1851 in the United States
Events from the year 1851 in the United States.Incumbents
Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government
Lieutenant Governors
Events
January–March
- January 15 - Christian Female College, later Columbia College, receives its charter from the Missouri General Assembly.
- January 23 - The flip of a coin determines whether a new city in the Oregon Territory is named after Boston, Massachusetts, or Portland, Maine, with Portland winning.
- January 28 - The Illinois General Assembly grants a charter to create Northwestern University.
April–June
- April 9 - San Luis, the oldest permanent settlement in the state of Colorado, is founded by settlers from Taos, New Mexico.
- April 28 - Santa Clara College is chartered in Santa Clara, California.
- May-August - The Great Flood of 1851 causes extensive damage in the Midwest; the town of Des Moines is virtually destroyed.
- May 6 - John Gorrie of Apalachicola, Florida is granted Patent .
- May 15 – Alpha Delta Pi sorority, the first secret society for women, is founded at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.
- May 29 - Sojourner Truth delivers the first version of her "Ain't I a Woman?" speech, at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
July–September
- July 10 - The University of the Pacific is chartered as California Wesleyan College in Santa Clara, California.
- August 1 - Virginia closes its Reform Constitutional Convention deciding that all white men have the right to vote.
- August 22 - The yacht America of the New York Yacht Club wins the first America's Cup race, off the coast of England.
- September 15 - Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- September 18 - The New York Times is founded.
October–December
- October 15 - The City of Winona, Minnesota is founded.
- November 13 - The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what later becomes Seattle, Washington.
- November 14 - Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; or The Whale is published in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers, New York, after being first published on October 18 in London by Richard Bentley, in 3 volumes as The Whale.
- December 29 - The first YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
Undated
- Western Union is founded as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company.
- House sparrows first released in the U.S., in Brooklyn.
- Stephen Foster's minstrel song "Old Folks at Home" is first published.
Ongoing
- California Gold Rush
Births
- January 17 - A. B. Frost, illustrator
- January 19 - David Starr Jordan, ichthyologist, educator, eugenicist and peace activist
- January 24 - Marcus A. Smith, U.S. Senator from Arizona from 1912 to 1921
- February 2 - Ella Giles Ruddy, author and essayist
- February 13 - Joseph B. Murdock, U.S. Navy admiral and New Hampshire politician
- March 14 - John Sebastian Little, politician, congressman
- March 19 - William Henry Stark, business leader
- March 26 - John Eisenmann, Cleveland architect
- April 13
- * Robert Abbe, surgeon
- * Helen M. Winslow, editor, author and publisher
- May 14 - Anna Laurens Dawes, author and suffragist
- May 15 - Lillian Resler Keister Harford, church organizer and editor
- May 21 - Moses E. Clapp, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1901 to 1917
- May 29 - Fred Dubois, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1891 to 1897 and from 1901 to 1907
- June 24 - Stuyvesant Fish, entrepreneur
- August 12 - Frank O. Briggs, U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1907 to 1913
- August 14 - Doc Holliday, born John H. Holliday, gunfighter, gambler and dentist
- September 7 - David King Udall, politician
- September 13 - Walter Reed, army physician, bacteriologist
- October 5 - Thomas Pollock Anshutz, painter and educator
- October 13 - Charles Sprague Pearce, painter
- October 20 - George Gandy, entrepreneur
- November 16
- * Minnie Hauk, operatic soprano
- * William Elbridge Sewell, naval officer and Governor of Guam
- December 9 - Thomas H. Paynter, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1907 to 1913
- December 10 - Melvil Dewey, born Melville Dewey, librarian
- December 30 - Asa Griggs Candler, businessman and politician
- Albery Allson Whitman, African American poet
Deaths
- January 17 - Thomas Lincoln, farmer and father of the President of the United States Abraham Lincoln
- January 27 - John James Audubon, naturalist and illustrator
- January 31 - David Spangler Kaufman, Congressman from Texas
- February 3 - Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, Congressman from Massachusetts, secretary of U.S. Navy
- March 11 - George McDuffie, 55th Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1846
- May 3 - Thomas Hickman Williams, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1838 to 1839
- May 22 - Mordecai Manuel Noah, Jewish playwright, diplomat, journalist and utopian
- July 6 - Thomas Davenport, electrical engineer
- August 24 - James McDowell, politician
- September 10 - Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, minister, educator, co-founder of the first permanent school for the deaf in North America
- September 11 - Sylvester Graham, nutritionist and inventor
- September 14 - James Fenimore Cooper, historical novelist
- September 24 - Lucius Lyon, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1843 to 1845
- November - Willis Buell, politician and portrait painter
