1851

Events from the year 1851 in the United States.
==Incumbents==
===Federal Government===
* President: Millard Fillmore (W-NY)
* Vice President: vacant
* Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (MD)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Howell Cobb (D-GA) (until March 4), Linn Boyd (D-KY) (starting December 1)
* Congress: 31st (until March 4), 32nd (starting March 4)
==Events==
===January - March===
* January 15 – Christian Female College, later Columbia College, receives its charter from the Missouri General Assembly.
* January 23 – The flip of a coin determines whether a new city in the Oregon Territory is named after Boston, Massachusetts, or Portland, Maine, with Portland winning.
* January 28 – The Illinois General Assembly grants a charter to create Northwestern University.
===April - June===
* April 9 – San Luis, the oldest permanent settlement in the state of Colorado, is founded by settlers from Taos, New Mexico.
* April 28 – Santa Clara College is chartered in Santa Clara, California.
* May 1 – The Great Flood of 1851 causes extensive damage in the Midwest; the town of Des Moines is virtually destroyed.
* May 6 – John Gorrie of Apalachicola, Florida is granted Patent No. 8080 for a machine to make ice.
* May 15 – Alpha Delta Pi sorority, the first secret society for women, is founded at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.
* May 29 – Sojourner Truth delivers the first version of her "Ain't I a Woman?" speech, at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
===July - September===
* July 10 – The University of the Pacific is chartered as California Wesleyan College in Santa Clara, California.
* July 31 – Western Union is founded as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company.
* August 1 – Virginia closes its Reform Constitutional Convention deciding that all white men have the right to vote.
* August 2 – The Great Flood of 1851 ends.
* August 3 – The filibustering Lopez Expedition departs New Orleans for Cuba.
* August 22 – The yacht America of the New York Yacht Club wins the first America's Cup race, off the coast of England.
* September 15 – Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
* September 18 – The New York Times is founded.
===October - December===
* October 15 – The City of Winona, Minnesota is founded.
* November 13 – The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what later becomes Seattle, Washington.
* November 14 – Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; or The Whale is published in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers, New York, after being first published on October 18 in London by Richard Bentley, in 3 volumes as The Whale.
* December 29 – The first YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
==Memoriam==
* January 17 – Thomas Lincoln, farmer and father of the President of the United States Abraham Lincoln (aged 73; Coles County, IL, USA)
* January 27 – John James Audubon, naturalist and illustrator (aged 65; New York City, NY, USA)
* January 31 – David S. Kaufman, Congressman from Texas (aged 37; Washington, DC, USA)
* February 3 – Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, Congressman from Massachusetts, secretary of U.S. Navy (aged 78; Boston, MA, USA)
* March 11 – George McDuffie, 55th Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1846 (aged 60; Sumter District, SC, USA)
* May 3 – Thomas Hickman Williams, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1838 to 1839 (aged 50; Pontotoc, MS, USA)
* May 22 – Mordecai Manuel Noah, Jewish playwright, diplomat, journalist and utopian (aged 65; New York City, NY, USA)
* July 6 – Thomas Davenport, electrical engineer (aged 48; Salisbury, VT, USA)
* August 24 – James McDowell, politician (aged 55; Lexington, VA, USA)
* September 10 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, minister, educator, co-founder of the first permanent school for the deaf in North America (aged 63; Hartford, CT, USA)
* September 11 – Sylvester Graham, nutritionist and inventor (aged 57; Northampton, MA, USA)
* September 14 – James Fenimore Cooper, historical novelist (aged 61; Cooperstown, NY, USA)
* September 24 – Lucius Lyon, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1843 to 1845 (aged 51; Detroit, MI, USA)
* November 1 – Willis Buell, politician and portrait painter (aged 61; GA, USA)
* November 28 – Amos Ellmaker, politician, attorney, and judge (aged 64; Lancaster, PA, USA)
==External links==
* 1851 in the United States
Category:United States History: Volume 8