1869

Events from the year **1869 in the United States**.

## Incumbents

### Federal Government

* President: Andrew Johnson (D-TN) (until March 4), Ulysses S. Grant (R-IL) (starting March 4)
* Vice President: *vacant* (until March 4), Schuyler Colfax (R-IN) (starting March 4)
* Chief Justice: Salmon P. Chase (OH)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives:
	+ until March 3: Schuyler Colfax (R-IN)
	+ March 3–March 4: Theodore Medad Pomeroy (R-NY)
	+ starting March 4: James G. Blaine (R-ME)
* Congress: 40th (until March 4), 41st (starting March 4)

Governors
* Governor of Alabama: William Hugh Smith (Republican)
* Governor of Arkansas: Powell Clayton (Republican)
* Governor of California: Henry Huntly Haight (Democratic)
* Governor of Connecticut: James E. English (Democratic) (until May 5), Marshall Jewell (Republican) (starting May 5)
* Governor of Delaware: Gove Saulsbury (Democratic)
* Governor of Florida: Harrison Reed (Republican)
* Governor of Georgia: Rufus Bullock (Republican)
* Governor of Illinois: Richard J. Oglesby (Republican) (until January 11), John M. Palmer (Republican) (starting January 11)
* Governor of Indiana: Conrad Baker (Republican)
* Governor of Iowa: Samuel Merrill (Republican)
* Governor of Kansas: Nehemiah Green (Republican) (until January 11), James M. Harvey (Republican) (starting January 11)
* Governor of Kentucky: John W. Stevenson (Democratic)
* Governor of Louisiana: Henry C. Warmoth (Republican)
* Governor of Maine: Joshua Chamberlain (Republican)
* Governor of Maryland: Thomas Swann (Democratic) (until January 13), Oden Bowie (Democratic) (starting January 13)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Alexander H. Bullock (Republican) (until January 7), William Claflin (Republican) (starting January 7)
* Governor of Michigan: Henry H. Crapo (Republican) (until January 6), Henry P. Baldwin (Republican) (starting January 6)
* Governor of Minnesota: William R. Marshall (Republican)
* Governor of Mississippi: Adelbert Ames (Military)
* Governor of Missouri: Thomas Clement Fletcher (Republican) (until January 12), Joseph W. McClurg (Republican) (starting January 12)
* Governor of Nebraska: David Butler (Republican)
* Governor of Nevada: Henry G. Blasdel (Republican)
* Governor of New Hampshire: Walter Harriman (Republican) (until June 3), Onslow Stearns (Republican) (starting June 3)
* Governor of New Jersey: Marcus Lawrence Ward (Republican) (until January 19), Theodore Fitz Randolph (Democratic) (starting January 19)
* Governor of New York: John Thompson Hoffman (Democratic)
* Governor of North Carolina: William Woods Holden (Republican)
* Governor of Ohio: Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican)
* Governor of Oregon: George L. Woods (Republican)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: John W. Geary (Republican)
* Governor of Rhode Island: Ambrose Everett Burnside (Republican) (until May 25), Seth Padelford (Republican) (starting May 25)
* Governor of South Carolina: Robert Kingston Scott (Republican) (starting July 6)
* Governor of Tennessee: William G. Brownlow (Republican) (until February 25), Dewitt Clinton Senter (Republican) (starting February 25)
* Governor of Texas: Elisha M. Pease (Republican) (until September 30), vacant (starting September 30)
* Governor of Vermont: John B. Page (Republican) (until October 15), Peter T. Washburn (Republican) (starting October 15)
* Governor of Virginia: Henry H. Wells (Republican) (until September 21), Gilbert Carlton Walker (Democratic) (starting September 21)
* Governor of West Virginia:
	+ until February 26: Arthur I. Boreman (Republican)
	+ February 26-March 4: Daniel D. T. Farnsworth (Republican)
	+ starting March 4: William E. Stevenson (Republican)
* Governor of Wisconsin: Lucius Fairchild (Republican)

Lieutenant Governors
* Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: Andrew J. Applegate (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas: James M. Johnson (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of California: William Holden (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Ephraim H. Hyde (Democratic) (until May 5), Francis Wayland III (Republican) (starting May 5)
* Lieutenant Governor of Florida: William Henry Gleason (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: William Bross (Republican) (until January 11), John Dougherty (Republican) (starting January 11)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: vacant (until January 11), William Cumback (Republican) (starting January 11)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: John Scott (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Charles Vernon Eskridge (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Preston H. Leslie (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Oscar J. Dunn (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Maryland: vacant (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: William Clafin (Republican) (until January 7), Joseph Tucker (Republican) (starting January 7)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Dwight May (Republican) (until January 6), Morgan Bates (Republican) (starting January 6)
* Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: Thomas H. Armstrong (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: George Smith (Republican) (until January 12), Edwin Obed Stanard (Republican) (starting January 12)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: James S. Slingerland (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Allen C. Beach (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Tod R. Caldwell (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: John C. Lee (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Pardon Stevens (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Lemuel Boozer (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: Dorsey B. Thomas (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Stephen Thomas (Republican) (until October 15), George W. Hendee (Republican) (starting October 15)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Leopold Copeland Parker Cowper (Whig) (until October 5), John F. Lewis (Republican) (starting October 5)
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Wyman Spooner (Republican)

## Events

### January - March

* January 1 – Sigma Nu, the first anti-hazing honor/social fraternity, is founded, at Virginia Military Institute.
* January 20 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to testify before the United States Congress.
* January 21 – The P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic educational organization for women, is founded at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
* February 15 – Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis are dropped.
* March 4 – Ulysses S. Grant is sworn in as the 18th President of the United States, and Schuyler Colfax is sworn in as Vice President of the United States.
* March 9 – Southern Illinois University Carbondale is established by the state legislature as Southern Illinois Normal College.

### April - June

* April 6 – The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York City.
* May 6 – Purdue University is founded in West Lafayette, Indiana.
* May 10 – The "golden spike" is driven marking the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in Promontory, Utah.
* May 15 – Woman's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.
* May 26 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
* June 1
	+ The Cincinnati Red Stockings open the baseball season as the first fully professional baseball team.
	+ Thomas Edison is granted his first patent for the Electric Vote Recorder.
* June 15 – John Wesley Hyatt patents the first plastic, Celluloid, in Albany, New York.

### July - September

* July 4 – World's first rodeo held in Deer Trail, Colorado
* September 15 – Brooklyn Fire Department organized as a professional brigade.
* September 24 – Black Friday: The Fisk-Gould Scandal causes a financial panic in the United States.

### October - December

* October 8 – New York Foundling Asylum incorporated.
* October 11 – Gamma Sigma becomes the first high school fraternity in North America at Brockport Normal School, Brockport, New York.
* October 16 – The Tremont House in Boston becomes the first hotel to have indoor plumbing.
* November 6 – The first intercollegiate game of American football is played: Rutgers University defeats Princeton University 6–4 in a college football game.
* December 7 – Outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.
* December 10
	+ The first American chapter of Kappa Sigma is founded at the University of Virginia.
	+ The Wyoming territorial legislature gives women the right to vote, one of the first such laws in the world.

## Memoriam

* January 1 – Martin W. Bates, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1857 to 1859 (aged 82; Dover, DE, USA)
* January 7 – Lovell Rousseau, Union Army general, lawyer and politician (aged 50; New Orleans, LA, USA)
* January 11 – Sophia Dallas, Second Lady of the United States as wife of George M. Dallas (aged 70; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
* February 18 – Walker Brooke, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1852 to 1853 (aged 55; Vicksburg, MS, USA)
* March 13 – James Guthrie, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1865 to 1868 (aged 76; Louisville, KY, USA)
* March 25 – Edward Bates, slave owner, lawyer and politician (aged 75; St. Louis, MO, USA)
* April 13 – Isaiah Rogers, architect (aged 68; Cincinnati, OH, USA)
* May 23 – Alexander O. Anderson, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1840 to 1841 (aged 74; Knoxville, TN, USA)
* June 2 – Sandy Cornish, freed slave and farmer (aged 76; Key West, FL, USA)
* July 18 – Laurent Clerc, advocate for the deaf (aged 83; Hartford, CT, USA)
* July 22 – John A. Roebling, bridge engineer (aged 63; New York City, NY, USA)
* July 30 – Isaac Toucey, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1851 to 1857 (aged 76; Hartford, CT, USA)
* August 6 – David J. Baker, U.S. Senator from Illinois in 1830 (aged 76; Alton, IL, USA)
* September 6 – William Hamlin, UEL Connexion (aged 82; Crawford, OH, USA)
* September 10 – John Bell, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1847 to 1859 (aged 73; Stewart County, TN, USA)
* October 8 – Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States from 1853 to 1857 (aged 64; Concord, NH, USA)
* November 11 – Hiram Bingham I, missionary to Hawaii (aged 80; New Haven, CT, USA)
* November 21 – Benjamin Fitzpatrick, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1848 to 1849 and 1853 to 1861 (aged 67; Wetumpka, AL, USA)
* November 22 – William Hamlin, engraver (aged 97; Providence, RI, USA)
* December 18 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk, composer and pianist (aged 40; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
* December 24 – Edwin Stanton, 27th United States Secretary of War (aged 55; Washington, DC, USA)