1859

Events from the year **1859 in the United States**.

Governors
* Governor of Alabama: Andrew B. Moore (Democratic)
* Governor of Arkansas: Elias Nelson Conway (Democratic)
* Governor of California: John B. Weller (Democratic)
* Governor of Connecticut: William A. Buckingham (Republican)
* Governor of Delaware: Peter F. Causey (Know Nothing) (until January 18), William Burton (Democratic) (starting January 18)
* Governor of Florida: Madison S. Perry (Democratic)
* Governor of Georgia: Joseph E. Brown (Democratic)
* Governor of Illinois: William Henry Bissell (Republican)
* Governor of Indiana: Ashbel P. Willard (Democratic)
* Governor of Iowa: Ralph P. Lowe (Republican)
* Governor of Kentucky: Charles S. Morehead (Know Nothing) (until August 30), Beriah Magoffin (Democratic) (starting August 30)
* Governor of Louisiana: Robert C. Wickliffe (Democratic)
* Governor of Maine: Lot M. Morrill (Democratic)
* Governor of Maryland: Thomas H. Hicks (Republican)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Nathaniel Prentice Banks (Republican)
* Governor of Michigan: Kinsley S. Bingham (Republican) (until January 5), Moses Wisner (Republican) (starting January 5)
* Governor of Minnesota: Henry Hastings Sibley (Democratic)
* Governor of Mississippi: William McWillie (Democratic) (until November 21), John J. Pettus (Democratic) (starting November 21)
* Governor of Missouri: Robert Marcellus Stewart (Democratic)
* Governor of New Hampshire: William Haile (Republican) (until June 2), Ichabod Goodwin (Republican) (starting June 2)
* Governor of New Jersey: William A. Newell (Republican)
* Governor of New York: Edwin D. Morgan (Republican)
* Governor of North Carolina: Thomas Bragg (Democratic) (until January 1), John Willis Ellis (Democratic) (starting January 1)
* Governor of Ohio: Salmon P. Chase (Republican)
* Governor of Oregon: George Law Curry (Democratic) (until March 3), John Whiteaker (Democratic) (starting March 3)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: William F. Packer (Democratic)
* Governor of Rhode Island: Elisha Dyer (Republican) (until May 31), Thomas G. Turner (Republican) (starting May 31)
* Governor of South Carolina: William Henry Gist (Democratic)
* Governor of Tennessee: Isham G. Harris (Democratic)
* Governor of Texas: Hardin R. Runnels (Democratic) (until December 31), Sam Houston (Independent) (starting December 31)
* Governor of Vermont: Hiland Hall (Republican)
* Governor of Virginia: Henry A. Wise (Democratic)
* Governor of Wisconsin: Alexander W. Randall (Republican)

Lieutenant Governors
* Lieutenant Governor of California: John Walkup (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Julius Catlin (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: John Wood (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Abram A. Hammond (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Oran Faville (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky:
	+ until month and day unknown: vacant
	+ month and day unknown: Linn Boyd (political party unknown)
	+ starting month and day unknown: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: William F. Griffin (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Eliphalet Trask (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: George Coe (Republican) (until January 5), Edmund B. Fairfield (Republican) (starting January 5)
* Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: William Holcombe (Democratic) (starting May 24)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Hancock Lee Jackson (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Robert Campbell (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: Martin Welker (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Thomas G. Turner (political party unknown) (until May 31), Isaac Saunders (political party unknown) (starting May 31)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: M. E. Carn (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Francis R. Lubbock (Democratic) (until December 21), Edward Clark (Democratic) (starting December 21)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Burnham Martin (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: William Lowther Jackson (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Erasmus D. Campbell (Democratic)

## Events

### January - March

* January 1 – Minting of Indian Head cent begins.
* January 10 – Lucy Cobb Institute opens in Athens, Georgia.
* January 28 – The city of Olympia is incorporated in the Territory of Washington.
* February 14 – Oregon admitted becomes the 33rd U.S. state.
* February 27 – U.S. Congressman Daniel Sickles shoots dead Philip Barton Key for having an affair with his wife.
* March 2 – The Great Slave Auction begins, the largest single sale of slaves in U.S. history, with more than 400 people sold, takes place near Savannah, Georgia.
* March 3 – The Great Slave Auction ends.
* March 21 – The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania issues the charter establishing the Zoological Society of Philadelphia, the first organization of its kind in the United States and founder of the nation's first zoo.

### April - June

* April 4 – The song *Dixie* is written, probably by Dan Emmett.
* June 8 – The discovery of the Comstock Lode in the western Utah Territory (present-day Nevada) sets off a rush of prospectors to the area.
* June 15 – The so-called Pig War border dispute between the Americans and the British on the San Juan Islands begins with the shooting of the namesake pig; the episode is resolved in October without human bloodshed.

### July - September

* July 1 – The first intercollegiate baseball game is played, between Amherst and Williams Colleges.
* July 2 – Pike's Peak Gold Rush begins in the Colorado Territory.
* August 27 – Edwin Drake drills the first oil well in the United States, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, starting the Pennsylvanian oil rush.
* September 1 – Joshua Abraham Norton proclaims himself "Emperor of the United States" in San Francisco.

### October - December

* October 16 – Militant abolitionist leader John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.
* October 18 – Troops under Colonel Robert E. Lee overpower John Brown at the Federal arsenal.
* November 1 – The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse is lighted for the first time (its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for 19 miles).
* December 2 – John Brown is hanged at Charles Town, West Virginia for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry.

## Memoriam

* January 28 – William H. Prescott, Hispanist historian (aged 62; Boston, MA, USA)
* January 29 – William Cranch Bond, astronomer (aged 69; Cambridge, MA, USA)
* February 25 – Edward A. Hannegan, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1843 to 1849 (aged 51; St. Louis, MO, USA)
* February 27 – Philip Barton Key II, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, murdered (aged 40; Washington, DC, USA)
* March 19 – Oliver H. Smith, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1837 to 1843 (aged 64; Charlestown, IN, USA)
* March 30 – James Matthews Legaré, poet and inventor (aged 35; Aiken, SC, USA)
* April 14 – George M. Bibb, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1811 to 1814 (aged 82; Washington, DC, USA)
* May 6 – Littleton Waller Tazewell, lawyer, plantation owner and politician (aged 85; Norfolk, VA, USA)
* June 8 – Walter Hunt, inventor (aged 62; New York City, NY, USA)
* July 30 – Richard Rush, 8th United States Attorney General and 8th United States Secretary of the Treasury (aged 78; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
* August 2 – Horace Mann, educator and abolitionist (aged 63; Yellow Springs, OH, USA)
* August 15 – Nathaniel Claiborne, politician (aged 81; Rocky Mount, VA, USA)
* September 2 – Delia Bacon, playwright and writer on the Shakespeare authorship question (aged 48; Hartford, CT, USA)
* September 16 – David C. Broderick, U.S. Senator from California from 1857 to 1859 (aged 39; San Francisco, CA, USA)
* November 28 – Washington Irving, author (aged 76; Tarrytown, NY, USA)
* December 2 – John Brown, abolitionist, hanged (aged 59; Charles Town, VA (Now WV), USA)