Hamden Historical Society

• July 4 – A 24th star is added to the flag of the United States, representing Missouri which had been admitted on August 10, 1821.
• August 22 – The English ship Orion lands at Yerba Buena, modern-day San Francisco, under the command of William A. Richardson.
• November 9 – Action of 9 November 1822: USS Alligator (1820) engages three pirate schooners off the coast of Cuba as part of the West Indies anti-piracy operations of the U.S.
• November 23 – The USS Alligator wrecks on Carysford Reef off the coast of Florida

1823

• February 28 – Johnson v. McIntosh decided in the Marshall Court, a landmark Supreme Court decision relating to aboriginal title in the United States.
• August 4 – Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, the Mexican government administrator in charge of Anglo-American immigration into Mexico's state of Coahuila y Tejas, allows Stephen F. Austin to put together an 11-man police force, that will later be expanded to become the Texas Ranger Division
• September 22 – Joseph Smith first goes to the place near Manchester, New York, where the golden plates are stored, having been directed there by God through an angel (according to what he writes in 1838).
• November 15 – Lone Horn succeeds (probably) his father, and becomes chief of the Minneconjou Sioux; he will be chief until his death on October 16, 1875.
• December 2 – Monroe Doctrine: U.S. President James Monroe delivers a speech to the U.S. Congress, announcing a new policy of forbidding European interference in the Americas and establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts.
• December 23 – The poem A Visit From St. Nicholas, attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, is first published.

1824

• March 11 – U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs formed by John C. Calhoun without authorization from Congress.
• April – The United States Literary Gazette, a semi-monthly, begins publication. It publishes poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Cullen Bryant, among many others
• October 26 – U.S. presidential election opens. Andrew Jackson will receive more popular votes than John Quincy Adams in the first election in which this vote is reported.
• December 1 – U.S. presidential election: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task to decide the winner (as stipulated by the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution).

1825

• February 9 – After no presidential candidate receives a majority of U.S. Electoral College votes, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as President of the United States in a contingent election.
• March 4 – John Quincy Adams is sworn in as the sixth president of the United States, and John C. Calhoun is sworn in as the seventh vice president.
• June 3 – Kansa Nation cedes its territory to the United States (see History of Kansas).
• October 25 – The Erie Canal opens, granting passage from Albany, New York to Lake Erie.
• November 7 – Treaty of St. Louis: 1,400 Missouri Shawnees are forcibly relocated from Missouri to Kansas. (See History of Kansas)
• November 12 – New Echota designated capital of the Cherokee Nation.
• November 26 – At Union College in Schenectady, New York a group of college students form Kappa Alpha Society as the first college social fraternity (it is the first to combine aspects of secret Greek-letter societies, literary societies and formalized student social groups).

1826

• January 24 – Treaty of Washington between the United States government and the Creek National Council, in which they cede much of their land in the State of Georgia.
• February 6 – First printing of James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans.
• February 13 – The American Temperance Society is founded in Boston.
• March – Aged eight, future orator and memoirist Frederick Douglass is lent by his master to the Aulds of Fell's Point, Baltimore. He will remain their house servant, and later their regular slave, for 12 years until he escapes.
• April 1 – Samuel Morey patents an internal combustion engine.
• July 4 – Ex-Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both die on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
• September 3 – The USS Vincennes, commanded by William Finch, leaves New York City to become the first U.S. warship to circumnavigate the globe.
• October 7 – The first train operates over the Granite Railway in Massachusetts.
• December 21 – Fredonian Rebellion: American settlers in Mexican Texas make the first attempt to secede from Mexico, establishing the Republic of Fredonia, which will survive for just over a month.
• December 25 – The Eggnog Riot breaks out at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York during the early morning hours, but is squelched by Christmas chapel service.
• Sing Sing prison first opened on the Hudson River.

1827

• February 28 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.
• March 12 – In Brown v. Maryland, the United States Supreme Court ruled that imported goods in their original package are under federal jurisdiction and thus not subject to state regulation.
• March 16 – Freedom's Journal, the first African-American owned and published newspaper in the United States, is founded in New York City by John Russwurm.
• May 21 – The Maryland Democratic Party is founded by supporters of Andrew Jackson in Baltimore and hosts its first meeting at the Baltimore Atheneum.
• J. J. Audubon's The Birds of America commences publication in the United Kingdom.
• The original Delmonico's restaurant opens in Manhattan.

1828

• January 8 – Democratic Party is established.
• February 19 – The Boston Society for Medical Improvement is established.
• February 21 – The Cherokee Phœnix, the first newspaper published by Native Americans in the United States and in one of their indigenous languages (Cherokee), is first issued in New Echota.
• July 4 – Construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad commences with a cornerstone laid by Charles Carroll of Carrollton.
• August 11 – The Working Men's Party is founded in the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the 1st 'worker oriented' political party in the United States.
• October 27 – Gold is discovered by Benjamin Parks in or near Cherokee First Nation land in Hall County - later reorganized into Lumpkin County - in, Georgia.
• December 3 – U.S. presidential election: Challenger Andrew Jackson beats incumbent John Quincy Adams and is elected President of the United States.
• December 19 – A document written by U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun titled South Carolina Exposition and Protest is presented to the South Carolina House of Representatives protesting the Tariff of Abominations.

1829

• March 4 – Andrew Jackson is sworn in as the seventh president of the United States, and John C. Calhoun is sworn in for his second term as the seventh vice president.
• June 1 – The Philadelphia Inquirer is founded as The Pennsylvania Inquirer.
• July 23 – William Austin Burt obtains the first patent for a typographer (typewriter).
• June 27 – James Smithson, a British mineralogist and chemist, leaves a bequest of £100,000 to fund the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
• August 15–22 – Cincinnati riots of 1829
• Undated – The Georgia Gold Rush begins as the country's first significant gold rush following the discovery of gold on October 27, 1828, by Benjamin Parks in the old Hall County, Georgia (later reorganized into Lumpkin County).

1830

• January 11 – LaGrange College (now the University of North Alabama) opens, becoming the first publicly chartered college in Alabama.
• January 12–27 – Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina debates the question of states' rights vs. federal authority with Daniel Webster of Massachusetts in the United States Congress.
• March 12 – Craig vs. Missouri: The United States Supreme Court rules that state loan certificates are unconstitutional.
• March 26 – Joseph Smith's religious text "Book of Mormon" is published in Palmyra, New York.
• May 24 – Sarah Josepha Hale's nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb" is published in Boston.
• May 28 – U.S. congress passes the Indian Removal Act.
• September 27 – Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek with Choctaw nation. (First removal treaty signed after the Removal Act.)

1831

• January 1 – William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator, an antislavery newspaper, in Boston, Massachusetts.
• March 18 – Cherokee Nation v. Georgia: An injunction requested by the Cherokee nation, claiming that Georgia's state legislature had created laws which, "go directly to annihilate the Cherokees as a political society", is denied.
• April 18 – The University of Alabama is founded.
• April 21 – New York University is founded in New York City.
• August 7 – American Baptist minister William Miller preaches his first sermon on the Second Advent of Christ in Dresden, New York, launching the Advent Movement in the United States.
• August 21 – Outbreak of Nat Turner's slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. Approximately 55 whites are stabbed, shot and clubbed to death.
• October 30 – In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in United States history.
• November 5 – Slave leader Nat Turner is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia for inciting a violent slave uprising.
• November 11 – In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged.
• Alexis de Tocqueville visits the United States.
• Founding of:
  • Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
  • Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio (as "The Athenaeum").

1832

• March 24 – In Hiram, Ohio a group of men beat, tar and feather Latter Day Saint movement founder Joseph Smith.
• May 21 – Washington Irving returns to the U.S. after seventeen years living in Europe.
• July 4 – John Neal delivers the first public lecture in the U.S. to advocate the rights of women.
• July 10 – President Andrew Jackson vetoes a bill that would re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.
• July–August – The 1829–51 cholera pandemic reaches the Northeastern seaboard, beginning with New York City.
• October 8 – Washington Irving and Henry Leavitt Ellsworth arrive at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory (later Fort Gibson, Oklahoma) in the late morning hours. They leave the fort on October 10, with a small company of Rangers who escort them to the camp of Captain Jesse Bean who is waiting for them near the Arkansas River. Thus begins one of the first steps in the United States effort to remove the indigenous peoples of the Americas from their homes on the east coast in what would become known as the "Trail of Tears" some six years later.
• November 2 – December 5 – Andrew Jackson defeats Henry Clay in the U.S. presidential election.
• November 14 – Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last surviving signatory of the Declaration of Independence dies at his home in Maryland at age 95.
• December 3 – U.S. presidential election, 1832: Andrew Jackson is re-elected president.
• December – Skull and Bones secret society of Yale University established.
• December 28 – John C. Calhoun becomes the first vice president of the United States to resign.

1833

• January 1 – Haverford College, located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, is founded by Quakers of the Society of Friends.
• March 2 – President Andrew Jackson signs the Force Bill, which authorizes him to use troops to enforce Federal law in South Carolina.
• March 4 – Andrew Jackson is sworn in for his second term as President of the United States, and Martin Van Buren is sworn in as Vice President of the United States.
• June 6 – Andrew Jackson becomes the first U.S. president to ride a railroad train.
• August 12 – The city of Chicago is established at the estuary of the Chicago River by 350 settlers.
• August 20 – Future President of the United States Benjamin Harrison is born in Ohio. From this date until the death of former U.S. President James Madison on June 28, 1836, there are a total of 18 living presidents of the United States (2 former, 1 current, and 15 known future); more than any other time period in U.S. history.
• December
  • American Anti-Slavery Society founded in Philadelphia by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan.
  • Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society is founded; founder members include Sarah Mapps Douglass, Charlotte Forten Grimké and Hetty Reckless.

1834

• January 25 – Hillsborough County is created by Florida's territorial legislature.
• March 11 – United States Survey of the Coast transferred to the Department of the Navy.
• March 28 – The United States Senate censures President Andrew Jackson for his actions in defunding the Second Bank of the United States (censure expunged in 1837).
• April 14 – The Whig Party is officially named by United States Senator Henry Clay.
• June 30 – the 6th Indian Trade and Intercourse Act is updated and renewed Indian Territory is effective.
• July 7–10 – Anti-abolitionist riots in New York City.
• July 29 – Office of Indian Affairs organized.
• August 11–12 – Ursuline Convent Riots: A convent of Ursuline nuns is burned near Boston.
• October 31 – Solon Robinson settled in the location that would eventually become Crown Point, Indiana.
• November 4 – Delta Upsilon fraternity founded at Williams College.
• November 11 – The rare 1804 dollar coin is struck by the United States Mint.

1835

• January 8 – The Federal Government declares that Andrew Jackson paid off the national debt for the first and only time.
• January 30: First assassination attempt against a U.S. president.
• January 30 – Richard Lawrence unsuccessfully tries to assassinate President Andrew Jackson in the United States Capitol; this is the first assassination attempt against a president of the United States.
• March 31 – Hostile action opens the Toledo War between the State of Ohio and the Michigan Territory over the city of Toledo and the Toledo Strip.
• May 6 – James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald.
• August – P. T. Barnum begins his career as a showman in New York City by displaying Joice Heth, a black woman who he claimed was 161 years old and the former nursemaid of George Washington.
• July 4 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad completed construction of its Thomas Viaduct then the longest bridge in the United States, and second only to London Bridge in the world; the longer Canton Viaduct is completed two weeks later.
• August 25 – The Great Moon Hoax begins.
• July 4: Thomas Viaduct completed.
• October 2 – Texas Revolution – Battle of Gonzales: Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, Texas but encounter stiff resistance from a hastily assembled militia.
• December 9 – The Army of the Republic of Texas captures San Antonio.
• December 16–17 – The Great Fire of New York destroys 530–700 buildings and kills two.
• December 19 – Toledo Blade newspaper begins publishing.
• December 20 – The Texas Declaration of Independence is first signed at Goliad, Texas.
• December 28 – The Second Seminole War breaks out. Seminole fighter Osceola and his warriors attack government agent Thompson outside Fort King in central Florida.
• December 29 – The Treaty of New Echota, ceding all the lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi to the United States, is signed.

1836

• January 5 – Davy Crockett arrives in Texas, which at this time is not part of the United States.
• January 18 – Dade County, Florida, is formed.
• February 3 – United States Whig Party holds its first convention in Albany, New York.
• February 5 – Henry Roe Campbell builds the first 4-4-0, a steam locomotive type that will soon become the most common on all railroads of the United States.
• February 23 – Battle of the Alamo: The siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.
• February 25 – Samuel Colt receives an American patent for the Colt revolver, the first practical adaptation of the revolving flintlock pistol.
• March 1 – At the Convention of 1836, delegates from 57 Texas communities convene in Washington-on-the-Brazos to deliberate independence from Mexico.
• March 2 – At the Convention of 1836, the Republic of Texas declares independence from Mexico.
• March 6 – The Battle of the Alamo ends; 189 Texans are slaughtered by about 1,600 Mexicans.
• March 17 – Texas abolishes the slave trade.
• March 27March 31 – Marshall College, named for John Marshall, opens in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. It later merges with Franklin College to become Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
  • Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre – Antonio López de Santa Anna orders the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texans at Goliad, Texas.
  • U.S. Survey of the Coast returned to U.S. Treasury Department as the U.S. Coastal Survey.
• April 20 – U.S. Congress passes act creating the Wisconsin Territory.
• April 21 – Texas Revolution: Battle of San Jacinto – Republic of Texas forces under Sam Houston defeat troops under Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna. (Santa Anna and hundreds of his troops are taken prisoner along the San Jacinto River the next day.)
• April 22 – Texas Revolution: A day after the Battle of San Jacinto, forces under Texas General Sam Houston capture Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
• May 4 – The Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish Catholic fraternal organization, is founded in New York City.
• May 19 – Fort Parker massacre: Among those captured by Native Americans is 9-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker; she later gives birth to a son named Quanah, who becomes the last chief of the Comanche.
• June 15 – Arkansas is admitted as the 25th U.S. state (see History of Arkansas).
• June 28 – James Madison, the fourth president of the United States and United States Secretary of State, dies in Montpelier, Virginia.
• July 3 – Wisconsin Territory is effective.