1871

Events from the year **1871 in the United States**.

Governors
* Governor of Alabama: Robert B. Lindsay (Democratic)
* Governor of Arkansas: Powell Clayton (Republican) (until March 17), Ozra Amander Hadley (Republican) (starting March 17)
* Governor of California: Henry Huntly Haight (Democratic) (until December 8), Newton Booth (Republican) (starting December 8)
* Governor of Connecticut: James E. English (Democratic) (until May 16), Marshall Jewell (Republican) (starting May 16)
* Governor of Delaware: Gove Saulsbury (Democratic) (until January 17), James Ponder (Democratic) (starting January 17)
* Governor of Florida: Harrison Reed (Republican)
* Governor of Georgia: Rufus Bullock (Republican) (until October 30), Benjamin Conley (Republican) (starting October 30)
* Governor of Illinois: John M. Palmer (Republican)
* Governor of Indiana: Conrad Baker (Republican)
* Governor of Iowa: Samuel Merrill (Republican)
* Governor of Kansas: James M. Harvey (Republican)
* Governor of Kentucky: John W. Stevenson (Democratic) (until February 3), Preston H. Leslie (Democratic) (starting February 3)
* Governor of Louisiana: Henry C. Warmoth (Republican)
* Governor of Maine: Joshua Chamberlain (Republican) (until January 4), Sidney Perham (Republican) (starting January 4)
* Governor of Maryland: Oden Bowie (Democratic)
* Governor of Massachusetts: William Claflin (Republican)
* Governor of Michigan: Henry P. Baldwin (Republican)
* Governor of Minnesota: Horace Austin (Republican)
* Governor of Mississippi: James L. Alcorn (Republican) (until November 30), Ridgley C. Powers (Republican) (starting November 30)
* Governor of Missouri: Joseph W. McClurg (Republican) (until January 4), B. Gratz Brown (Liberal Republican) (starting January 4)
* Governor of Nebraska: David Butler (Republican) (until June 2), William H. James (Republican) (starting June 2)
* Governor of Nevada: Henry G. Blasdel (Republican) (until January 2), Lewis R. Bradley (Democratic) (starting January 2)
* Governor of New Hampshire: Onslow Stearns (Republican) (until June 8), James A. Weston (Democratic) (starting June 8)
* Governor of New Jersey: Theodore Fitz Randolph (Democratic)
* Governor of New York: John Thompson Hoffman (Democratic)
* Governor of North Carolina: Tod Robinson Caldwell (Republican)
* Governor of Ohio: Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican)
* Governor of Oregon: La Fayette Grover (Democratic)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: John W. Geary (Republican)
* Governor of Rhode Island: Seth Padelford (Republican)
* Governor of South Carolina: Robert Kingston Scott (Republican)
* Governor of Tennessee: Dewitt Clinton Senter (Republican) (until October 10), John C. Brown (Democratic) (starting October 10)
* Governor of Texas: Edmund J. Davis (Republican)
* Governor of Vermont: John Wolcott Stewart (Republican)
* Governor of Virginia: Gilbert Carlton Walker (Democratic)
* Governor of West Virginia: William E. Stevenson (Republican) (until March 4), John J. Jacob (Democratic) (starting March 4)
* Governor of Wisconsin: Lucius Fairchild (Republican)

Lieutenant Governors
* Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: Edward H. Moren (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas: James M. Johnson (Republican) (until March 14), vacant (starting March 14)
* Lieutenant Governor of California: William Holden (Democratic) (until December 8), Romualdo Pacheco (Republican) (starting December 8)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Julius Hotchkiss (Democratic) (until May 16), Morris Tyler (Republican) (starting May 16)
* Lieutenant Governor of Florida: vacant (until month and day unknown), Samuel T. Day (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: John Dougherty (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: William Cumback (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Madison Miner Walden (Republican) (until month and day unknown), Henry C. Bulis (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Charles Vernon Eskridge (until month and day unknown), Peter Percival Elder (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant (until September 5), John G. Carlisle (Democratic) (starting September 5)
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Oscar J. Dunn (Republican) (until November 22), P. B. S. Pinchback (Republican) (starting November 22)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Joseph Tucker (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Morgan Bates (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: William H. Yale (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Ridgley C. Powers (Republican) (until month and day unknown), Alexander K. Davis (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Edwin Obed Stanard (Republican) (until January 4), Joseph J. Gravely (Liberal Republican) (starting January 4)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: James S. Slingerland (political party unknown) (until January 2), Frank Denver (political party unknown) (starting January 2)
* 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: Alonzo J. Ransier (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: Dorsey B. Thomas (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), John C. Vaughn (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: George N. Dale (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: John Lawrence Marye Jr. (Conservative)
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Thaddeus C. Pound (Republican)

## Events

### January - March

* February 21 – District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871.
* March 22
	+ In North Carolina, William Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.
	+ The U.S. Army issues an order for the abandonment of Fort Kearny, Nebraska.

### April - June

* April 20 – The U.S President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Ku Klux Klan Act.
* May 4 – The first supposedly Major League Baseball game is played.
* May 8 – The first Major League Baseball home run is hit by Ezra Sutton of the Cleveland Forest Citys.
* June 10 – Captain McLane Tilton leads 109 U.S. Marines in a naval attack on the Han River forts in Korea.

### July - September

* July 1 – The Harvard Summer School is founded.
* July 21 – First ever photographs of Yellowstone National Park region taken by the photographer William Henry Jackson during Hayden Geological Survey of 1871.
* July 28 – The *Annie*, the first boat ever launched on Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park region.
* July 30 – An explosion on the Staten Island Ferry kills 72 and injures 135
* September 1
	+ Whaling Disaster of 1871: 1,219 people abandon 33 whaling ships caught in the ice pack off the northern coast of Alaska.
	+ Seawanhaka Yacht Club founded at Centre Island, New York, one of the earliest surviving yacht clubs in the Western Hemisphere.
* September 2 – The disastrous Polaris expedition reaches 82°45′N, the northernmost latitude of any ship to this time.
* September 3 – New York City residents, tired of the corruption of the "Tammany Hall" political machine and "Boss" William M. Tweed, its "Grand Sachem", meet to form the 'Committee of Seventy' to reform local politics.

### October - December

* October 8 – Four major fires break out on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Illinois, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Holland, Michigan, and Manistee, Michigan. The Great Chicago Fire is the most famous of these, leaving nearly 100,000 people homeless, although the Peshtigo Fire kills as many as 2,500 people, making it the deadliest fire in United States history.
* October 24 – Chinese massacre of 1871 18 Chinese immigrants in Chinatown, Los Angeles, are killed by a mob of 500 men.
* October 27 – Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall is arrested for bribery, ending his grip on New York City.
* November 1 – The South Improvement Company is formed in Pennsylvania by John D. Rockefeller and a group of major railroad interests, in an early effort to organize and control the petroleum industry in the U.S.
* November 5 – Wickenburg massacre: Six men travelling by stagecoach are reportedly murdered by the Yavapai Indians in Arizona Territory.
* November 17 – The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.
* December 19
	+ The city of Birmingham, Alabama, is incorporated with the merger of three pre-existing towns.
	+ Albert L. Jones of New York receives a patent for corrugated paper.

## Memoriam

* January 15 – Edward C. Delavan, temperance movement leader (aged 78; Schenectady, NY, USA)
* February 12 – Alice Cary, poet, sister to Phoebe Cary (aged 50; New York City, NY, USA)
* April 2 – Jacob M. Howard, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1862 to 1871 (aged 65; Detroit, MI, USA)
* April 23 – James Monroe Whitfield, African American barber, poet and abolitionist (aged 49; San Francisco, CA, USA)
* May 11 – Thomas Buchanan Read, poet and portrait painter (aged 49; New York City, NY, USA)
* June 26 – Andrew Jackson Donelson, diplomat (aged 71; Memphis, TN, USA)
* July 9 – John Slidell, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1853 to 1861 (aged 78; Cowes, England, UK)
* July 15 – Tad Lincoln, youngest son of President Abraham Lincoln (aged 18; Chicago, IL, USA)
* July 31 – Phoebe Cary, poet, sister to Alice Cary (aged 46; Newport, RI, USA)
* September 9 – Stand Watie, Cherokee Nation leader and a general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War (aged 64; Delaware County, Indian Territory (Now OK), USA)
* September 21 – Bird Beers Chapman, delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives (aged 50; Put-in-Bay, OH, USA)
* September 22 – Lewis Golding Arnold, U.S. Army officer and a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (aged 54; Boston, MA, USA)
* October 26 – Robert Anderson, U.S. Army officer during the American Civil War (aged 66; Nice, France)