1851 in the United States

Events from the year 1851 in the United States.

Federal government

 * President: Millard Fillmore (W-New York)
 * Vice President: vacant
 * Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
 * Speaker of the House of Representatives:
 * Howell Cobb (D-Georgia) (until March 4)
 * Linn Boyd (D-Kentucky) (starting December 1)


 * Congress: 31st (until March 4), 32nd (starting March 4)

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

Governors
• Governor of Alabama: Henry W. Collier (Democratic)

• Governor of Arkansas: John Selden Roane (Democratic)

• Governor of California: Peter Hardeman Burnett (Democratic) (until January 9), John McDougall (Democratic) (starting January 9)

• Governor of Connecticut: Thomas H. Seymour (Democratic)

• Governor of Delaware: William Tharp (Democratic) (until January 21), William H. H. Ross (Democratic) (starting January 21)

• Governor of Florida: Thomas Brown (Whig)

• Governor of Georgia: George W. Towns (Democratic) (until November 5), Howell Cobb (Democratic) (starting November 5)

• Governor of Illinois: Augustus C. French (Democratic)

• Governor of Indiana: Joseph A. Wright (Democratic)

• Governor of Iowa: Stephen P. Hempstead (Democratic)

• Governor of Kentucky: John L. Helm (Democratic) (until September 2), Lazarus W. Powell (Democratic) (starting September 2)

• Governor of Louisiana: Joseph Marshall Walker (Democratic)

• Governor of Maine: John Hubbard (Democratic)

• Governor of Maryland: Philip F. Thomas (Democratic) (until January 6), Enoch Louis Lowe (Democratic) (starting January 6)

• Governor of Massachusetts: George N. Briggs (Democratic) (until January 11), George S. Boutwell (Democratic) (starting January 11)

• Governor of Michigan: John S. Barry (Democratic)

• Governor of Mississippi:

• * until February 3: John A. Quitman (Democratic)

• * February 3-November 4: John I. Guion (Democratic)

• * starting November 24: James Whitfield (Democratic)

• Governor of Missouri: Austin Augustus King (Democratic)

• Governor of New Hampshire: Samuel Dinsmoor, Jr. (Democratic)

• Governor of New Jersey: Daniel Haines (Democratic) (until January 21), George F. Fort (Democratic) (starting January 21)

• Governor of New York: Washington Hunt (Whig) (starting January 1)

• Governor of North Carolina: Charles Manly (Whig) (until January 1), David Settle Reid (Democratic) (starting January 1)

• Governor of Ohio: Reuben Wood (Democratic)

• Governor of Pennsylvania: William F. Johnston (Whig)

• Governor of Rhode Island: Henry B. Anthony (Whig) (until May 6), Philip Allen (Democratic) (starting May 6)

• Governor of South Carolina: John Hugh Means (Democratic)

• Governor of Tennessee: William Trousdale (Democratic) (until October 16), William B. Campbell (Whig) (starting October 16)

• Governor of Texas: Peter Hansborough Bell (Democratic)

• Governor of Vermont: Charles K. Williams (Whig)

• Governor of Virginia: John B. Floyd (Democratic)

• Governor of Wisconsin: Nelson Dewey (Democratic)

Lieutenant governors
• Lieutenant Governor of California: John McDougall (Democratic) (until January 9), David C. Broderick (Democratic) (starting January 9)

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Charles H. Pond (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Green Kendrick (Whig) (starting month and day unknown)

• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: William McMurtry (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: James H. Lane (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant (until September 2), John Burton Thompson (political party unknown) (starting September 2)

• Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Jean Baptiste Plauche (Whig)

• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: John Reed, Jr. (political party unknown) (until January 11), Henry W. Cushman (political party unknown) (starting January 11)

• Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: William M. Fenton (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), vacant (starting month and day unknown)

• Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Thomas Lawson Price (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of New York: Sanford E. Church (Democratic) (starting January 1)

• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Thomas Whipple (political party unknown) (until May 6), William Beach Lawrence (political party unknown) (starting May 6)

• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Joshua John Ward (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Texas: John Alexander Greer (Democratic) (until August 4), James Wilson Henderson (Democratic) (starting August 4)

• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Julius Converse (Whig)

• Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Samuel W. Beall (Democratic)
 * }

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 No. 8080 for a machine to make ice.
 * 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 3 – The filibustering Lopez Expedition departs New Orleans for Cuba.
 * 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.
 * Hope College is established in Holland, Michigan, as the Pioneer School by Dutch immigrants.

Ongoing

 * California Gold Rush (1848–1855)

Births

 * January 17 – A. B. Frost, illustrator (died 1928)
 * January 19 – David Starr Jordan, ichthyologist, educator, eugenicist and peace activist (died 1924)
 * January 24 – Marcus A. Smith, U.S. Senator from Arizona from 1912 to 1921 (died 1924)
 * February 2 – Ella Giles Ruddy, author and essayist (died 1917)
 * February 9 – Nora Trueblood Gause, humanitarian (died 1955)
 * February 13 – Joseph B. Murdock, U.S. Navy admiral and New Hampshire politician (died 1931)
 * March 14 – John Sebastian Little, politician, congressman (died 1916)
 * March 19 – William Henry Stark, business leader (died 1936)
 * March 26 – John Eisenmann, Cleveland architect (died 1924)
 * April 13
 * Robert Abbe, surgeon (died 1928)
 * Helen M. Winslow, editor, author and publisher (died 1938)
 * May 14 – Anna Laurens Dawes, author and suffragist (died 1938)
 * May 15 – Lillian Resler Keister Harford, church organizer and editor (died 1935)
 * May 21 – Moses E. Clapp, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1901 to 1917 (died 1929)
 * May 29 – Fred Dubois, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1891 to 1897 and from 1901 to 1907 (died 1930)
 * June 24 – Stuyvesant Fish, entrepreneur (died 1923)
 * August 12 – Frank O. Briggs, U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1907 to 1913 (died 1913)
 * August 14 – Doc Holliday, born John H. Holliday, gunfighter, gambler and dentist (died 1887)
 * September 7 – David King Udall, politician (died 1938)
 * September 13 – Walter Reed, army physician, bacteriologist (died 1902)
 * September 21 – Fanny Searls (died 1939), doctor and botanist.
 * October 5 – Thomas Pollock Anshutz, painter and educator (died 1912)
 * October 13 – Charles Sprague Pearce, painter (died 1914)
 * October 20 – George Gandy, entrepreneur (died 1946)
 * November 16
 * Minnie Hauk, operatic soprano (died 1929)
 * William Elbridge Sewell, naval officer and Governor of Guam (died 1904)
 * December 9 – Thomas H. Paynter, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1907 to 1913 (died 1921)
 * December 10 – Melvil Dewey, born Melville Dewey, librarian (died 1931)
 * December 30 – Asa Griggs Candler, businessman and politician (died 1929)
 * Albery Allson Whitman, African American poet (died 1901)

Deaths

 * January 17 – Thomas Lincoln, farmer and father of President of the United States Abraham Lincoln (born 1778)
 * January 27 – John James Audubon, naturalist and illustrator (born 1785 in Saint-Domingue)
 * January 31 – David Spangler Kaufman, Congressman from Texas (born 1813)
 * February 3 – Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, Congressman from Massachusetts, secretary of U.S. Navy (born 1772)
 * March 11 – George McDuffie, 55th Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1846 (born 1790)
 * May 3 – Thomas Hickman Williams, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1838 to 1839 (born 1801)
 * May 22 – Mordecai Manuel Noah, Jewish playwright, diplomat, journalist and utopian (born 1785)
 * June 21 – Martin Chester Deming, American businessman and politician (b. 1789)
 * July 6 – Thomas Davenport, electrical engineer (born 1802)
 * August 24 – James McDowell, politician (born 1795)
 * September 10 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, minister, educator, co-founder of the first permanent school for the deaf in North America (born 1787)
 * September 11 – Sylvester Graham, nutritionist and inventor (born 1794)
 * September 14 – James Fenimore Cooper, historical novelist (born 1789)
 * September 24 – Lucius Lyon, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1843 to 1845 (born 1800)
 * November – Willis Buell, politician and portrait painter (born 1790)