# 1831 in the United States

Events from the year 1831 in the United States.

## Incumbents
### Federal government

* President: Andrew Jackson (D-Tennessee)
* Vice President: John C. Calhoun (D-South Carolina)
* Chief Justice: John Marshall (Virginia)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Andrew Stevenson (D-Virginia)
* Congress: 21st (until March 4), 22nd (starting March 4)
* Governors and lieutenant governors
* Governors
* Governor of Alabama:
* until March 3: Gabriel Moore (Democratic)
* March 3-November 26: Samuel B. Moore (Democratic)
* starting November 26: John Gayle (Democratic)
* Governor of Connecticut: Gideon Tomlinson (Democratic-Republican) (until March 2), John Samuel Peters (National Republican) (starting March 2)
* Governor of Delaware: David Hazzard (National Republican)
* Governor of Georgia: George R. Gilmer (Democratic-Republican) (until November 9), Wilson Lumpkin (Democratic) (starting November 9)
* Governor of Illinois: John Reynolds (Democratic)
* Governor of Indiana: James B. Ray (Independent) (until December 7), Noah Noble (Whig) (starting December 7)
* Governor of Kentucky: Thomas Metcalfe (National Republican)
* Governor of Louisiana: Jacques Dupré (National Republican) (until January 31), André B. Roman (Whig) (starting January 31)
* Governor of Maine: Jonathan G. Hunton (National Republican) (until January 5), Samuel E. Smith (Democratic) (starting January 5)
* Governor of Maryland:
* until January 13: Thomas King Carroll (Democratic)
* January 13-July 11: Daniel Martin (National Republican)
* starting July 11: George Howard (National Republican)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Levi Lincoln Jr. (National Republican)
* Governor of Mississippi: Gerard Brandon (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: John Miller (Democratic)
* Governor of New Hampshire:
* until February 28: Matthew Harvey (Democratic)
* February 28-June 2: Joseph M. Harper (Democratic)
* starting June 2: Samuel Dinsmoor (Democratic)
* Governor of New Jersey: Peter Dumont Vroom (Democratic)
* Governor of New York: Enos T. Throop (Democratic)
* Governor of North Carolina: Montfort Stokes (Democratic)
* Governor of Ohio: Duncan McArthur (National Republican)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: George Wolf (Democratic-Republican)
* Governor of Rhode Island: James Fenner (Democratic-Republican) (until May 4), Lemuel H. Arnold (Whig) (starting May 4)
* Governor of South Carolina: James Hamilton Jr. (Democratic)
* Governor of Tennessee: William Carroll (Democratic)
* Governor of Vermont: Samuel C. Crafts (National Republican) (until October 18), William A. Palmer (Anti-Masonic) (starting October 18)
* Governor of Virginia: John Floyd (Democratic)
* Lieutenant governors
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: John Samuel Peters (National Republican) (until March 2), vacant (starting March 2)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Zadok Casey (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Milton Stapp (Independent) (until December 7), David Wallace (Whig) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: John Breathitt (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Thomas L. Winthrop (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Abram M. Scott (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Daniel Dunklin (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Edward Philip Livingston (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Charles Collins (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Patrick Noble (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Mark Richards (National Republican) (until October 18), Lebbeus Egerton (Anti-Masonic) (starting October 18)

## Events
### January–March

* January 1 – William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator, an antislavery newspaper, in Boston, Massachusetts.
* March 3 – Samuel B. Moore is sworn in as the sixth governor of Alabama, following the resignation of Gabriel Moore.
* March 18 – Cherokee Nation v. Georgia: An injunction requested by the Cherokee nation, claiming that Georgia's state legislature had created laws which, "go directly to annihilate the Cherokees as a political society", is denied.

### April–June

* April 18 – The University of Alabama is founded.
* April 21 – New York University is founded in New York City.

### July–September

* August 1 – John Gayle is elected the 7th governor of Alabama defeating Nicholas Davis and Samuel B. Moore.
* August 7 – American Baptist minister William Miller preaches his first sermon on the Second Advent of Christ in Dresden, New York, launching the Advent Movement in the United States.
* August 21 – Outbreak of Nat Turner's Rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. Approximately 55 whites are stabbed, shot and clubbed to death. At least 125 enslaved people were killed in response.

### October–December

* October 30 – In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in United States history.
* November 5 – Slave leader Nat Turner is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia for inciting a violent slave uprising.
* November 11 – In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged.
* November 26 – John Gayle is sworn in as the 7th governor of Alabama, replacing Samuel B. Moore.

### Undated

* Alexis de Tocqueville visits the United States.
* Founding of:
** Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
** Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio (as "The Athenaeum").

## Births

* January 2 – Justin Winsor, historian and librarian (died 1897)
* January 14 – William D. Washburn, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1889 to 1895 and businessman (died 1912)
* January 15 – Ozora P. Stearns, U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1871 (died 1896)
* January 26 – Mary Mapes Dodge, children's writer (died 1907)
* February 23 – Elizabeth Litchfield Cunnyngham, missionary and church worker (died 1911)
* March 3 – George Pullman, inventor and industrialist (died 1897)
* March 6 – Philip Sheridan, general (died 1888)
* March 12 – Clement Studebaker, automobile pioneer (died 1901)
* March 14 – Edward A. Perry, Governor of Florida (died 1889)
* March 20 – Solomon L. Spink, U.S. Congressman from Illinois (died 1881)
* May 16 – Daniel Manning, businessman, journalist and politician, Secretary of the Treasury (died 1887)
* June 1 or 29 {exact date unknown) – John Bell Hood, Confederate general (died 1879)
* July 5 – Cordelia A. Greene, physician, reformer, benefactor (died 1905)
* July 8 – John Pemberton, inventor of Coca-Cola (died 1888)
* July 21 – Martha Maxwell, naturalist and artist (died 1881)
* August 26 – Lucy Hayes, First Lady of the United States as wife of Rutherford B. Hayes (died 1889)
* September 3 – States Rights Gist, lawyer, militia general in South Carolina and Confederate Army brigadier general (died 1864)
* September 10 – William A. Peffer, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1891 to 1897 (died 1912)
* September 20 – Kate Harrington, poet, teacher and writer (died 1917)
* September 29 – John Schofield, general (died 1906)
* October 15 – Helen Hunt Jackson, poet, writer and activist (died 1885)
* October 16 – Lucy Stanton, abolitionist (died 1910)
* October 28 – Charles Colcock Jones Jr., Georgia politician, attorney, historian and folklorist (died 1893)
* October 29 – Othniel Charles Marsh, paleontologist (died 1899)
* October 31 – Romualdo Pacheco, Governor of California (died 1899)
* November 19 – James A. Garfield, 20th president of the United States from March to September 1881 (died 1881)
* November 21 – John Franklin Miller, U.S. Senator from California from 1881 to 1886 (died 1886)
* November 22 – Thomas J. Latham, lawyer and businessman (died 1911)
* December 19 – Bernice Pauahi Bishop, Hawaiian aliʻi (died 1884)

## Deaths

* March 26 – Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794 (born 1760)
* April 4 – Isaiah Thomas, publisher (born 1749)
* May 11 – John Trumbull, poet (born 1750)
* May 24 –
** James Peale, miniaturist and still-life painter (born 1749)
** Benjamin Carr, composer, singer, teacher, and music publisher (born 1768)
* May 27 – Jedediah Smith, explorer, hunter, trapper and fur trader (born 1799)
* July 4 – James Monroe, fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825 (born 1758)
* November 11 – Nat Turner, leader of slave rebellion (born 1800)
* December 8 – James Hoban, architect of the White House (born 1755 in Ireland)