1858 in the United States

Events from the year 1858 in the United States.

• President: James Buchanan (D-Pennsylvania)
• Vice President: John C. Breckinridge (D-Kentucky)
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: James Lawrence Orr (D-South Carolina)
• Congress: 35th

• February 6 – A fight, the 1858 Congressional brawl, breaks out on the floor of the U.S. House between Representatives of the Northern and Southern states.^[1]

• March 4 – A speech by James Henry Hammond in the United States Senate promotes the idea of "King Cotton" and the "mudsill theory" in support of slave labor.
• April 19 – The United States and the Yankton Sioux Tribe sign a treaty.^[2]
• May 11 – Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state (see History of Minnesota).
• May 19 – The Marais des Cygnes massacre is perpetrated by pro-slavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
• June 16 – Abraham Lincoln makes his "House Divided" Speech at the State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, on accepting the Republican Party nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
• July – Forty-Niners stream into the Rocky Mountains of the western United States during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.
• July 8 – The Paulist Fathers, a Roman Catholic society of apostolic life for men, is founded in New York City by Isaac Hecker.
• July 29 – Treaty of Amity and Commerce (United States–Japan) ("Harris Treaty") signed on the deck of USS Powhatan in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) Bay.
• August 16 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria. However, a weak signal forces a shutdown of the service on September 1.
• August 21 – The first of the seven Lincoln–Douglas debates is held.
• September 1–2 – 'Staten Island Quarantine War'.
• September 14 – Fordyce Beals patents his six shooter revolver which will be produced by E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York as the Remington Model 1858.
• November 17 – Denver is founded.
• December 8 – Rensselaer, Indiana is incorporated.

• Bleeding Kansas (1854–1860)
• Third Seminole War (1855–1858)
• Utah War (1857–1858)

• January 6 – Albert Henry Munsell, painter, teacher of art and inventor of the Munsell color system (died 1918)
• January 9 – Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, botanist (died 1934)
• January 11 – Harry Gordon Selfridge, department store magnate (died 1947)
• February 6 – Jonathan P. Dolliver, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1900 to 1910 (died 1910)
• February 15 – John Joseph Montgomery, glider pioneer (died 1911)
• February 19 – Charles Alexander Eastman, Native American author, physician, reformer and co-founder of Boy Scouts of America (died 1939)
• February 28 – Richard P. Ernst, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1921 to 1927 (died 1934)
• March 9 – Gustav Stickley, furniture designer and architect (died 1942)
• March 12 – Adolph Ochs, newspaper publisher (died 1935)
• March 24 – Elia Goode Byington, newspaper proprietor, editor, and manager (died 1936)
• March 30 – DeWolf Hopper, musical theater performer (died 1935)
• April 23 – Leonor F. Loree, railroad executive (died 1940)
• April 29 – Georgia Hopley, journalist, political figure and temperance advocate (died 1944)
• June 17 – Mary F. Hoyt, first woman appointed to the U.S. federal civil service, in 1883 (died 1958)
• June 20 – Charles Waddell Chesnutt, African American author, essayist and political activist (died 1932)
• June 28 – Otis Skinner, actor (died 1943)
• July 1 – Velma Caldwell Melville, editor and writer (died 1924)
• August 18 – Thomas S. Rodgers, admiral (died 1931)
• September 1 – Andrew Jackson Zilker, philanthropist (died 1934)
• September 12 – J. H. Smith, politician and pioneer (died 1956)
• September 30 – Estelle M. H. Merrill, journalist (died 1908)
• October 2 – Emma Amelia Cranmer, prohibition reformer and suffragist (died 1937)
• October 7 – Joseph E. Ransdell, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1913 to 1931 (died 1954)
• October 12 – John L. Sullivan, heavyweight boxer (died 1918)
• October 15 – William Sims, admiral (died 1936)
• October 27 – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909, 25th vice president of the United States from March to September 1901 (died 1919)
• October 30 – Wilson Eyre, architect (died 1944)
• November 8 – Lawrence Yates Sherman, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1913 to 1921 (died 1939)
• November 21 – Charles A. Towne, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1900 to 1901 (died 1928)
• November 26 – Katharine Drexel, Roman Catholic foundress, first American canonized as a saint, in 2000 (died 1955)
• December 15 – Elizabeth Eggleston Seelye, biographer (died 1923)
• December 24 – Harriet Pritchard Arnold, author (died 1901)
• December 25 – Herman P. Faris, temperance movement leader (died 1936)
• December 31 – Harry Stewart New, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1917 to 1923 (died 1937)
• Unknown – Sarah Jim Mayo, Washoe basket weaver (died 1918)

• January 10 – Hezekiah Augur, sculptor and inventor (born 1791)
• March 4 – Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, naval officer (born 1794)
• April 10 – Thomas Hart Benton, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1821 to 1851 (born 1782)
• August 23 – Calvin Willey, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1825 to 1831 (born 1776)
• September 17 – Dred Scott, slave (born c. 1795)
• September 21 – Arthur P. Bagby, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1837 to 1841 (born 1794)
• November 16 – Robert Hanna, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1831 to 1832 (born 1786)
• December 14 – Michael Woolston Ash, U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania from 1835 to 1837 (born 1789)
• December 18 – Thomas Holley Chivers, poet and physician (born 1809)

• Timeline of United States history (1820–1859)

• Media related to 1858 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons