Events from the year 1839 in the United States.
Incumbents 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)
State governments 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. October – Robert Cornelius takes the first photographic self portrait in the United States. October 7 – Much of downtown Mobile, Alabama is destroyed by a wind-fueled fire. October 15 – Episcopal High School, Alexandria, Virginia, is founded, the first in the state. 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.
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) March – James Brown, Chickasaw leader and diplomat 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) June 22 – Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot assassinated in what is now Arkansas for their role in negotiating the Treaty of New Echota (born , and ) July 16 – The Bowl (Di'wali), Cherokee chief, shot (born ) 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)
See also Timeline of United States history (1820–1859)
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