1854 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President: Franklin Pierce
• Vice President: vacant
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Linn Boyd
• Congress: 33rd

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–June

• January 4 - Senator Stephen Douglas introduces a bill to form the Nebraska Territory. The bill sparked major debates related to slavery issues and evolved into the Kansas–Nebraska Act.
• February 14 - Texas is linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, when a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas is completed.
• February 28 - The Black Warrior Affair: A ship destined for New York City is detained in Havana, Cuba. The incident strains U.S.–Spanish relations.
• March 20
• * Anti-slavery opponents of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in Ripon, Wisconsin form the Republican Party.
• * The Boston Public Library opens to the public.
• March 30 - Battle of Cieneguilla: The U.S. First Regiment of Dragoons attacks a larger force of Jicarilla Apache and Ute Native Americans near present-day Pilar, New Mexico. The Americans are forced to retreat after losing more than half their number.
• March 31 - Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy signs the Treaty/Convention of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
• April 16 - The American packet ship Powhattan is wrecked off the shore of New Jersey with a loss of more than 200 lives.
• May - Elisha Otis publicly debuts his safety elevator at the New York World's Fair.
• May 24 – Slave Runaway Anthony Burns is arrested in Boston, MA and soon thereafter shipped back to Virginia–back into a life of slavery. Abolitionists of the North would be infuriated.
• May 27 - Taiping Rebellion: United States minister Robert McLane arrives at Nanjing aboard the U.S. Navy warship USS Susquehanna.
• May 30 - The Kansas–Nebraska Act is signed into law, creating Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory, opening new lands, repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and allowing settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery within their boundaries.
• June 10 - The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduates at Annapolis, Maryland.

  July–December

• July 4 – Henry David Thoreau delivers his fierce speech, Slavery in Massachusetts in Framingham, MA, harping on American politicians and journalists, all the while calling for action against the injustice of slavery within the Union.
• July 6 - In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the Republican Party is held.
• July 8 - An anti-Catholic riot in Bath, Maine, destroys a church used by Irish Catholics.
• July 13 - Bombardment of San Juan del Norte: The USS Cyane attacks San Juan del Norte, Nicaragua.
• August 7–8 - Know Nothings riot against immigrants in St. Louis, Missouri, leading to 10 deaths.
• August 9 - Walden first published.
• August 19 - Grattan massacre: A group of U.S. Army soldiers in Nebraska Territory are killed by Lakota Sioux warriors after they killed Chief Conquering Bear, starting the First Sioux War.
• September 28 or 29 - Sloop is lost off the coast of Venezuela with all hands.
• October 1 - The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury, Massachusetts by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham to become the Waltham Watch Company, pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
• October 9–11 - The controversial Ostend Manifesto is secretly drafted. The document implies that the U.S. should acquire Cuba from Spain by any means necessary.
• October 16 - Abraham Lincoln, in his "Peoria speech", expresses opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Popular Sovereignty, and slavery in the United States.
• November 29 - Bleeding Kansas: A pro-slavery Democrat, John Wilkins Whitfield, is elected as the Congressional Delegate for Kansas Territory.
• December 26 - The Treaty of Medicine Creek is signed in Washington Territory. The U.S. acquires land from various Native American tribes and in return creates three reservations.

  Undated

• Professor Benjamin Silliman, Jr. of Yale University, using the fractional distillation process developed by his father, Benjamin Silliman Sr, now becomes the first person to fractionate petroleum into its individual components by distillation. Thus, petroleum products like gasoline and kerosene are first produced.
• Waterbury, Connecticut brass manufacturer Benedict & Burnham Manufacturing Company create the department, and eventual independent company, Waterbury Clock Company. This becomes the predecessor of the modern-day Timex Group USA, manufacturer of timepieces.
• Achulet massacre: More than 65 Tolowa people are killed by settlers in California.

  Ongoing

• California Gold Rush
• Bleeding Kansas

  Births

• January 1 - Louis Saint-Gaudens, sculptor
• January 9 - Lady Randolph Churchill, born Jennie Jerome, American-born British socialite and mother of Winston Churchill
• January 29 - Fred Baker, physician and naturalist
• February 2 - Emily Elizabeth Holman, architect
• March 14 - Thomas R. Marshall, 28th Vice President of the United States from 1913 to 1921
• May 11 - Albion Woodbury Small, sociologist
• May 24 - John Riley Banister, law officer and Texas Ranger
• June 9 - John F. Shafroth, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1913 to 1919
• June 14 - Dave Rudabaugh, outlaw and gunfighter
• June 24 - Eleanor Norcross, painter
• July 3/4 - King O'Malley, politician in Australia
• July 12 - George Eastman, photographic inventor
• July 23 - Birt Acres, cinematographic inventor
• July 30 - John Sharp Williams, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1911 to 1923
• August 2 - Francis Marion Crawford, novelist
• August 18 - James Paul Clarke, 18th Governor of Arkansas from 1895 to 1897 and U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1903 to 1916
• October 3 - William C. Gorgas, physician, Surgeon General
• October 26 - C. W. Post, cereal manufacturer
• October 31 - Laton Alton Huffman, photographer of the American frontier and Native American life
• November 6 - John Philip Sousa, composer and conductor
• November 13 - George Whitefield Chadwick, composer
• December 16 - Austin M. Knight, admiral
• December 25 - Ida Dixon, socialite and golf course architect

  Deaths

• January 18 - Robert M. Charlton, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1852 to 1853
• March 11 - Willard Richards, religious leader
• April 6 - William Strickland, architect and civil engineer
• April 30 - William Matthews, first American-born Roman Catholic priest
• July 31 - Samuel Wilson, meat-packer thought to be the real-life basis for Uncle Sam
• August 14 - Solomon W. Downs, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1847 to 1853
• August 19 - Conquering Bear, Lakota chief
• August 21 - Thomas Clayton, lawyer, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1824 to 1827 and from 1837 to 1847
• August 29 - John Black, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1832 to 1838
• October 8 - Gideon Tomlinson, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1831 to 1837
• October 28 - James P. Carrell, composer and songbook compiler
• November 9 - Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, wife of Alexander Hamilton, co-founder and deputy director of the first private orphanage in New York City
• December 28 - James Morehead, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1841 to 1847
• Full date unknown - Henry Bibb, author and abolitionist, born a slave