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Author's Life
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American Political
and Cultural History
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1804 - July 4 - Born
in Salem, Massachusetts
to Captain
Nathaniel and Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hathorne (nps)
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- April. Aaron Burr is
defeated in his campaign for governor of New York.
- May. Lewis and
Clark expedition leaves St. Louis.
By October, the expedition is encamped for the winter at a Mandan Indian
village near what is now Bismarck, N.D.
- July. Aaron Burr challenges Federalist Alexander Hamilton, his longtime
rival, to a duel after Hamilton
had successfully foiled Burr's bid to become governor of New
York. Burr shoots Hamilton, who dies 10 hours
later.
- Jefferson wins a
second term as president, with George Clinton as vice president.
(guw)
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1808 - father dies on
a voyage in Surinam,
Dutch Guinea (uwm)
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- The Osage, a Sioux tribe, sign the Osage
Treaty ceding their lands in what is now Missouri
and Arkansas to the U.
S.
- Thomas Jefferson refuses to run for a third term as president, naming James
Madison as his successor. (guw)
- Congress prohibits the importation of African slaves (tah 166)
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1821 - starts Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine (dlb
81)
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- Missouri enters union as
24th state, thus balancing the union at 12 slave and 12 free
states
- Opening of Santa Fe Trail.
- Republic of Liberia
in West Africa is established as a refuge for freed
American slaves. (guw)
- Hare invents the copper-zinc battery
- Congress rejects a proposal by John Quincy
Adams, Secretary of State, that the U.S.
convert to the metric system (tah 177)
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1825 - graduates from Bowdoin College;
18th in a class of 38, and returned to Salem
(nps)
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- Creek chief William
McIntosh signs treaty ceding Creek lands to the U.S.
and agrees to vacate by 1826; other Creeks repudiate the treaty and kill him.
(guw)
-Texas (Mexican
Territory) is opened to
settlement by U.S.
citizens
-Erie Canal is completed (tah 181)
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1828 - writes his
first novel Fanshawe, based on his college life (kir)
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- Noah Webster
publishes American Dictionary of the English Language.
- Andrew Jackson is elected president, winning 178 electoral votes to
incumbent John Quincy Adams's 83.
- 21 February. Elias Boudinot and Sequoyah begin publishing the Cherokee Phoenix, the
first American newspaper published in a Native American language. (guw)
-Joseph Henry, N.Y.
physicist, invents the electromagnet (tah
183)
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1832 - "Roger Malvin's Burial" (guw)
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- Democrat Andrew Jackson
is re-elected president over his opponents, gathering 216 electoral votes to
National Republican candidate Henry Clay's 49. Also running are Anti-Masonic candidate William Wirt
(7) and Independent John Floyd (11).
- Seminole chiefs cede Florida
to the U.S.
and agree to move west of the Mississippi
- The Oregon Trail
becomes a main route for settlers
- New England Anti-Slavery Society is founded
- 6 April-2 August. Black
Hawk War (guw)
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1836 - edits the
American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge in Boston
(kir)
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- Beginning on February 23, Santa Anna leads 3,000 men in a siege of the Alamo,
killing all 187 Texans inside on March 6; on March 27, his troops kill 300
soldiers defending Goliad.
- 21 April. Texans capture Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto.
- 11 July. The problems arising from growing inflation, land speculation, and
worthless currency lead President Jackson to issue the Specie Circular, which
requires that public lands be paid for in gold or silver instead of paper
money.
- 1 September. Settlers led by Dr. Marcus Whitman
reach Walla Walla
in present-day Washington. ( guw)
-Massachusettes child labor law requires children
to attend school for at least three months a year until they are 15. (tah 191)
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1837 - Twice Told Tales
was published, many of the stories having already appeared in magazines (nps)
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- March. As one of his last acts as president, Andrew
Jackson recognizes the Lone Star Republic of Texas; the U.S.
now consists of 13 slave and 13 free states,
with statehood pending for one slave territory and three free territories.
- 4 March. Democrat Martin Van Buren
is inaugurated president, with Richard M. Johnson as vice president. Van
Buren won in part because he ran against a badly divided Whig party whose
three candidates--William Henry Harrison, Hugh L. White, and Henry
Clay--split the vote.
- 10 May. Following several months of increasing inflation and shrinking
credit, the Panic of 1837
begins, causing widespread bank failures and unemployment. (guw)
- Act of Congress increases Supreme Court membership from seven to nine. (tah 192)
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1841 - Invested $1500
in the Brook
Farm Utopian Community (dlb 87) where the belief
was that by sharing labor and the fruits of this labor members of
the community would be able to make a living and have time to practice
the arts. He invested, was elected an officer of the community, then
later withdrew his membership.
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- Supreme Court upholds lower court ruling and allows the Amistad mutineers to return to Africa.
- 13 August. The Independent
Treasury Act is repealed.
- 4 March. William
Henry Harrison is inaugurated as president. Chilled through after a
lengthy outdoor ceremony, the 68-year-old Harrison
contracts pneumonia and dies on 4 April. Vice-President John Tyler
becomes president.
- 7 November. Slaves aboard the Creole mutiny and sail the ship to Nassau,
a British port, where they are freed.
- Forty-eight wagons arrive in Sacramento
by way of the Oregon Trail, one of the earliest large
groups to make this journey. (guw)
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1842 - marries Sophia
Peabody in Boston on July
9th. The Hawthornes
move to Concord and rent the
Manse next to the historic North Bridge,
an Emerson family home. (nps)
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- May. Colonel John C. Fremont leads an expedition to explore the Rocky
Mountains. (guw)
- Barnum's American Museum
opens in New York City. P.T.
Barnum exhibits General Tom Thumb and other freaks as well as many hoaxes, attracting
the public with extravagant advertising. (tah
197)
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1844 - March 3, 1844, Una
Hawthorne was born at the Old Manse (nps)
after Sophia had a miscarriage the year before (dlb
88)
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- Aggressive expansionist Democrat James K. Polk
defeats Whig Henry Clay for the presidency. (guw)
- U.S. and China
sign treaty of peace, friendship, and commerce. (tah 198)
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1846 - In May, begins
working at the Custom House in Salem.
June, "Mosses
from an Old Manse" was published; on the 22nd, Julian Hawthorne was
born in Boston. (nps)
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- 3 May. The Battle
at Palo Alto in which 2300 Americans put to rout twice as many Mexican
forces marks the beginning of the Mexican War. At President Polk's request,
on 11 May Congress declares the U.S.
at war with Mexico.
- 6 June. Treaty with Great Britain
extends the Oregon Territory
boundary at latitude 40 degrees to Puget Sound. This
allows President James K. Polk to focus his attention on the war with Mexico.
- 14 June. In California, U.S.
settlers proclaim the independent Republic
of California, which in August is
annexed by the United States.
- 15 August. U.S.
annexation of New Mexico,
formerly a Mexican territory.
- Iowa becomes a state. (guw)
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1850 - The Scarlet Letter, written in Salem,
was published. (nps)
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- Fugitive
Slave Act provides for the return of slaves brought to free
states.
-Compromise of 1850
admits California as a free
state and Texas
as a slave state; New Mexico
and Utah organized with no
restrictions on slavery. (guw)
- President Taylor dies and Fillmore becomes President
- U. S.
population: 23,191,876 (tah 205)
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1851 - Hawthorne's
The House of the
Seven Gables, written in Lenox, MA
was published. On May 20, Rose Hawthorne was born in Lenox. (nps)
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- Sioux sign Treaty
of Traverse des Sioux giving up land in Iowa and Minnesota
- Congress passes the Land Act of 1851, an attempt to sort out competing land
claims by Mexican Americans, called Californios,
who were longtime settlers in California, and the immigrants, often from
other areas of the United States, who contested their claims. The net result
was a loss of land by the Californios. (guw)
-Maine enacts prohibition law,
which forbids the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors in the state. (tah 206)
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1852 - The Blithedale Romance, Hawthorne's
third novel, was published a month after he moved into The Wayside. In it, Hawthorne
revisited Brook Farm and put forth his views on Transcendentalism and reform.
(nps)
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- Democrat Franklin Pierce, a friend of Hawthorne's,
defeats General Winfield Scott for the presidency and affirms his support for
the Compromise of 1850.
- "Know-Nothing" Party opposes Catholics and foreigners (guw)
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1853 - In July,
Hawthorne and his family left The Wayside for seven years in Europe;
Hawthorne first served as U.S.
Consul at Liverpool, England.
(nps)
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- Gadsden Purchase gives
the U.S. a
strip of land to the Pacific Ocean.
- Abba Alcott and 73 other women petition the Massachusetts
Constitutional Convention to urge suffrage for women. (guw)
-Washington Territory
is formed from part of the Oregon Territory.
(tah 208)
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1859 - Before
returning to America,
Hawthorne completed his last
novel, The
Marble Faun. It was published in England
under the title, Transformation. (nps)
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- John Brown leads an armed group of 21 to seize the arsenal at Harper's
Ferry, Virginia, is captured,
and is executed.
- Georgia
passes a law forbidding owners from manumitting slaves in their wills. (guw)
-Oregon becomes 33rd state.
-Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City
installs the first passenger elevator in an American Hotel. (tah 215)
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1862 - Back at The
Wayside, Hawthorne wrote of his
travels to the Civil War battlefields at Manassas
and Harpers Ferry, Virginia,
and his visit to Washington, D.C.
where he met President Abraham Lincoln. In July, it appeared in the Atlantic
Monthly as "Chiefly About War Matters" by "A Peaceable
Man." (nps)
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- Robert E. Lee commands the Confederate Armies of
Northern Virginia
16 February. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant captures Ft.
Donelson,
near Nashville, Tennessee.
- 6-7 April. Union forces narrowly prevail at the Battle of Shiloh, but
losses on both sides are heavy: the Confederate army loses 11,000 soldiers
and the Union army loses 13,000.
- 9 August. Stonewall Jackson and his Confederate forces defeat Union troops
at the Battle of Cedar Mountain (Virginia).
- 30 August. At the Second Battle of
Bull Run (Second Manassas), the combined forces of Robert E. Lee,
Stonewall Jackson, and James Longstreet push Union
troops back to Washington.
- 17 September. Battle of Antietam (Maryland).
In what has been called the single bloodiest day of the war (over 23,000
killed or wounded), McClellan forces Lee to pull back but then does not
follow up this advantage by pursuing Lee's troops.
- 23 September. Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation is published in newspapers in the North. It frees slaves in
the Confederate states but not those in border states
or recaptured territories.
- Lincoln signs the Homestead Act allowing
citizens to acquire a parcel of land up to 160 acres after farming it for 5
years. ( guw)
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1863 - Our Old Home: A
Series of English Sketches, the last book to appear during Hawthorne's
lifetime, was published. (nps)
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- 1 January. The Emancipation Proclamation is signed.
- 26 January. The governor of Massachusetts
begins to recruit African-American troops, and the 54th Massachusetts
Volunteers, the first black regiment, is formed shortly thereafter.
- 3 March. Abraham Lincoln signs the first national Conscription Act
requiring males from ages 20-45 to register for service in the army. The act
allows males to purchase substitutes to take their place for $300, a clause
that allows many wealthy Americans to avoid serving and led to accusations
that this was a "rich man's war but a poor man's fight."
- 20 June. West Virginia is
admitted to the Union as a state.
- 19 November. Lincoln dedicates
the cemetery at Gettysburg, the
occasion of the "Gettysburg
Address." (guw)
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1864 - Hawthorne
dies on May 19, 1864, in Plymouth,
N.H. on a trip to the mountains with his
friend Franklin Pierce. (kir)
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- Lincoln re-elected.
- Sand
Creek Massacre of Native Americans in Colorado
- 10 March. Grant is promoted from commander of the Union forces in the west
to commander of the Union armies.
- 5-6 May. Battle of the
Wilderness, during which brushfires started by gunfire kill many wounded. (guw)
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