1859 in the United States

Events from the year 1859 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 (until March 4), 36th (starting March 4)

• January 1 – Minting of Indian Head cent begins.
• January 10 – Lucy Cobb Institute opens in Athens, Georgia.
• January 28 – The city of Olympia is incorporated in the Territory of Washington.
• February 14 – Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state (see History of Oregon).

• February 27 – U.S. Congressman Daniel Sickles shoots dead Philip Barton Key for having an affair with his wife.
• March 2–3 – The Great Slave Auction, the largest single sale of slaves in U.S. history, with more than 400 people sold, takes place near Savannah, Georgia.
• March 21 – The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania issues the charter establishing the Zoological Society of Philadelphia, the first organization of its kind in the United States and founder of the nation's first zoo.

• April 4 – Bryant's Minstrels premiere the minstrel song "Dixie" (probably written by Dan Emmett) at Mechanics' Hall in New York City as part of their blackface show.
• April 20 – Daniel E. Sickles, a New York Congressman, is acquitted of the murder of Philip Barton Key on grounds of temporary insanity.^[1] The case marked the first successful use of the "temporary insanity" legal defense.^[2]
• June 8 – The discovery of the Comstock Lode in the western Utah Territory (present-day Nevada) sets off a rush of prospectors to the area.
• June 15 – The so-called Pig War border dispute between the Americans and the British on the San Juan Islands begins with the shooting of the namesake pig; the episode is resolved in October without human bloodshed.

• July – Pike's Peak Gold Rush begins in the Colorado Territory.
• July 1 – The first intercollegiate baseball game is played, between Amherst and Williams Colleges.
• August 1 – Andrew B. Moore is reelected the 16th governor of Alabama defeating William F. Samford.
• August 27 – Edwin Drake drills the first oil well in the United States, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, starting the Pennsylvanian oil rush.
• September – Joshua Abraham Norton proclaims himself "Emperor of the United States" in San Francisco.

• October 16 – Militant abolitionist leader John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.
• October 18 – Troops under Colonel Robert E. Lee overpower John Brown at the Federal arsenal.
• November 1 – The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse is lighted for the first time (its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for 19 miles).
• December 2 – John Brown is hanged at Charles Town, West Virginia for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry.

• The Rancho Rincon de Los Esteros Land Grant is confirmed to Rafael Alvisa (part of modern-day Santa Clara County, California).
• The University of Michigan Law School is founded.

• Bleeding Kansas (1854–1860)

• January 6 – Duncan U. Fletcher, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1909 to 1936 (died 1936)
• January 9 – Carrie Chapman Catt, women's suffrage leader (died 1947)
• January 12 – Henry Heitfeld, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1897 to 1903 (died 1938)
• January 25 – Lillie Eginton Warren, educator (year of death unknown)
• January 29 – Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, née Avegno, society beauty (died 1915 in France)
• February 6 – Elias Disney, farmer, father of Walt Disney (died 1941)
• February 22 – Samuel D. Nicholson, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1921 to 1923 (died 1923)
• February 25 – John Burke, 24th Treasurer of the United States (died 1937)
• March 12 – Abraham H. Cannon, Mormon apostle (died 1896)
• March 21 – Abbie Pratt, golfer (died 1938 in France)^[3]
• April 12 – Junius George Groves, slave-born potato farmer (died 1925)
• May 12 – William Alden Smith, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1907 to 1919 (died 1932)
• June 29 – Margaret Ashmore Sudduth, educator, editor and temperance advocate (died 1957)
• July 13 – Marion Manville Pope, author (died 1930)
• July 31 – Theobald Smith, bacteriologist (died 1934)
• August 15 – Charles Comiskey, baseball baseman, manager and owner (died 1931)
• August 28 – Matilda Howell, archer (died 1938)^[4]
• September 16 – Frank R. Gooding, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1921 to 1928 (died 1928)
• September 17 – Billy The Kid, Old West gunfighter (died 1881)
• October 20 – John Dewey, educator born in Vermont (died 1952)
• November 1 – Charles Brantley Aycock, 50th Governor of North Carolina (died 1912)
• December 20 – Adaline Hohf Beery, songbook compiler (died 1929)

• January 28 – William H. Prescott, Hispanist historian (born 1796)
• January 29 – William Cranch Bond, astronomer (born 1789)
• February 25 – Edward A. Hannegan, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1843 to 1849 (born 1807)
• February 27 – Philip Barton Key II, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, murdered (born 1818)
• March 19 – Oliver H. Smith, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1837 to 1843 (born 1794)
• March 30 – James Matthews Legaré, poet and inventor (born 1823)
• April 14 – George M. Bibb, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1811 to 1814 (born 1776)
• June 8 – Walter Hunt, inventor (born 1796)
• July 30 – Richard Rush, 8th United States Attorney General and 8th United States Secretary of the Treasury (born 1780)
• August 2 – Horace Mann, educator and abolitionist (born 1796)
• August 15 – Nathaniel Claiborne, politician (born 1777)
• September 2 – Delia Bacon, playwright and writer on the Shakespeare authorship question (born 1811)
• September 16 – David C. Broderick, U.S. Senator from California from 1857 to 1859 (born 1820)
• November 28 – Washington Irving, author (born 1783)
• November 29 – William Hale, soldier, politician and the first mayor of Peoria, Illinois (b. 1783)
• December 2 – John Brown, abolitionist, hanged (born 1800)

• Timeline of United States history (1820–1859)

• Media related to 1859 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons