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| 1850 in the United States | 
| 1850 in U.S. states | 
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| List of years in the United States | 
Events from the year 1850 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
- President: Zachary Taylor (W-Kentucky) (until July 9), Millard Fillmore (W-New York) (starting July 9)
 - Vice President: Millard Fillmore (W-New York) (until July 9), vacant (starting July 9)
 - Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
 - Speaker of the House of Representatives: Howell Cobb (D-Georgia)
 - Congress: 31st
 
Events
January–March
- January – Sacramento floods.[1]
 - January 29 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to Congress.
 - January 31 – The University of Rochester is chartered in Rochester, New York; it admits its first students in November[2]
 - c. January–February – The Liberty Head double eagle first issued for commerce.
 - February 8–17 – Battle at Fort Utah: The Nauvoo Legion kills Timpanogos hostile to the Mormon settlement at Fort Utah on the orders of Brigham Young.
 - February 28 – The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City.
 - March 7 – United States Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech, in which he endorses the Compromise of 1850, in order to prevent a possible civil war.
 - March 16 – Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical novel The Scarlet Letter is published in Boston, Massachusetts.
 - March 19 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.
 
April–June
- April 4 – Los Angeles is incorporated as a city in California.
 - April 15 – San Francisco is incorporated as a city in California.
 - April 19 – Clayton–Bulwer Treaty is signed by the United States and Great Britain, allowing both countries to share Nicaragua and not claim complete control over the proposed Nicaragua Canal.
 - May 7 – The brigantine USS Advance is loaned to the United States Navy.
 - May 23 – The USS Advance puts to sea from New York City to search for Franklin's lost expedition in the Arctic.
 - June – Harper's Magazine published as a new monthly in New York City.
 - June 1 – The 1850 United States census shows that 11.2% of the population classed as "Negro" are of mixed race.
 - June 3 – Traditional date of Kansas City, Missouri's founding: it is incorporated by Jackson County, Missouri as the "Town of Kansas".
 
July–September

July 9: Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th U.S. president with the death of President Taylor
- July 1 – St. Mary's Institute (the future University of Dayton) admits its first pupils in Dayton, Ohio.
 - July 9 – President Zachary Taylor dies in office; Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th president of the United States.
 - July 10 – President Fillmore is sworn in.
 - July 14 – John Gorrie makes the first public demonstration of his ice-making machine, in Apalachicola, Florida.[3]
 - September 9 
- California is admitted to the Union as the 31st state (see History of California and An Act for the Admission of the State of California).
 - Utah Territory is established.
 - New Mexico Territory is organized by order of the U.S. Congress.
 
 - September 18 – The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is passed by the U.S. Congress. Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad.
 
October–December
- October 19 – Phi Kappa Sigma International Fraternity founded at the University of Pennsylvania.
 - October 28 – Delegate Edward Ralph May delivers a speech on behalf of African American suffrage to the Indiana Constitutional Convention.
 
Undated
- The American system of watch manufacturing starts in Roxbury, Massachusetts, with the Waltham Watch Company.
 - Mayer Lehman arrives from Germany to join his siblings in Lehman Brothers merchant business in Montgomery, Alabama.
 - Allan Pinkerton forms the North-Western Police Agency, later the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, in Chicago.
 - Astronomer Maria Mitchell becomes the first woman member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
 - The temperance organization, International Organisation of Good Templars, is established in Utica, New York, as the order of the Knights of Jericho.
 - One of the original segments of the historic Pacific Highway in Washington (state) in Clark and Cowlitz counties is established.[4]
 
Ongoing
- California Gold Rush (1848–1855)
 
Births
- January 1 – John Barclay Armstrong, Texas Ranger lieutenant and a U.S. Marshal (died 1913)
 - January 10 – John Wellborn Root, Chicago architect (died 1891)
 - January 18 – Seth Low, educator (died 1916)
 - January 24 – Mary Noailles Murfree, novelist (died 1922)
 - January 27 – Samuel Gompers, labor union leader (died 1924)
 - January 28 – Edward Merritt Hughes, U.S. Navy officer (died 1903)
 - February 1 – Emma Churchman Hewitt, author and journalist (died 1921)
 - February 2 – Cassius Aurelius Boone, Mayor of Orlando and businessman (died 1917)
 - February 6 – Elizabeth Williams Champney, author (died 1922)[5]
 - February 8 
- Kate Chopin, writer (died 1904)[6]
 - Charles Rockwell Lanman, Sanskrit scholar (died 1941)
 
 - February 15 – Albert B. Cummins, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1908 to 1926 (died 1926)
 - February 27
- Henry E. Huntington, railroad pioneer and art collector (died 1927)
 - Laura E. Richards, author (died 1943)
 
 - March 9 – Daniel B. Towner, hymn composer (died 1919)
 - March 26 – Edward Bellamy, Utopian novelist and socialist (died 1898)[7]
 - March 31 – Charles Doolittle Walcott, invertebrate paleontologist (died 1927)
 - April 3 – Zina P. Young Card, Mormon leader and women's rights activist (died 1931)
 - April 8 – John Peters, baseball player (died 1924)
 - April 10 – Mary Emilie Holmes, geologist and educator (died 1906)
 - April 11 
- Rosetta Luce Gilchrist, physician and author (died 1921)
 - Isidor Rayner, U.S. senator from Maryland from 1905 to 1912 (died 1912)
 
 - April 18 – Joseph Labadie, labor organizer (died 1933)
 - April 20 – Daniel Chester French, sculptor (died 1931)
 - April 30 
- Ruth Alice Armstrong, temperance activist (died 1901)
 - Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller, novelist (died 1937)[8]
 
 - May 8 – Ross Barnes, baseball player and manager (died 1915)
 - May 12 – Henry Cabot Lodge, statesman (died 1924)
 - May 14 – Alva Adams, 3-time Governor of Colorado (died 1922)
 - June 3 – Albert M. Todd, businessman and politician (died 1931)
 - June 5 – Pat Garrett, bartender and sheriff (died 1908)
 - June 15 – Charles Hazelius Sternberg, paleontologist (died 1943)
 - June 18 
- Cyrus H. K. Curtis, magazine publisher (died 1933)[9]
 - Alice Moore McComas, author, editor, lecturer and reformer (died 1919)[10]
 
 - June 21 – Daniel Carter Beard, Scouting pioneer (died 1941)
 - July 2 – Robert Ridgway, ornithologist (died 1929)
 - July 7 – William E. Mason, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1897 to 1903 (died 1921)
 - July 8 – Charles Rockwell Lanman, Sanskrit scholar (died 1941)
 - July 11 – Annie Armstrong, Baptist leader (died 1938)
 - July 12 – Newell Sanders, businessman and politician (died 1938)
 - July 18 – Rose Hartwick Thorpe, poet (died 1939)
 - July 20 – John G. Shedd, businessman (died 1926)
 - July 25 – Lydia J. Newcomb Comings, educator (died 1946)
 - July 28 – William Whittingham Lyman, vintner (died 1921)
 - July 31 – Robert Love Taylor, Tennessee congressman (died 1912)
 - August 28 – Charles H. Aldrich, Solicitor General of the U.S. (died 1929)
 - September 2 – Eugene Field, poet and essayist (died 1895)
 - September 6 – Marion Howard Brazier, journalist (died 1935)
 - October 1
- David R. Francis, politician (died 1927)
 - Thomas Vincent Welch, politician (died 1903)
 
 - October 14 – Newton E. Mason, rear admiral (died 1945)
 - October 30 – John Patton, Jr., U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1894 to 1895 (died 1907)
 - November 5 – Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (died 1919)
 - November 18 – John S. Armstrong, real estate developer (died 1908)
 - December 9 – Emma Abbott, operatic soprano (died 1891)
 - December 21 – William Wallace Lincoln, third son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln (died 1862)
 - December 23 – Louise Reed Stowell, scientist and author (died 1932)[11]
 - December 25 – Florence Griswold, art curator (died 1937)
 
Deaths
- February 1 – Edward Baker Lincoln, second son of Abraham Lincoln (born 1846)
 - March 3 – Oliver Cowdery, religious leader (born 1806)
 - March 21 – Miguel Pedrorena, early settler of San Diego, California (born c. 1808)
 - March 28 – Gerard Brandon, fourth and sixth governor of Mississippi from 1825 to 1826 and from 1826 to 1832 (born 1788)
 - March 31 – John C. Calhoun, seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832 (born 1782)
 - April 12 – Adoniram Judson, Congregationalist and later Baptist missionary (born 1788)
 - April 24 – John Norvell, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1837 to 1841 (born 1789)
 - May 16 – William Hendricks, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1825 to 1837 (born 1782)
 - July 9 – Zachary Taylor, 12th president of the United States from 1849 to 1850 (born 1784)
 - July 19 – Margaret Fuller, journalist, literary critic and women's rights advocate, presumed drowned (born 1810)
 - November 19 – Richard Mentor Johnson, ninth vice president of the United States from 1837 to 1841, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1819 to 1829 (born 1780)
 
See also
References
- ↑ "Sacramento; an illustrated history: 1839 to 1874, from Sutter's Fort to Capital City". Archive.org. 1973.
 - ↑ "University of Rochester History: Chapter 3, The Year of Decisions: 1850". rbscp.lib.rochester.edu.
 - ↑ Burke, James (1978). Connections. London: Macmillan. p. 240. ISBN 0-333-24827-9.
 - ↑ "The Historic Pacific Highway from Vancouver to Castle Rock". pacific-hwy.net.
 - ↑ Herringshaw's American Blue-book of Biography: Prominent Americans of ... An Accurate Biographical Record of Prominent Citizens in All Walks of Life ... American Publishers' Association. 1915. p. 243.
 - ↑ Emily Toth; Per Seyersted (October 22, 1998). Kate Chopin's Private Papers. Indiana University Press. p. 1. ISBN 0-253-11593-0.
 - ↑ Howard Quint, The Forging of American Socialism: Origins of the Modern Movement: The Impact of Socialism on American Thought and Action, 1886–1901. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1953; p. 74.
 - ↑ The West Virginia Encyclopedia. West Virginia Humanities Council. 2006. p. 478. ISBN 9780977849802.
 - ↑ Feld, Rose C. (1922). "Cyrus H. K. Curtis, The Man: Musician, Editor, Publisher and Capitalist". The New York Times (22 October 1922). Retrieved April 7, 2013.
 - ↑ Leonard, John W. (1914). "McComas, Alice Moore". Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915 (Public domain ed.). American commonwealth Company. p. 512.
 - ↑ Marquis, Albert Nelson (1915). Who's who in New England: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men and Women of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut (Public domain ed.). A.N. Marquis & Company.
 
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