01/07 - The new railroad from Baltimore, as far as Carrollton, became the first railroad open for public transportation. (see 1/1) (Source: Vexler, Baltimore, p32)
01/08 - 15th anniversary of Battle of New Orleans.
01/10 - Caleb Atwater attends Pres. Jackson's "First levee". "Opened at 5:00, ... President [and cabinet] were there at an early hour. ... The Secretary of War, and all his family were dressed in the neatest but plainest manner. The Secretary's lady, ("Peggy" Eaton) whose person is symmetry itself, neither needed nor wore any thing, but plain American calico for a dress, without a ruffle, or a single ornament, on her person ... no sooner had she taken her place, near the President's family, than all the beauty and fashion in the room, gathered around her, to do her honor. ... During five long hours, they stood, almost without moving from their places on the floor, shaking hands with those who had just entered the room, or were about to retire from it." (Source: Atwater, Remarks, 269)
01/11 - "Mrs. Sloman produced for her benefit a new Grecian tragedy, called 'Epicharis' by Mr. Lister ... Simpson as Nero, Woodhull as Caius Piso ... (Source: Ireland, NY Stage, I, p625)
01/12 - Sam Houston arrived in Washington as an ambassador of the Cherokee Nation, and checked into Brown's Indian Queen Hotel. While there, he "often appeared in buckskin leggings, moccasins, and a brilliant Indian hunting shirt, with his head wrapped in the distinctive Cherokee turban. (Source: Da Bruhl, Sword of San Jacinto, p113)
01/15 - William Lloyd Garrison wrote, in the Genius of Universal Emancipation, "We have had this pamphlet on our table for some time past [David Walker's Appeal], and are not surprised at its effect upon our sensitive Southern brethren. It is written by a colored Bostonian, and breathes the most impassioned and determined spirit. We deprecate its circulation, though we cannot but wonder at the bravery and intelligence of its author. The editor of the Whig must not laugh at Gov. Giles: his alarm was natural".
01/17 - "Mr. Sloman's benefit ... sung ten comic songs, played John Moody and Lafleur in "Animal Magnetism" (by Mrs. Inchbald). (Source: Ireland, NY Stage, I, p625, 103)
01/20 - Daniel Webster gives his first "Reply to Hayne". He counters complaints about the unfairness of land prices; gives arguments why "the [north]east" is a better friend of the west than is the south[east]. One of his reasons why the northeast is the west's friend is their firmness in keeping slavery out of the new territories in the northwest. This would seem to be a deliberate goad to Hayne, of SC, one of the states most committed to slave-holding as a way of life. Webster also magnifies Hayne's states rights remarks, links them to nullification, and makes strong attacks on slavery, fear of a strong union, and the nullification doctrine. (link to general article on the Hayne-Webster Debate)
01/21 - Hayne's 2nd Speech - Just as Webster could have wished, defends slavery, fear of a strong union, and the nullification doctrine. (link to general article on the Hayne-Webster Debate)
01/22 - Congressman David Crockett demanded a full report on the military academy at West Point, "I want to know if it has been managed for the benefit of the noble and wealthy of the country, or for the poor and orphan" Later, in moving to abolish the academy: "[the academy's graduates are] too delicate, and could not rough it in the army like men differently raised.". The resolution was "tabled, printed, and allowed to die." (Source: Derr, Fronteirsman, p169)
01/26 - Webster's second "Reply to Hayne". Webster focuses his attack on slavery, fear of a strong union, and the nullification doctrine, having having set Hayne up as the defender of all three doctrines. (link to general article on the Hayne-Webster Debate)
01/30 - The Texas Gazette reports that during the previous 2 months, Stephen Austin issued 230 certificates receiving settlers and prospective settlers. (Source: Barker, Austin, p272)
02 (date uncertain) - (described in letter of 2/10) The Hanover St. Church of Boston, of which Lyman Beecher was pastor, burned to the ground. (source: Auto...Beecher, II, p162)
02/10 - Harrison Gray Otis' (mayor of Boston) reply to the mayor of Savannah, GA (seeking punishment of David Walker and suppression of his book) was that "notwithstanding the extremely bad and inflammatory tendency of the publication", ... the author was an old-clothing dealer who openly avowed the statements in the book when questioned by a representative of the Mayor's office ... in short he is acting on his own, not as a pawn in some conspiracy, and cannot be taken seriously ... the book had caused no excitement in Boston" See 12/12/29. (Source: Garrison, W.P. and F.J., Garrison, p160-161)
02/19 - In the Baltimore City Court, "The Grand Jurors ... for the..city of Baltimore, on their oaths do present, that Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison did, in a certain newspaper the Genius of Universal Emancipation, [on 11/20/29] publish a gross and malicious libel against Francis Todd and Nicholas Brown." (see 11/20/29). He went to jail on 4/17.
02/20 - Abraham Lincoln's father, Thomas, sold their farm to Charles Grigsby for $125. (Source: Thomas, Lincoln, p19)
03/01 - Thomas Lincoln's family, including Abraham, just turned 21, set out from Indianna to "a place on the north bank of the Sangamon River, a few miles west of Decatur (hence about 20-30 miles east of Springfield?); a large family party with 3 wagons, two drawn by oxen and one by 4 horses. They went about 50 miles, northwest, as the crow flies, of Indianna to reach Vincinnes, IN, and went another 100 or so across Illinois (well over 200 miles by road, I think). On the Sangamon, they cleared about 15 acres, and, "with John Hanks, his cousin, Abe hired out to split 3,000 rails from William Warnick, the county sheriff." The family spent a sickly autumn, followed by the terrible winter of 1830. The fever and ague of autumn had already convinced them to move, so in spring, Lincoln's family set out for Coles County (about halfway back on the road to Vincinnes), but Lincoln was going to hire out to pilot a flatboat to New Orleans, and then set out on his own.
03/03 Ralph Waldo Emerson in journal: "Read with admiration and delight Mr. Webster's noble speech in answer to Hayne. What consciousness of political rectitude, and what confidence in his intellectual treasures must he have to enable him to take this master's tone. Mr. Channing said he had great 'self-subsistence'. The beauty and dignity of the spectacle he exhibits should teach men the beauty and dignity of principles. [He] has mind great enough to see the majesty of moral nature and to apply himself in all his length and breadth to it and magnanimously trust thereto." (Source: Heart of Emerson's Journals, p45)
03/05 - William Lloyd Garrison, in the last issue of Genius of Universal Emancipation that he co-edited, wrote "The circulation of this 'seditious' pamphlet [David Walker's Appeal] has proven one thing conclusively -- that the boasted security of the slave States ... is mere affectation, or something worse".
03/09 - Death of William Tudor of fever in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he was serving in a diplomatic post. His death was announced in the Boston Daily Advertiser on 5/3, an indication of how slowly news traveled. (Source: DAB)
03/17 - William S. Phiquepal left Frances Wright in Haiti to return the John Quincy Adams to New Orleans with a cargo of Haitian coffee to help defray expenses. By this time, Wright was pregnant by Phiquepal, which would lead to a most unhappy marriage. Her biographer suggests how this might have happened: "Mingling in the easy social life of Haiti's mulatto aristocracy, she and Phiquepal spent a month together on the island. There were garden parties and dinners, rides on horseback, strolls through Port-au-Prince ..." (Eckhardt, Wright, p212)
03/22 - The Albany
Evening Journal was issued, with Thurlow
Weed as editor. Support for this new paper had been garnered at the
winter meeting, in Albany, of
the New York Antimasonic party, which also took away support for Solomon
Southwick's National
Observer as the party organ. Weed had already made his repution
as an Anti-Mason and a hard-hitting political journalist with the Rochester
Telegraph. The new paper started with $2500 worth of subscriptions,
and a $750 per year salary for Weed.
It went in the direction of "National Republicanism",
soon reorganized as the Whig party, and was not a single-minded Anti-masonic
publication.
(Source: Van
Deusen, Weed, p54-56).
03/25 - Frances Wright left Haiti on the Enterprise for Europe by way of Philadelphia. (Eckhardt, Wright, p212)
03/27 - ["end of March" -
exact date not given] Congressman David
Crockett spoke against a road from Buffalo
to Washington to New Orleans arguing that from From Buffalo to Memphis,
and down the Mississippi to New Orleans was a better route. The Register
of Debates was by this time reporting "parts of Crockett's speech
in something like his natural, convoluted style (before, they had prettified
it).
"[it] is merely a bait to cover the hook which is intended to haul
in the western and southern people ... reminds me of a ..man in the state
of Ohio who, having caught a racoon, placed it in a bag, ... met a neighbor
.. anxious to know what he had in the bag. He was told to put his hand
in and feel, and in doing so he was bit through the fingers; he then asked
what it was, and was told it was only a bite." (Source: Derr,
Fronteirsman, p170)
03/28 - Charles Grandison Finney and his wife Lydia have their second child in New York, naming him Charles Beman Finney, after Finney's friend Nathan Beman. (Source: Hambrick-Stowe, Finney, p96-7)
04/13 - Jefferson day "battle of the toasts"
at (Jesse Brown's) Indian Queen Hotel, Washington.
Jackson: "Our Federal Union: It must be preserved."
Calhoun: "The Union: Next to our liberty most
dear; may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the
rights of the states and distributing equally the benefit and burden of
the union.
(Source: Chambers,
Benton, p164)
04/17 - William Lloyd Garrison entered the Baltimore Jail "amid shouts of 'Fresh fish! fresh fish!' from the prisoners who peered at him from behind their grated doors...". (Source: Garrison, W.P. and F.J., Garrison, p171). In the jail, which was also used as a slave pen, he had the opportunity to observe southerners like Austin Woolfolk, who "usually visited the jail almost daily, to pick up bargains for his Southern shipments (p177)", and to do his best to put some of them to shame (pp175-177). Arthur Tappan would come to his rescue -- see letter of 5/29.
04/23 - Frances
Wright arrives from Haiti, in Philadelphia
with the burden of a pregnancy by an ill-chosen lover. A Quaker friend
said that Fanny, who was not in the ordinary sense a man's woman, would
never have married and become a mother had she not been "under the
influence of a species of hallucination."
She then went to New
York to help her troubled sister, Camilla.
But Camilla, having been wracked by her childs death and her own illness,
was now "visibly sinking". Camilla's only local companion was
Robert Dale Owen; they were possibly both in
love with each other, but he "had responded to the impossibility (how
so?) of their situation by burying his emotions in work".
He rode every day 5 miles on horseback from their home in upper Manhattan
Island to "the city" (Only south of Houston
could be called the city in those days), and worked twelve hours
a day.
(Eckhardt,
Wright, p213)
05/02 - James Watson Webb assaulted Duff Green, who, ... drew from his breast a pistol and presented it to Webb, who immediately ceased all hostile demonstration, and on his return to New York described the incident in a signed article. (Source: Remiscence of an Octogenarian - follow link to description of this incident).
05/25 - John
C. Calhoun, responded to Andrew
Jackson's, demand for explanations with a 52 page letter, beginning
"I cannot recognize the right on your part to call into question
my conduct.", and at one point says "I should be blind not to
see that this whole affair, is a political manoeuvre ... and that a blow
is mediated against me" (untactfully implying that Jackson wasn't
his own man, and was being manipulated by Van
Buren and company).
The confrontation was over attitudes and actions that
Calhoun, in Jackson's opinion, tried to conceal, when Calhoun was secretary
of War, and Jackson was a general, making incursions in the Spanish territory
of Florida. (Source: Remini,
Jackson, vol 2, p245)
05/26 - Abraham Lincoln, age 21, signed a petition "to change the present place of holding Elections in [Decatur] Precinct [of Macon County] from Permenius Smallwoods to the Court house in Decatur. (Source: Basler, Works of Lincoln, vol 1, p2)
05/27 - Andrew Jackson wrote the veto message on the Maysville Road bill (a bill to finance a spur of the National Road, within Kentucky). (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p200) (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p254)
05/29 - Arthur Tappan to Benjamin Lundy: (referring to Wm. Lloyd Garrison's conviction, and jailing, on 4/17 for libel of Francis Todd)
"I have read the sketch of the trial of Mr. Garrison with that deep feeling of abhorrence of slavery and its abettors which every on must feel who [can appreciate] the blessings of liberty. If one hundred dollars will give him his liberty, you are hereby authorized to draw on me for that sum, and I will gladly make a further donation of the same amount to aid you and Mr. G. in re-establishing the Genius of Universal Emancipation as published by you previous to its assuming the pamphlet form. Such a paper is much needed to hold up to American freemen, in all its naked deformity, the subject of slavery as it now exists in our country; and I earnestly hope you will find encouragement to resume it and to give it a wide circulation".
Meanwhile, John Greenleaf Whittier had been endeavoring, through Hezekiah Niles, to enlist Henry Clay's support to obtain the release of Garrison, his friend and to some extent mentor (Whittier was at that time a minor pro-Clay newspaper editor, while Niles was the biggest pro-Clay editor in the country). Arthur Tappan had already gotten Garrison out of jail, however.
Garrison left the jail on June 7.
05/30 - Andrew Jackson responds to Calhoun's letter of 5/25: "... I have a right to believe that you were my sincere friend, and until now, never expected to have the occasion to say to you, in the language of Caesar, Et tu Brute. ... Your letter to me ... is the first intimation to me that you ever entertained any other opinion ..." (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p247)
05/31 - Congress adjourned. (Source: Chambers, Benton, p167)
06/07 - William Lloyd Garrison left Baltimore Jail, through Arthur Tappan's mediation of 5/29.
06/17 - Andrew Jackson and entourage head home for Tennessee, after his first year in office.
06/26 - George IV of England died.
07/01 - A "giant meeting" is organized
in Charleston by James
Hamilton, governor of SC, ostensibly to welcome Robert
Y. Hayne and William
Drayton home from the Senate, but it is "distinctly understood
that those who go to the dinner declare themselves in favour of some interposition
of State Sovereignty." The lavish and boisterous dinner featured
some "indiscreetly warm toasts and sentiments."
Langdon
Cheves spoke, but warned against the Nullification strategy;
advocating instead a southern convention. (See 10/13
for a Unionist view of Cheves' speech) (Source: Freehling,
Prelude to Civil War, p201-3)
07/07 - Beginning of sessions at Praerie du Chien in which the Sauk, Fox, Sioux, and Menominee Indians were prevailed upon (unsuccessfully) to settle their differences (see also 7/31/1831). This was precipitated by an ambush and massacre of Foxes by Sioux and Menominee (in early May?) The Foxes were en route to a conference at Prairie du Chien at Joseph Street's request. (Source: Lyman, John Marsh, p153, 155)
07/19 - John G. Whittier assumes editorship of the whiggish New England Weekly Review, succeeding George D. Prentice. "The proprietors of the Review, and the (National Republican or Clay-ite) party leaders (who were at first astonished to find a shy Quaker lad, dressed in homespuns ... suceeding the debonair, aggressive Prentice) got more than their money's worth [at $500/year]." (Source: Pollard, John Greenleaf Whittier, Friend of Man, p81ff)
07/21 - John Eaton arrives at Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, where he and his wife Peggy Eaton continue to suffer ostracism even in the household of Jackson, the Eatons' biggest defender. Jackson: "I will govern my Household or I have none." (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p268)
07/25 - Charles X, King of France issued "fatal decrees" which lead, within 3 days, to his deposition and fleeing for England. He is replaced by Louis Philippe. (Pierson, Toqueville, p13, 15)
07/28 - Andrew Jackson comes to Franklin, TN, home of John Eaton, where he sees, for a change, the greatest courtesies being extended to Peggy Eaton. (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p268)
08/13 - The Charleston Courier reports Congressman Warren Davis, one of the most extreme nullifiers, speaking of the tariff, and the nullification "solution" to it: "An oppressive and tyrannical law, that is driving almost to madness a generous, patriotic and highminded people, would be seen to be annulled, avoided, and made harmless by the quiet and peaceful intervention of 'trial by jury'." (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p210)
08/23 - Andrew Jackson confronts a Chickasaw Indian delegation at the Presbyterian church in Franklin, TN (not insignificantly, the home of the Secretary of War) giving them an ultimatum to move to new territories across the Mississippi. The Choctaw are supposed to arrive, but never do. (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p270)
08/27 - The Chickasaw Indian chiefs response expresses defeat and humiliation: "To our great father the president ... Father, you say you have travelled a long way to talk to your red children. We have listened -- and your words have sunk deep into our hearts. As you are about to set out for Washington city -- before we shake our father's hand ... after sleeping upon the talk you sent us, ... we are now ready to enter into any treaty based upon the principles communicated to us by Major Eaton and Gen. Coffee. (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p270)
08/28 - The first American-built locomotive - Peter Cooper's "Tom Thumb" was given a trial run between Baltimore and Ellicott Mills, 13 miles away. There was an impromptu race with a horse-drawn railroad carriage which the steam engine lost due to a broken belt. (Source: Vexler, Baltimore, p32)
08/30 - Chickasaw Indian Chiefs sign agreement to give up their homes and move across the Mississippi. See 8/23, 8/27. (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p270)
09 (exact date unknown) - The first fatal accident on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. (Source: Vexler, Baltimore, p33)
09/01 - Charles Kean first appeared at the Park Theatre, New York, in "Richard III," before a large audience. (Source: Haswell, Octogenarian, ch 13)
09/10 - Charles Grandison Finney begins half a year of ministering in Rochester and other parts of Western New York (Source: Hambrick-Stowe, Finney, p101).
09/15 - U.S. commissioners, including Gen. Coffee and John Eaton, meet with Choctaw chiefs and headmen at Dancing Rabbit Creek (Mississippi?), to pressure them to sign over their territory and move across the Mississippi River. (see 8/23, 8/27, 8/30) (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p272)
09/17 - At a meeting in Columbia, SC anti-tariffites and nullifiers attach labels like: "nothing but sugar plums to pacify children" to recent reductions in the tariff, and Jackson's Maysville Road Veto. Unionists are also outspoken though. (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p200)
09/20 James Hamilton, Jr. writes to Van Buren(!), probably re the 9/17 meeting, that moderates had raised "a war whoop of disunion" -- i.e. charged that nullifiers were, in fact, for breaking up the Union. (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p206)
09/25 - Charles Sumner graduates Harvard (Source: Selected Letters .. Sumner, p.xv).
09/27 - Choctaw Indian chiefs, with the help of some bribery, sign treaty to move across the Mississippi. (see 9/15). (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p272)
09/28 Charles Sumner, having just graduated Harvard was "at home, embarking on a year of individual study", as he writes jovially to Jonathan F. Stearns. (Source: Selected Letters .. Sumner, p5).
10/13 - William Drayton, SC's anti-nullification Representative to congress, writes of disappointment at Cheves' advocacy of a southern convention (see 7/1) as being too close to nullification view. Cheves, "who could have done so much good, [has instead done] so much evil". (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p203)
10/15 - W.L. Garrison gave an antislavery lecture at the Freethinkers' Society in Boston (no church would have him), at which Lyman Beecher call his ideas misguided and dangerous (Beecher had been a hero of Garrison's). Also present at the speech, but approving of it, were the Reverends Samuel Sewall and his cousin Samuel J. May. (Source: Stewart, Garrison, p49)
10/24 - Andrew Jackson, in a letter to Mary Eastin, expresses the opinion that Calhoun was "persecuting Peggy Eaton in order to renew the assault on Rachel Jackson." (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p188)
10/31 - Alexis de Toqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, out of favor with the new French government, and wishing to be out of the country for a while, apply to go on a mission to America to study prison reforms. (Source: Pierson, Tocqueville, p18) (American "penitentiaries", intended to induce "penitance" were considered highly innovative at the time.)
11/01 - Nathan Appleton Elected to Congress. (Source: Tharp - Appletons of Beacon Hill)
11/05 Edward Beecher leaves the East for Illinois College, where he serves as president. (Source: Merideth, Politics of the Universe, p75)
11/24 Louisville Daily Journal, ed George D. Prentice, was 1st issued.
11/26 - In New York, a large celebration in honor of the dethronement of Charles X of France. (Source: Haswell, Octogenarian, ch 13)
"early" in month - Edward Beecher arrives at Illinois College, in Jacksonville, IL, where he serves as president.(Source: Merideth, Politics of the Universe, p76)
12/10 - A deep freeze sets in in Boston - "All Boston shrank, braced and blued with a steady cold that deepened without a break from December 10 through Christmas. ... 'God save the poor,' Emerson wrote in letter after letter. (Source: Richardson, Emerson, p117)
12/16 Abraham Lincoln, age 21, with John Reed, "having been called on to apprais an Estray Mare ... Do find her to be four years old next Spring a bright bay 14 hands high -- a Small blaze and a Snip in her face -- right hind foot white ... appraised to 30 Dollars". (Source: Basler, Works of Lincoln, vol 1, p3)
12/25 - Snow began to fall in Illinois and accumulated to a depth of several feet for many days, accompanied by temperatures 10 and 20 degrees below zero. "Cattle died; deer and turkey which had been numerous were nearly exterminated. Of wild animals, only the wolves survived (other sources say that, after slight rain caused a crust to form on the snow, wolves were able to get around on the snow, while hooved animals, like cattle and deer, were trapped). (Source: Beveridge, Lincoln, vol. 1, p104)