1825 in the United States

The following are events from the year 1825 in the United States.

Federal government

 * President:
 * James Monroe (DR-Virginia) (until March 4)
 * John Quincy Adams (DR/NR-Massachusetts) (starting March 4)


 * Vice President:
 * Daniel D. Tompkins (DR-New York) (until March 4)
 * John C. Calhoun (D-South Carolina) (starting March 4)


 * Chief Justice: John Marshall (Virginia)
 * Speaker of the House of Representatives:
 * Henry Clay (DR-Kentucky) (until March 4)
 * John W. Taylor (DR-New York) (starting December 5)


 * Congress: 18th (until March 4), 19th (starting March 4)

{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" ! Governors and lieutenant governors

Governors

 * Governor of Alabama: Israel Pickens (Democratic-Republican) (until November 25), John Murphy (Democratic) (starting November 25)
 * Governor of Connecticut: Oliver Wolcott Jr. (Toleration)
 * Governor of Delaware: Samuel Paynter (Federalist)
 * Governor of Georgia: George M. Troup (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of Illinois: Edward Coles (Independent)
 * Governor of Indiana: William Hendricks (Democratic-Republican) (until February 12), James B. Ray (Independent) (starting February 12)
 * Governor of Kentucky: Joseph Desha (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of Louisiana: Henry Johnson (National Republican)
 * Governor of Maine: Albion K. Parris (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of Maryland: Samuel Stevens Jr. (Democratic)
 * Governor of Massachusetts:
 * until February 6: William Eustis (Democratic-Republican)
 * February 6-May 26: Marcus Morton (Democratic-Republican)
 * starting May 26: Levi Lincoln Jr. (National Republican)
 * Governor of Mississippi: Walter Leake (Democratic-Republican) (until November 17), Gerard Brandon (Democratic) (starting November 17)
 * Governor of Missouri: Frederick Bates (Democratic-Republican) (until August 4), Abraham J. Williams (Democratic-Republican) (starting August 4)
 * Governor of New Hampshire: David L. Morril (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of New Jersey: Isaac Halstead Williamson (Federalist)
 * Governor of New York: DeWitt Clinton (Democratic-Republican) (starting January 1)
 * Governor of North Carolina: Hutchins Gordon Burton (no political party)
 * Governor of Ohio: Jeremiah Morrow (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of Pennsylvania: John Andrew Shulze (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of Rhode Island: James Fenner (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of South Carolina: Richard Irvine Manning I (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of Tennessee: William Carroll (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of Vermont: Cornelius P. Van Ness (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of Virginia: James Pleasants (Democratic-Republican) (until December 10), John Tyler (Democratic-Republican) (starting December 10)

Lieutenant governors

 * Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: David Plant (National Republican)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Adolphus Hubbard (Democratic-Republican)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: John H. Thompson (Democratic-Republican)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Robert B. McAfee (political party unknown)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Marcus Morton (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), vacant (starting month and day unknown)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Gerard C. Brandon (no political party)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Benjamin Harrison Reeves (Democratic-Republican) (until July), vacant (starting July)
 * Lieutenant Governor of New York: vacant (until January 1), James Tallmadge Jr. (Democratic-Republican) (starting January 1)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Charles Collins (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown)
 * Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: William Bull (Democratic-Republican)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Aaron Leland (Democratic-Republican)
 * }

January–March

 * January 10 – Indianapolis becomes the capital of Indiana (moved from Corydon, Indiana).
 * February 9 – After no presidential candidate receives a majority of U.S. Electoral College votes, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as President of the United States in a contingent election.
 * February 12 – Treaty of Indian Springs: The Lower Creek Council, led by William McIntosh, cedes a large amount of Creek territory in Georgia to the United States government.
 * March 4 – John Quincy Adams is sworn in as the sixth president of the United States, and John C. Calhoun is sworn in as the seventh vice president.
 * March 17 – The Norfolk & Dedham Group is founded as The Norfolk Mutual Fire Insurance Company.

April–June

 * April 30 – Upper Creek chief Menawa leads an attack that assassinates William McIntosh for signing the Treaty of Indian Springs.
 * May 11 – American Tract Society is founded.
 * June 3 – Kansa Nation cedes its territory to the United States (see History of Kansas).
 * June 11 – The first cornerstone is laid for Fort Hamilton in New York City.

July–September

 * July 14 – The Jefferson Literary and Debating Society is founded by 16 disgruntled members of the now-defunct Patrick Henry Society in Room 7, West Lawn, of the University of Virginia.
 * August 19 – First Treaty of Prairie du Chien at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin

October–December

 * October 25 – The Erie Canal opens, granting passage from Albany, New York to Lake Erie.
 * November 7 – Treaty of St. Louis: 1,400 Missouri Shawnees are forcibly relocated from Missouri to Kansas. (See History of Kansas)
 * November 12 – New Echota designated capital of the Cherokee Nation.
 * November 26 – At Union College in Schenectady, New York a group of college students form Kappa Alpha Society as the first college social fraternity (it is the first to combine aspects of secret Greek-letter societies, literary societies and formalized student social groups).

Undated

 * The Osage Nation cedes traditional lands by treaty.
 * The Cherokee Nation officially adopts Sequoyah's syllabary.
 * Vancouver, Washington is established by Dr. John McLoughlin on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company.
 * Ypsilanti, Michigan is established.
 * Vicksburg, Mississippi is incorporated.
 * New Harmony, Indiana established as a social experiment, built by the Harmony Society and sold to Robert Owen.
 * The United States Postal Service starts a dead letter office.
 * Centenary College of Louisiana is founded in Jackson, Louisiana. The campus later moves to Shreveport, Louisiana.

Ongoing

 * Era of Good Feelings (1817–1825)
 * John Neal publishing serially the first written history of American literature (1824–1825)

Births

 * January 5 – John Mason Loomis, lumber tycoon, Union militia colonel in the American Civil War and philanthropist (died 1900)
 * January 11
 * Clement V. Rogers, Cherokee politician and father of Will Rogers (died 1911)
 * Bayard Taylor, poet and travel writer (died 1878)
 * January 25 – George Pickett, Confederate general in the American Civil War (died 1876)
 * February 11 – Frank Pidgeon, baseball pitcher (died 1884)
 * April 7 – John H. Gear, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1895 to 1900 (died 1900)
 * April 17 – Jerome B. Chaffee, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1876 to 1879 (died 1886)
 * June 1 – John Hunt Morgan, Confederate general in the American Civil War (died 1864)
 * July 2 – Richard Henry Stoddard, critic and poet (died 1903)
 * July 10 – Benjamin Paul Akers, sculptor (died 1861)
 * July 15 – Joseph Carter Abbott, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1868 to 1871 (died 1881)
 * July 19 – George H. Pendleton, politician (died 1889)
 * August 7 – Jacob Wrey Mould, New York architect, illustrator, linguist and musician (died 1886)
 * August 10 – Edmund Spangler, carpenter and stagehand employed at Ford's Theatre at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (died 1875)
 * September 13 – William Henry Rinehart, sculptor (died 1874)
 * September 17 – Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II, politician and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (died 1893)
 * September 24 – Frances Harper, née Watkins, African American poet and abolitionist (died 1911)
 * October 8 – Paschal Beverly Randolph, occultist (died 1875)
 * November 9 – A. P. Hill, Confederate general (killed 1865 in the American Civil War)
 * December 18 – John S. Harris, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1868 to 1871 (died 1906)
 * December 30
 * Newton Booth, U.S. Senator from California from 1875 to 1881 (died 1892)
 * Samuel Newitt Wood, politician (died 1891)

Deaths

 * January 8 – Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin and milling machine (born 1765)
 * March 1 – John Haggin, "Indian fighter" and early settler of Kentucky (born 0420)
 * March 4 – Hercules Mulligan, tailor and spy during the American Revolutionary War (born 1740)
 * March 4 – Raphaelle Peale, still-life painter (born 1774)
 * June 1 – Daniel Tompkins, sixth vice president of the United States from 1817 to 1825 (born 1774)
 * June 4 – Morris Birkbeck, writer and social reformer (born 1764)
 * June 14 – Pierre Charles L'Enfant, architect and civil engineer (born 1754 in France)
 * August 16 – Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, politician and soldier (born 1746)
 * August 27 – Lucretia Maria Davidson, poet (born 1808; died of consumption)
 * December 28 – James Wilkinson, soldier and statesman (born 1757)