1819 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: James Monroe
• Vice President: Daniel D. Tompkins
• Chief Justice: John Marshall
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Henry Clay
• Congress: 15th, 16th

  Governors

• Governor of Alabama: William Wyatt Bibb
• Governor of Connecticut: Oliver Wolcott, Jr.
• Governor of Delaware: John Clark
• Governor of Georgia:
• * until October 24: William Rabun
• * October 24-November 5: Matthew Talbot
• * starting November 5: John Clark
• Governor of Illinois: Shadrach Bond
• Governor of Indiana: Jonathan Jennings
• Governor of Kentucky: Gabriel Slaughter
• Governor of Louisiana: Jacques Villeré
• Governor of Maryland:
• * until January 8: Charles Carnan Ridgely
• * January 8-December 20: Charles Goldsborough
• * starting December 20: Samuel Sprigg
• Governor of Massachusetts: John Brooks
• Governor of Mississippi: David Holmes
• Governor of New Hampshire: William Plumer , Samuel Bell
• Governor of New Jersey: Isaac Halstead Williamson
• Governor of New York: DeWitt Clinton
• Governor of North Carolina: John Branch
• Governor of Ohio: Ethan Allen Brown
• Governor of Pennsylvania: William Findlay
• Governor of Rhode Island: Nehemiah R. Knight
• Governor of South Carolina: John Geddes
• Governor of Tennessee: Joseph McMinn
• Governor of Vermont: Jonas Galusha
• Governor of Virginia: James Patton Preston , Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr.

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Jonathan Ingersoll
• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Pierre Menard
• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: vacant, Ratliff Boon
• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: William Phillips, Jr.
• Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Duncan Stewart
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: John Tayler
• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Edward Wilcox
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: William Youngblood
• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Paul Brigham

  Events

• January 2 - The Panic of 1819, the first major financial crisis in the United States, begins.
• January 25 - Thomas Jefferson founds the University of Virginia.
• January 30 - Romney Literary Society established as the Polemic Society of Romney, West Virginia.
• February 2 - The Supreme Court under John Marshall rules in favor of Dartmouth College in the famous Dartmouth College v. Woodward case, allowing Dartmouth to keep its charter and remain a private institution.
• February 15 - The United States House of Representatives agrees to the Tallmadge Amendment barring slaves from the new state of Missouri.
• February 22 - Spain cedes Florida to the United States.
• March 1 - The U.S. naval vessel USS Columbus is launched in Washington, DC.
• March 2 - Arkansas Territory is created.
• March 6 - McCulloch v. Maryland: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Bank of the United States is constitutional.
• May 22 - The leaves port at Savannah, Georgia on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The ship arrives at Liverpool, England on June 20.
• June 22 - In Nacogdoches, Texas Dr James Long and his force of 195 men declares a new government, with Long as President and a 21-member Supreme Council
• June 23 - James Long issues a Declaration of Independence for his "Republic of Texas", the document is based on the United States Declaration of Independence, and cites grievances including "Spanish rapacity" and "Odious tyranny", the document promises Religious freedom, Freedom of the Press and Free trade.
• July 4 - Arkansas Territory is effective.
• August 6 - Norwich University is founded by Captain Alden Partridge in Vermont as the first private military school in the United States.
• August 24 - Samuel Seymour sketches a Kansa lodge and war dance at the present location of Manhattan, Kansas, while part of Stephen Harriman Long's exploring party. This work is now the oldest drawing known to be made in the state of Kansas.
• October - The ʻAi Noa movement assumes power in Hawaii.
• December 14 - Alabama is admitted as the 22nd U.S. state.

  Ongoing

• Era of Good Feelings

  Births

• January 3 - Thomas H. Watts, 18th Governor of Alabama, 3rd Confederate States Attorney General
• January 22 - Morton S. Wilkinson, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1859 to 1865
• February 12 - William Wetmore Story, sculptor, art critic, poet and editor
• February 22 - James Russell Lowell, poet
• February 23 - George S. Cook, prominent early photographer
• March 29 - Edwin Drake, first American to successfully drill for oil
• April 11 - Margaret Lea Houston, First Lady of the Republic of Texas
• June 29 - Thomas Dunn English, politician and poet
• June 30 - William A. Wheeler, 19th Vice President of the United States from 1877 to 1881
• July 17 - Eunice Newton Foote, physicist and women's rights campaigner
• July 24 - Josiah Gilbert Holland, novelist and poet
• July 26 - Justin Holland, classical guitarist and civil rights activist
• May 27 - Julia Ward Howe, poet and abolitionist
• May 31 - Walt Whitman, poet, essayist and journalist
• August 1 - Herman Melville, novelist, short story writer and poet
• August 13 - George Stokes, mathematician popular for the creation of the Navier-Stokes equation
• August 29 - Joseph E. McDonald, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1875 to 1881
• September 7 - Thomas A. Hendricks, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1863 to 1869 and 21st Vice President of the United States from March to November 1885
• September 14 - Henry Jackson Hunt, Chief of Artillery in the Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War
• October 2 - Théonie Rivière Mignot, restaurateur
• December 26 - E. D. E. N. Southworth, née Emma Nevitte, novelist

  Deaths

• February 5 - Hannah Van Buren, wife of Martin Van Buren, 8th President of the U.S.
• March 8 - Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge, doctor and Massachusetts militia commander
• April 15 - Oliver Evans, inventor and pioneer in the fields of automation and steam power
• May 22 - Hugh Williamson, Founding Father
• July 1 - the Public Universal Friend, preacher
• August 23 - Oliver Hazard Perry, naval officer
• September 18 - John Langdon, Founding Father
• October 7 - William Samuel Johnson, Founding Father
• November 7 - Caleb Strong, lawyer and politician, 6th and 10th Governor of Massachusetts
• November 9 - Simon Snyder, politician