List of events
Events from the year 1849 in the United States .
Incumbents [ edit ] James K. Polk (D -Tennessee ) (until March 4) Zachary Taylor (W -Kentucky ) (starting March 4) George M. Dallas (D -Pennsylvania ) (until March 4) Millard Fillmore (W -New York ) (starting March 4) Robert Charles Winthrop (W -Massachusetts ) (until March 4) Howell Cobb (D -Georgia ) (starting December 22) Governors and lieutenant governors Governors [ edit ] Governor of Alabama : Reuben Chapman (Democratic ) (until December 17), Henry W. Collier (Democratic ) (starting December 17) Governor of Arkansas : Governor of Connecticut : Clark Bissell (Whig ) (until May 2), Joseph Trumbull (Whig ) (starting May 2) Governor of Delaware : William Tharp (Democratic ) Governor of Florida : William Dunn Moseley (Democratic ) (until October 1), Thomas Brown (Whig ) (starting October 1) Governor of Georgia : George W. Towns (Democratic ) Governor of Illinois : Augustus C. French (Democratic ) Governor of Indiana : Paris C. Dunning (Democratic ) (until December 5), Joseph A. Wright (Democratic ) (starting December 5) Governor of Iowa : Ansel Briggs (Democratic ) Governor of Kentucky : John J. Crittenden (Whig ) Governor of Louisiana : Isaac Johnson (Democratic ) Governor of Maine : John W. Dana (Democratic ) Governor of Maryland : Philip F. Thomas (Democratic ) Governor of Massachusetts : George N. Briggs (Democratic ) Governor of Michigan : Epaphroditus Ransom (Democratic ) Governor of Mississippi : Joseph W. Matthews (Democratic ) Governor of Missouri : Austin Augustus King (Democratic ) Governor of New Hampshire : Jared W. Williams (Democratic ) (until June 7), Samuel Dinsmoor, Jr. (Democratic ) (starting June 7) Governor of New Jersey : Daniel Haines (Democratic ) Governor of New York : Hamilton Fish (Whig ) (starting January 1) Governor of North Carolina : William Alexander Graham (Whig ) (until January 1), Charles Manly (Whig ) (starting January 1) Governor of Ohio : William Bebb (Whig ) (until January 22), Seabury Ford (Whig ) (starting January 22) Governor of Pennsylvania : William F. Johnston (Whig ) Governor of Rhode Island : Elisha Harris (Whig ) (until May 1), Henry B. Anthony (Whig ) (starting May 1) Governor of South Carolina : Whitemarsh B. Seabrook (Democratic ) Governor of Tennessee : Neill S. Brown (Whig ) (until October 16), William Trousdale (Democratic ) (starting October 16) Governor of Texas : George T. Wood (Democratic ) (until December 21), Peter Hansborough Bell (Democratic ) (starting December 21) Governor of Vermont : Carlos Coolidge (Whig ) Governor of Virginia : William Smith (Democratic ) (until January 1), John B. Floyd (Democratic ) (starting January 1) Governor of Wisconsin : Nelson Dewey (Democratic ) Lieutenant governors [ edit ]
March 4: Zachary Taylor becomes the 12th U.S. president Millard Fillmore becomes the 12th U.S. vice president January 23 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York , thus becoming the United States ' first woman doctor. January 27 February 14 – James Knox Polk becomes the first sitting president of the United States to have his photograph taken, in New York City . February 28 – Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay . The California leaves New York Harbor on October 6, 1848, rounds Cape Horn at the tip of South America , and arrives at San Francisco, California after a 4-month-21-day journey. March 3 March 4 – Zachary Taylor becomes the 12th president of the United States , and Millard Fillmore becomes the 12th vice president , but both refuse to be sworn in office on a Sabbath (Sunday). Urban legend holds that David Rice Atchison , President pro tempore of the United States Senate is President de jure for a single day. March 5 – President Zachary Taylor and Vice President Millard Fillmore are sworn into office. May 3 – The Mississippi River levee at Sauvé's Crevasse breaks, flooding much of New Orleans, Louisiana . May 10 – Astor Place Riot occurs in Manhattan . June 6 – Fort Worth, Texas is founded. September 1 – The first segment of the Pennsylvania Railroad , from Lewistown, Pennsylvania to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania , opens for service. September 17 – Harriet Tubman emancipates herself. November – Austin College receives a charter in Huntsville. November 13 – The Constitution of California is ratified by the electorate. Undated – Pfizer is founded by cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart in Williamsburg, Brooklyn , as a manufacturer of fine chemicals . Continuing [ edit ] January 12 – Murphy J. Foster , U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1901 to 1913 (died 1921 ) January 29 – Newton C. Blanchard , U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1894 to 1897 (died 1922 ) March 2 – Robert Means Thompson , naval officer (died 1930 ) March 7 – Luther Burbank , biologist (died 1926 ) March 10 – Mary Evelyn Hitchcock , author and explorer (died 1920 ) March 17 – Cornelia Clapp , marine biologist (died 1934 )[3] April 3 – Walter Guion , U.S. Senator from Louisiana in 1918 (died 1927 ) April 17 – William R. Day , politician and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (died 1923 ) April 19 – John Uri Lloyd , pharmacist and science fiction author (died 1936 ) April 30 – Jennie Tuttle Hobart , Second Lady of the United States as wife of Garret Hobart (died 1941 ) May 19 – John Hubbard , admiral (died 1932 ) June 30 – William Joseph Deboe , U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1897 to 1903 (died 1927) July 22 – Emma Lazarus , poet (died 1887 ) August 9 – John P. Young , managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle (died 1921 ) August 12 – Abbott Handerson Thayer , painter, naturalist and teacher (died 1921) August 23 – William Stanley West , U.S. Senator from Georgia in 1914 (died 1914 ) September 3 – Sarah Orne Jewett , Maine fiction writer (died 1909 )[4] September 18 – Martha Place , murderer (first woman executed in the electric chair , 1899 ) October 3 – Jeannette Leonard Gilder , author and editor (died 1916 ) October 7 – James Whitcomb Riley , dialect poet (died 1916 ) November 19 – Grace Denio Litchfield , poet and novelist (died 1944 ) December 6 December 12 – William Kissam Vanderbilt , railroad magnate (died 1920 ) December 16 – Mary Hartwell Catherwood , author and poet (died 1902 )[5] * December 19 – Henry Clay Frick , industrialist and art collector (died 1919 ) December 20 Ellen Eglin , inventor Emma Curtis Hopkins , spiritual writer (died 1925) James K. Polk January 30 – Jonathan Alder , settler (born 1773 ) March 17 – Ann Gerry , Second Lady of the United States from 1813 to 1814 as wife of Elbridge Gerry (born 1763 ) July 12 – Dolley Madison , First Lady of the United States from 1809 to 1817 as wife of James Madison (born 1768 ) June 15 – James K. Polk , 11th president of the United States from 1845 to 1849 (born 1795 ) July 30 – Jacob Perkins , inventor, mechanical engineer, and physicist (born 1766 ) August 23 – Edward Hicks , folk painter and Quaker preacher (born 1780 ) October 7 – Edgar Allan Poe , author, poet, editor and literary critic (born 1809 ) October 22 – William Miller , Baptist preacher, leader of the Second Advent Movement (born 1782 ) Robert Cary Long, Jr. , architect working in Baltimore (born 1810 ) See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] ^ "Plank Roads Chartered in North Carolina" . North Carolina Business History . 2006. Archived from the original on March 29, 2017. Retrieved May 10, 2013 . ^ "Railroads — prior to the Civil War" . North Carolina Business History . 2006. Archived from the original on July 26, 2011. Retrieved May 10, 2013 . ^ Reynolds, Moira Davison (2004). American Women Scientists: 23 Inspiring Biographies, 1900-2000 . Jefferson NC: McFarland. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-78642-161-9 . ^ James, Edward T.; Wilson James, Janet; Boyer, Paul S. (1971). Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 274. ISBN 978-0-67462-731-4 . ^ Robert, Price (1971). "Catherwood, Mary Hartwell". In James, Edward T. (ed.). Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary . Vol. 1. p. 308. ISBN 978-0-67462-734-5 . External links [ edit ]