1868 in the United States
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Events from the year 1868 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
- President: Andrew Johnson (D-Tennessee)
- Vice President: vacant
- Chief Justice: Salmon P. Chase (Ohio)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: Schuyler Colfax (R-Indiana)
- Congress: 40th
Events
January–March
- January 6 – Asa Mercer and a number of new "Mercer Girls" sail from Massachusetts for the West Coast, arriving in Seattle on May 23.
- January 9 – John William De Forest, writing for The Nation, calls for a more specifically American literature; the essay's title, "The Great American Novel", is the first known use of the term.
- February – The Benjamin Franklin "Z Grill" postage stamp is issued; it will be among the rarest ever.
- February 16 – In New York City the Jolly Corks organization is renamed the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE).
- February 24
- Edwin M. Stanton, the House of Representatives votes 126 to 47 in favor of a resolution to impeach Andrew Johnson, the first of three presidents to be impeached by the full House. Johnson is later acquitted by the Senate in his impeachment trial.
- The first New Orleans, Louisiana.
- March 1 – The Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity is founded at the University of Virginia.
- March 5 – A court of impeachment is organized in the United States Senate to hear charges against President Andrew Johnson in an impeachment trial.
- March 23 – The University of California is founded in Oakland, California, when the Organic Act is signed into California law.
- March 27 – The Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company is organized in Oswego, New York.
April–June
- April 1 – The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute is established in Hampton, Virginia.
- April 29 – After pursuing a policy of total war on the Plain Indians, General William Tecumseh Sherman brokers the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868).
- May 9 – The city of Reno, Nevada is founded.
- May 16 and 26 – President Andrew Johnson is acquitted during his impeachment trial by one vote in the United States Senate.
- May 30 – Memorial Day is observed in the United States for the first time (it was proclaimed on May 5 by General John A. Logan).
- June 3 – Crown Point, Indiana is incorporated a town.
- June 25 – Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina are all readmitted to the U.S.
- June 27 – Lowell, Indiana is incorporated a town.
July–September
- July 25 – Wyoming Territory is organized.
- July 28 – The African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due processof law.
- September – The first volume of Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women is published.
- September 18 – The University of the South holds its first convocation in Sewanee, Tennessee.
- September 23 – Rebels (some 400–600) in the town of Lares declare Puerto Rico independent; the local militia defeats them a week later.
October–December
- October 6 – Mount Sinai Hospital a 99-year lease for a property on Lexington Avenue and 66th Street, for the sum of $1.00.
- October 7 – Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, is opened, with an initial enrollment of 412 men the following day.
- October 21 – The M6.3–6.7 Mercalli intensityof IX (Violent), causing damage from Santa Rosa to Santa Cruz.
- October 28 – Thomas Edison applies for his first patent, the electric vote recorder.
- November 3 – U.S. presidential election, 1868: Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horatio Seymourin the election.
- November 25 – The Alpha Tau Omega fraternity is founded at the University of Virginia.[1]
- November 27 – Chief Black Kettle, killing 103 Cheyenne.
- December 25 – President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War rebels.
Undated
- Maryland School for the Deaf is established.
- The Apostolic Vicariate of Arizona in 1868, taking its territory from the former Diocese of Santa Fe. The Diocese of Tucson is canonically erected on May 8, 1897.
Ongoing
- Reconstruction era(1865–1877)
Births
- January 31 – Theodore William Richards, chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1914 (died 1928)
- February 3 – William J. Harris, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1919 to 1932 (died 1932)
- February 5 – Maxine Elliott, actress and businesswoman (died 1940 in France)
- February 10 – William Allen White, journalist (died 1944)
- February 16 – John Rogan, second tallest person in recorded history (died 1905)
- February 20 – John Nathan Cobb, author, naturalist, conservationist, fisheries researcher and educator (died 1930)
- February 23 – W. E. B. Du Bois, African American civil rights leader (died 1963)
- April 6 – Helen Hyde, etcher and engraver (died 1919)
- April 8 – Herbert Spencer Jennings, zoologist (died 1947)
- April 12
- Annie Stevens Perkins, author (unknown year of death)
- Ella Gaunt Smith, doll-maker (died 1932)
- April 21 – Alfred Henry Maurer, modernist painter (suicide 1932)
- April 28 – Hélène de Pourtalès, born Helen Barbey, Olympic sailor (died 1945 in Switzerland)
- March 22 – Robert Millikan, physicist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923 (died 1953)
- May 2 – Robert W. Wood, optical physicist (died 1955)
- May 10 – Ed Barrow, baseball player and manager (died 1953)
- June 4 – Thomas F. Bayard, Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1922 to 1929 (died 1942)
- June 8 – Robert Robinson Taylor, first accredited African American architect (died 1942)
- June 28 – John F. Nugent, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1918 to 1921 (died 1931)
- July 4 – Henrietta Swan Leavitt, astronomer (died 1921)[2]
- August 21 – Vess Ossman, ragtime banjo player (died 1923)
- August 23 – Edgar Lee Masters, poet, biographer, dramatist and lawyer (died 1950)
- September 8 – Seth Weeks, African American jazz mandolin player, composer, arranger and bandleader (died 1953)
- September 9 – Mary Hunter Austin, writer (died 1934)
- September 11 – Henry Justin Allen, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1929 to 1931 (died 1950)
- September 22 – John T. Raulston, state judge (died 1956)
- October 8 – Coleman Livingston Blease, U.S. Senator from South Carolina from 1925 to 1931 (died 1942)
- October 10 – Anne Hazen McFarland, physician and medical journal editor (unknown year of death)
- November 3 – Harry Grant Dart, cartoonist (died 1938)[3]
- November 22 – vice president of the United States from 1933 to 1941 (died 1967)
- November 23 – Mary Brewster Hazelton, portrait painter (died 1953)
- November 24 – Scott Joplin, African American ragtime composer and pianist (died 1917)
- December 14 – Louise Hammond Willis Snead, artist, writer, and composer (died 1958)
- December 17 – Frederic M. Sackett, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1925 to 1930 (died 1941)
- December 19 – Eleanor H. Porter, novelist (died 1920)
- December 25 – Eugenie Besserer, silent film actress (died 1934)
- date unknown – Luther Standing Bear, Native American film actor (died 1939)
Deaths
- March 4
- Richard H. Bayard, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1841 to 1845 (born 1796)
- Jesse Chisholm, pioneer (born c. 1805)
- May 10 – Henry Bennett, politician (born 1808)
- May 23 – Kit Carson, trapper, scout and Indian agent (born 1809)
- May 24 – Emanuel Leutze, history painter (born 1816 in Germany)
- May 31 – John J. McRae, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1851 to 1852 (born 1815)
- June 1 – James Buchanan, 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861 (born 1791)
- June 6 – Daniel Pierce Thompson, novelist and lawyer (born 1795)
- June 15 – Warren Ives Bradley, children's author (born 1847)
- June 22 – Heber C. Kimball, Latter Day Saint leader (born 1801)
- July 15 – William T. G. Morton, pioneer of anaesthesia (born 1819)
- July 7 – Edward Coles, planter, politician and the second governor of Illinois (born 1786)
- August 11 – Thaddeus Stevens, politician (born 1792)
- September 17 – Hook Nose, Northern Cheyenne warrior (born c.1823)
- September 19 – William Sprague, minister and politician from Michigan (born 1809)
- October 9 – Howell Cobb, politician (born 1815)
- November 27 – Black Kettle, Southern Cheyenne Peace Chief (born 1803)
- December 25 – Linus Yale, Jr., inventor (born 1821)
See also
References
External links
- Media related to 1868 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons