1839 in the United States

Events from the year 1839 in the United States.

Federal government

 * President: Martin Van Buren (D-New York)
 * Vice President: Richard M. Johnson (D-Kentucky)
 * Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
 * Speaker of the House of Representatives:
 * James K. Polk (D-Tennessee) (until March 4)
 * Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter (W-Virginia) (starting December 16)


 * Congress: 25th (until March 4), 26th (starting March 4)

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

Governors

 * Governor of Alabama: Arthur P. Bagby (Democratic)
 * Governor of Arkansas: James Sevier Conway (Democratic)
 * Governor of Connecticut: William W. Ellsworth (Whig)
 * Governor of Delaware: Cornelius P. Comegys (Whig)
 * Governor of Georgia: George R. Gilmer (Whig) (until November 6), Charles J. McDonald (Democratic) (starting November 6)
 * Governor of Illinois: Thomas Carlin (Democratic)
 * Governor of Indiana: David Wallace (Whig)
 * Governor of Kentucky: James Clark (Whig) (until August 27), Charles A. Wickliffe (Whig) (starting August 27)
 * Governor of Louisiana: Edward Douglass White Sr. (Whig) (until February 4), André B. Roman (Whig) (starting February 4)
 * Governor of Maine: Edward Kent (Whig) (until January 2), John Fairfield (Democratic) (starting January 2)
 * Governor of Maryland: Thomas W. Veazey (Whig) (until January 7), William Grason (Democratic) (starting January 7)
 * Governor of Massachusetts: Edward Everett (Whig)
 * Governor of Michigan: Stevens T. Mason (Democratic)
 * Governor of Mississippi:Alexander G. McNutt (Democratic)
 * Governor of Missouri: Lilburn W. Boggs (Democratic)
 * Governor of New Hampshire: Isaac Hill (Democratic) (until June 5), John Page (Democratic) (starting June 5)
 * Governor of New Jersey: William Pennington (Whig)
 * Governor of New York: William H. Seward (Whig) (starting January 1)
 * Governor of North Carolina: Edward Bishop Dudley (Whig)
 * Governor of Ohio: Wilson Shannon (Democratic)
 * Governor of Pennsylvania: Joseph Ritner (Anti-Masonic) (until January 15), David R. Porter (Democratic) (starting January 15)
 * Governor of Rhode Island: William Sprague III (Democratic) (until May 2), Samuel Ward King (Rhode Island) (starting May 2)
 * Governor of South Carolina: Patrick Noble (Democratic)
 * Governor of Tennessee: Newton Cannon (Whig) (until October 14), James K. Polk (Democratic) (starting October 14)
 * Governor of Vermont: Silas H. Jennison (Whig)
 * Governor of Virginia: David Campbell (Democratic)

Lieutenant governors

 * Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Charles Hawley (Whig)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Stinson Anderson (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: David Hillis (Whig)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Charles A. Wickliffe (Democratic-Republican) (until August 27), vacant (starting August 27)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: George Hull (political party unknown)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Franklin Cannon (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of New York: Luther Bradish (Democratic) (starting January 1)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Joseph Childs (political party unknown) (until May 2), vacant (starting May 2)
 * Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Barnabas Kelet Henagan (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: David M. Camp (Whig)
 * }

Events

 * February 11 – The University of Missouri is established in Columbia, Missouri, becoming the first public university west of the Mississippi River.
 * March 5 – Longwood University is founded in Farmville, Virginia.
 * March 7 – Baltimore City College, the third public high school in the United States, is established in Baltimore, Maryland.
 * March 23 – The Boston Morning Post first records the use of "OK".
 * August 8 – The Beta Theta Pi fraternity is founded in Oxford, Ohio.
 * September 9 – In the Great Fire of Mobile, Alabama hundreds of buildings are burned.
 * October – Robert Cornelius takes the first photographic self portrait in the United States.
 * November 11 – The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
 * November 27 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded.

Undated

 * The first U.S. state law permitting women to own property is passed in Jackson, Mississippi.
 * Episcopal High School, Alexandria, Virginia, is founded, the first in the state.

Ongoing

 * Second Seminole War (1835–1842)

Births

 * February 9 – Laura Redden Searing, deaf poet and journalist (died 1923)
 * March 9 – Phoebe Knapp, hymn writer (d. 1908)
 * April 7 – David Baird, Ireland-born U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1918 to 1919 (died 1927)
 * July 8 – John D. Rockefeller, oil industry business magnate and philanthropist (died 1937)
 * August 1 – Middleton P. Barrow, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1882 to 1883 (died 1903)
 * August 23 – George Clement Perkins, U.S. Senator from California from 1893 to 1915 (died 1923)
 * August 26 – Hernando Money, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1897 to 1911 (died 1912)
 * September 2 – Henry George, writer, politician and political economist (died 1897)
 * September 10 – Charles Sanders Peirce, philosopher, logician, scientist, and founder of pragmatism (died 1912)
 * September 13 – Thomas J. Mastin, Confederate captain and lawyer (d. 1861)
 * September 18 – William J. McConnell, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1890 to 1891 (died 1925)
 * September 28 – Frances Willard, American educator, temperance reformer and women's suffragist (died 1898)
 * September 29 – James Kimbrough Jones, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1885 to 1903 (died 1908)
 * October 20 – Augustus Octavius Bacon, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1895 to 1914 (died 1914)
 * November 4 – Thomas M. Patterson, Ireland-born U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1901 to 1907 (died 1916)
 * December 5 – George Armstrong Custer, U.S. Army Officer and Cavalry Commander from Ohio from 1861 to 1876 (died 1876)
 * December 12 – Caroline Ingalls (b. Caroline Lake Quiner), American pioneer, mother of author Laura Ingalls Wilder (died 1924)

Deaths

 * January 14 – John Wesley Jarvis, portrait painter (born c.1781 in Great Britain)
 * February 26 – Sybil Ludington, heroine of the American Revolutionary War (born 1761)
 * April 1 – Benjamin Pierce, governor of New Hampshire from 1827 to 1828 and from 1829 to 1830, father of the 14th president of the United States, Franklin Pierce (born 1757)
 * April 2 – Hezekiah Niles, magazine publisher (born 1777)
 * April 5 – John Tipton, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1832 to 1839 (born 1786)
 * April 22 – Samuel Smith, U.S. Senator from Maryland from 1822 to 1833 (born 1752)
 * May 11 – Thomas Cooper, political philosopher (born 1759)
 * June 10 – Nathaniel Hale Pryor, sergeant in the Lewis and Clark Expedition (born 1772)
 * July 16 – The Bowl (Di'wali), Cherokee chief, shot (born c.1756)
 * August 22 – Benjamin Lundy, abolitionist (born 1789)
 * September 28 – William Dunlap, actor-manager, dramatist and painter (born 1766)
 * December 4 – John Leamy, merchant (born 1757 in Ireland)