Whig)
* Governor of Michigan: Stevens T. Mason (Democratic) (starting January 26)
* Governor of Mississippi: Charles Lynch (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: Lilburn W. Boggs (Democratic)
* Governor of New Hampshire: Isaac Hill (Democratic)
* Governor of New Jersey: Philemon Dickerson (Democratic) (until October 27), William Pennington (Whig) (starting October 27)
* Governor of New York: William L. Marcy (Democratic)
* Governor of North Carolina: Edward Bishop Dudley (Whig)
* Governor of Ohio: Joseph Vance (Whig)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: Joseph Ritner (Anti-Masonic)
* Governor of Rhode Island: John Brown Francis (Democratic)
* Governor of South Carolina: Pierce Mason Butler (Democratic)
* Governor of Tennessee: Newton Cannon (Whig)
* Governor of Vermont: Silas H. Jennison (Whig)
* Governor of Virginia: Wyndham Robertson (Whig) (until March 31), David Campbell (Democratic) (starting March 31)
* Lieutenant governors
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Ebenezer Stoddard (Democratic-Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: William H. Davidson (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: David Wallace (Whig) (until December 6), David Hillis (Whig) (starting December 6)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Charles A. Wickliffe (Democratic-Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: George Hull (Whig)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Franklin Cannon (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: John Tracy (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Jeffrey Hazard (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Benjamin Babock Thurston (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: William DuBose (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: David M. Camp (Whig)

## Events

* January 6 – DePauw University founded in Greencastle, Indiana.
* January 26 – Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state (see History of Michigan).
* 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 16 – Lake County, Indiana, is established by the European Americans.
* February 25
** In Philadelphia, The Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) 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, and Richard M. Johnson is sworn in as the ninth vice president.
** 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 17 – Hugh McVay is sworn in as the 9th governor of Alabama following the resignation of Clement Comer Clay.
* July 31 – Groundbreaking ceremony for St. Charles College (Louisiana), the first Jesuit college established in the South.
* August 7 – Arthur P. Bagby is elected the tenth governor of Alabama defeating Samuel W. Oliver.
* October – First publication of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review.
* October 21 – General Thomas Jesup captures Seminole leader Osceola under pretext of negotiations.
* October 31 – The steamboat Monmouth disaster on the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge kills over 300 Muscogee being forcibly relocated to the Indian Territory.
* 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.
* November 21 – Arthur P. Bagby is sworn in as the tenth governor of Alabama replacing Hugh McVay.
* John Deere (inventor) 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.
* Antonija Höffern becomes the first Slovene woman to immigrate to the United States.

### Ongoing

* Second Seminole War (1835–1842)

## Births

* January 9 – Julius C. Burrows, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1895 to 1911 (died 1915)
* January 19 – William Williams Keen, brain surgeon (died 1932)
* February 5 – Dwight L. Moody, evangelist (died 1899)
* March 1 – William Dean Howells, writer, historian, editor and politician (died 1920)
* March 7 – Henry Draper, physician and astronomer (died 1882)
* March 18 – Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897 (died 1908)
* March 27 – Kate Fox, medium (died 1892)
* April 3 – John Burroughs, nature writer (died 1921)
* April 10 – (Byron) Forceythe Willson, poet (died 1867)
* April 17 – J. P. Morgan, financier (died 1913 in Italy)
** May 26
** Mary Frances McCray, church founder, leader and preacher (died 1898)
** Washington Roebling, civil engineer (died 1926)
* May 27 – James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, gunfighter (killed 1876)
* May 28
** Samuel D. McEnery, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1897 to 1910 (died 1910)
** Tony Pastor, impresario and theater owner (died 1908)
* June 22
** Paul Morphy, chess player (died 1884)
** Touch the Clouds, Native American Miniconjou chief 7 feet tall (died 1905)
* June 25 – Charles Yerkes, financier of rapid transit systems in Chicago and London (died 1905)
* July 1 – Henry Rathbone, military officer and diplomat (died 1911 in Germany)
* July 21 – Helen Appo Cook, African American community activist (died 1913)
* July 22 – George N. Bliss, Medal of Honor recipient (died 1928)
* July 31 – William Quantrill, Confederate leader during the American Civil War (died 1865)
* August 30 – Nell Arthur, wife of Chester A. Arthur (died 1880)
* September 2 – James H. Wilson, Union Army general in the Civil War (died 1925)
* September 8
** Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Heine Miller, "Poet of the Sierras" (died 1913)
** Raphael Pumpelly, geologist and explorer (died 1923)
* October 10 – Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army general in the Civil War and reformer (killed in action 1863)
* October 12 – Preston B. Plumb, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1877 to 1891 (died 1891)
* October 29 – Harriet Powers, African American folk artist (died 1910)
* November 3 – John Leary, politician, 37th Mayor of Seattle (died 1905)
* November 20 – Lewis Waterman, inventor and businessman (died 1901)
* November 28 – John Wesley Hyatt, inventor and industrial chemist (died 1920)
* December 10 – Edward Eggleston, novelist and historian (died 1902)
* December 15 – George B. Post, architect (died 1913)
* December 26
** Morgan Bulkeley, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1905 to 1911 (died 1922)
** George Dewey, U.S. Admiral of the Navy (died 1917)

## Deaths

* June 29 – Nathaniel Macon, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1815 to 1828 (born 1757)
* September 28 – David Barton, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1821 to 1831 (born 1783)
* October 1 – Robert Clark, politician (born 1777)
* October 9 – Oliver H. Prince, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1828 to 1829 (born 1787)
* November 7 – Elijah P. Lovejoy, abolitionist (born 1809)
* November 11 – Thomas Green Fessenden, poet (born 1771)
* December 20 – Francis Neale, Jesuit, President of Georgetown College (born 1756)
* Date unknown – Mary Dixon Kies, first American recipient of a U.S. patent (born 1752)