1840 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President: Martin Van Buren
• Vice President: Richard M. Johnson
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter
• Congress: 26th

  Governors

• Governor of Alabama: Arthur P. Bagby
• Governor of Arkansas: James Sevier Conway , Archibald Yell
• Governor of Connecticut: William W. Ellsworth
• Governor of Delaware: Cornelius P. Comegys
• Governor of Georgia: Charles J. McDonald
• Governor of Illinois: Thomas Carlin
• Governor of Indiana: David Wallace , Samuel Bigger
• Governor of Kentucky: Charles A. Wickliffe , Robert P. Letcher
• Governor of Louisiana: André B. Roman
• Governor of Maine: John Fairfield
• Governor of Maryland: William Grason
• Governor of Massachusetts: Edward Everett , Marcus Morton
• Governor of Michigan: Stevens T. Mason , William Woodbridge
• Governor of Mississippi: Alexander G. McNutt
• Governor of Missouri: Lilburn W. Boggs , Thomas Reynolds
• Governor of New Hampshire: John Page
• Governor of New Jersey: William Pennington
• Governor of New York: William H. Seward
• Governor of North Carolina: Edward Bishop Dudley
• Governor of Ohio: Wilson Shannon , Thomas Corwin
• Governor of Pennsylvania: David R. Porter
• Governor of Rhode Island: Samuel Ward King
• Governor of South Carolina:
• * until April 7: Patrick Noble
• * April 7-December 9: Barnabas Kelet Henagan
• * starting December 9: John Peter Richardson II
• Governor of Tennessee: James K. Polk
• Governor of Vermont: Silas H. Jennison
• Governor of Virginia: David Campbell , Thomas Walker Gilmer

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Charles Hawley
• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: David Hillis , Samuel Hall
• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Stinson Anderson
• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant, Manlius Valerius Thomson
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: George Hull
• Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Edward Mundy , James Wright Gordon
• Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Franklin Cannon , Meredith Miles Marmaduke
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: Luther Bradish
• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: vacant, Byron Diman
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina:
• * until April 7: Barnabas Kelet Henagan
• * April 7-December 9: vacant
• * starting December 9: William K. Clowney
• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: David M. Camp

  Events

• January 13-14 - The steamship Lexington burns and sinks in icy waters, 4 miles off the coast of Long Island; 139 die, only 4 survive.
• January 19 - Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what becomes known as Wilkes Land for the United States.
• March 4 - Alexander S. Wolcott and John Johnson open their "Daguerreian Parlor" on Broadway, the world's first commercial photography portrait studio.
• March 9 - The Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad is completed from Wilmington, North Carolina to Weldon, North Carolina. At 161.5 miles, it is the world's longest railroad.
• April - The Raleigh and Gaston Railroad is completed from Raleigh, North Carolina to near Weldon, North Carolina.
• May 7 - The Great Natchez Tornado: A massive tornado strikes Natchez, Mississippi during the early afternoon hours. Before it is over, 317 people are killed and 109 injured. It is the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history.
• November 7 - U.S. presidential election, 1840: William Henry Harrison defeats Martin Van Buren.

  Ongoing

• Second Seminole War

  Births

• January 1 - Patrick Walsh, Irish-born U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1894 to 1895
• January 29 - Henry H. Rogers, financier
• February 4 - Hiram Stevens Maxim, firearms inventor
• February 9 - William T. Sampson, U.S. Navy admiral
• March 5 - Constance Fenimore Woolson, fiction writer and poet
• April 28 - Caroline Shawk Brooks, sculptor
• May 4 - George Gray, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1885 to 1899
• June 3 - Michael O'Laughlen, conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865
• June 6 - William Dudley Chipley, railroad tycoon and statesman
• June 14 - William F. Nast, attaché, railroad executive and inventor
• June 27 - Alpheus Beede Stickney, railroad executive
• July 21 - Christian Abraham Fleetwood, Union Army 4th Colored Infantry Regiment soldier and Medal of Honor recipient
• August 25 - George C. Magoun, railroad executive
• August 28 - Ira D. Sankey, gospel singer and composer
• September 10 - William B. Avery, Union Army soldier and Medal of Honor recipient
• September 22 - D. M. Canright, Seventh-day Adventist minister and author, later one of the church's severest critics
• September 27 - Alfred Thayer Mahan, U.S. Navy admiral, geostrategist and historian
• September 23 - Simon B. Conover, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1873 to 1879
• October 1 - Anthony Higgins, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1889 to 1895
• October 24 - Eliza Pollock, American archer
• November 24 - John Brashear, astronomer
• Earliest probable date - Crazy Horse, Chief of the Oglala Lakota

  Deaths

• March 11 - George Wolf, politician
• March 23 - William Maclure, geologist
• April 7 - Thaddeus Betts, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1839 to 1840
• August 10 - Seymour Brunson, early Mormon convert
• August 27 - William Kneass, second Chief Engraver of the United States Mint from 1824 to 1840
• September 14 - Joseph Smith Sr., 1st Presiding Patriarch of the Latter Day Saint movement
• June 14 - Anson Brown, lawyer and U.S. Representative from New York from 1839 to 1840