1872

Events from the year **1872 in the United States**.

Governors
* Governor of Alabama: Robert B. Lindsay (Democratic) (until November 17), David P. Lewis (Republican) (starting November 17)
* Governor of Arkansas: Ozra Amander Hadley (Republican)
* Governor of California: Newton Booth (Republican)
* Governor of Connecticut: Marshall Jewell (Republican)
* Governor of Delaware: James Ponder (Democratic)
* Governor of Florida: Harrison Reed (Republican)
* Governor of Georgia: Benjamin Conley (Republican) (until January 12), James M. Smith (Democratic) (starting January 12)
* Governor of Illinois: John M. Palmer (Republican)
* Governor of Indiana: Conrad Baker (Republican)
* Governor of Iowa: Samuel Merrill (Republican) (until January 11), Cyrus C. Carpenter (Republican) (starting January 11)
* Governor of Kansas: James M. Harvey (Republican)
* Governor of Kentucky: Preston H. Leslie (Democratic)
* Governor of Louisiana: Henry C. Warmoth (Republican) (until December 29), P. B. S. Pinchback (Republican) (starting December 29)
* Governor of Maine: Sidney Perham (Republican)
* Governor of Maryland: Oden Bowie (Democratic) (until January 10), William Pinkney Whyte (Democratic) (starting January 10)
* Governor of Massachusetts: William Claflin (Republican) (until January 4), William B. Washburn (Republican) (starting January 4)
* Governor of Michigan: Henry P. Baldwin (Republican)
* Governor of Minnesota: Horace Austin (Republican)
* Governor of Mississippi: Ridgley C. Powers (Republican)
* Governor of Missouri: B. Gratz Brown (Liberal Republican)
* Governor of Nebraska: William H. James (Republican)
* Governor of Nevada: Lewis R. Bradley (Democratic)
* Governor of New Hampshire: James A. Weston (Democratic) (until June 6), Ezekiel A. Straw (Republican) (starting June 6)
* Governor of New Jersey: Theodore Fitz Randolph (Democratic) (until January 16), Joel Parker (Democratic) (starting January 16)
* Governor of New York: John Thompson Hoffman (Democratic)
* Governor of North Carolina: Tod Robinson Caldwell (Republican)
* Governor of Ohio: Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) (until January 8), Edward F. Noyes (Republican) (starting January 8)
* 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) (until December 7), Franklin I. Mose Jr. (Republican) (starting December 7)
* Governor of Tennessee: John C. Brown (Democratic)
* Governor of Texas: Edmund J. Davis (Republican)
* Governor of Vermont: John Wolcott Stewart (Republican) (until October 3), Julius Converse (Republican) (starting October 3)
* Governor of Virginia: Gilbert Carlton Walker (Democratic)
* Governor of West Virginia: John J. Jacob (Democratic)
* Governor of Wisconsin: Lucius Fairchild (Republican) (until January 1), Cadwallader C. Washburn (Republican) (starting January 1)

Lieutenant Governors
* Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: Edward H. Moren (Democratic) (until November 17), Alexander McKinstry (Republican) (starting November 17)
* Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of California: Romualdo Pacheco (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Morris Tyler (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Florida: Samuel T. Day (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: John Dougherty (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: William Cumback (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Henry C. Bulis (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Peter Percival Elder (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: John G. Carlisle (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: P. B. S. Pinchback (Republican)
* 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: Alexander K. Davis (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Joseph J. Gravely (Liberal Republican) (until April 28), vacant (starting April 28)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: Frank Denver (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Allen C. Beach (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: John C. Lee (Republican) (until January 8), Jacob Mueller (Republican) (starting January 8)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Pardon Stevens (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Charles Cutler (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Alonzo J. Ransier (Republican) (until December 7), Richard Howell Gleaves (Republican) (starting December 7)
* Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: John C. Vaughn (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: George N. Dale (Republican) (until October 3), Russell S. Taft (Republican) (starting October 3)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: John Lawrence Marye Jr. (Conservative)
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Thaddeus C. Pound (Republican) (until January 1), Milton H. Pettit (Republican) (starting January 1)

## Events

* January 2 – Brigham Young is arrested for allegedly being an accessory to murder.
* January 3 – First patent list issued by the U.S. Patent Office.
* February 13 – Rex, the most famous parade on Mardi Gras, parades for the first time in New Orleans for Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of Russia.
* February 20 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City.
* March 1 – Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park.
* March 2 – One of the first Personal Liberty League formed in the United States in response to the threat posed to the liquor industry by the growing political strength of the temperance movement.
* March 5 – George Westinghouse patents the air brake for railways.
* March 26 – The 7.4–7.9 Mw Lone Pine earthquake shakes eastern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (*Extreme*). Twenty-seven people are killed and 56 injured.
* May 10 – Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States.
* May 22 – Reconstruction: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act of 1872 into law restoring full civil rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
* June 4 – Two men lead investors to land near the Wyoming-Colorado border claiming to have found diamonds there, starting a diamond craze in the western U.S. (which is later revealed as a fraud).
* August 1 – Aaron Montgomery Ward issues the first Montgomery Ward mail order catalogue from Chicago.
* September 4 – The *New York Sun* breaks the story on the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
* September 26 – The first Shriners Temple (called Mecca) is established in New York City.
* October 1 – The Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College begins its first academic session (the university is later renamed Virginia Tech).
* October 2 – Morgan State University founded.
* November 2 – Spiritualist, suffragette, and Free Love advocate Victoria Woodhull publishes shocking allegations in *Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly* claiming in "The Beecher-Tilton Scandal Case" article that Henry Ward Beecher had committed adultery with Theodore Tilton's wife. The subsequent trials and hearings, "drove Reconstruction off the front pages for two and a half years" and became "the most sensational 'he said, she said' in American history", in the words of Walter A. McDougall.
* November 5
	+ Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horace Greeley in the U.S. presidential election.
	+ Women's suffrage: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time (on November 18 she is served an arrest warrant and in the subsequent trial is fined $100 - which she never pays).
* November 7 – The *Mary Celeste* sets sail from New York, bound for Genoa.
* November 9 – Great Boston Fire of 1872: In Boston, Massachusetts, a large fire begins to burn on Lincoln Street. The two-day event destroys about 65 acres (260,000 m2) of city, 776 buildings, much of the financial district and causes US$60 million in damage.
* November 28 – Geologist Clarence King uncovers the diamond hoax in Wyoming in *The New York Times*.
* November 29 – Indian Wars: The Modoc War begins with the Battle of Lost River.
* December 4 – The crewless American-owned ship Mary Celeste is found by the British brig Dei Gratia in the Atlantic.
* December 9 – P. B. S. Pinchback takes office as Governor of Louisiana, the first African American governor of a U.S. state.

## Memoriam

* January 4 – Arnold Naudain, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1830 to 1836 (aged 81; Odessa, DE, USA)
* January 7 – James Fisk, financier (aged 36; New York City, NY, USA)
* January 9 – Henry Halleck, general (aged 56; Louisville, KY, USA)
* January 21 – Thomas Bragg, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1859 to 1861, 2nd Confederate States Attorney General (aged 61; Raleigh, NC, USA)
* January 25 – Richard S. Ewell, Confederate general (aged 54; Spring Hill, TN, USA)
* February 7 – James W. Grimes, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1859 to 1869 (aged 55; Burlington, IA, USA)
* March 31 – Samuel Henry Dickson, poet, physician, writer and educator (aged 73; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
* April 2 – Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse code (aged 80; New York City, NY, USA)
* April 9 – Erastus Corning, businessman and politician (aged 77; Albany, NY, USA)
* April 10 – John Mix Stanley, painter (aged 58; Detroit, MI, USA)
* May 2 – Mercator Cooper, sea captain (aged 68; Sag Harbor, NY, USA)
* May 17 – Eduard Sobolewski, violinist, composer and conductor (aged 67; St. Louis, MO, USA)
* August 11 – Lowell Mason, organist and composer (aged 80; Orange, NJ, USA)
* September 7 – Asa Whitney, merchant and promoter of the first transcontinental railroad (aged 75; Washington, DC, USA)
* September 18 – Augustus Seymour Porter, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1840 to 1845 (aged 74; Niagara Falls, NY, USA)
* September 22 – Garrett Davis, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1861 to 1872 (aged 71; Paris, KY, USA)
* October 10 – William H. Seward, 24th United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869 (aged 71; Auburn, NY, USA)
* October 25 – William F. Johnston, 11th Governor of Pennsylvania (aged 63; Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
* October 31 – Henry Howard Brownell, poet and historian (aged 52; East Hartford, CT, USA)
* November 5 – Thomas Sully, portrait painter (aged 89; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
* November 6 – George Meade, Civil War general (aged 56; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
* November 16 – William Gilham, military writer (aged 54; VT, USA)
* November 29 – Horace Greeley, newspaper editor and presidential candidate (aged 61; Pleasantville, NY, USA)
* December 23 – George Catlin, painter specializing in portraits of Native Americans (aged 76; Jersey City, NJ, USA)