1801 in the United States

Incumbents

[[Federal government of the United States|Federal government]]

• President:

• Vice President:

• Chief Justice: John Marshall (Virginia)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives:

• Congress: 6th (until March 4), 7th (starting March 4)

State governments

Events

• January 10 – William Henry Harrison becomes the first Governor of the Indiana Territory.
• January 31 – John Marshall is appointed Chief Justice of the United States.
• February – Contingent election of 1801: An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved, when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.
• February 27 – Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the Congress of the United States.
• March 4 – Thomas Jefferson is sworn in as the third president of the United States, and Aaron Burr is sworn in as the third vice president.
• May 10 – The First Barbary War begins as the pasha of Tripoli declares war on the United States by having the flagpole on the consulate chopped down.
• July – Eli Whitney demonstrates before Congress the advantages of the system of interchangeable parts in the manufacture of firearms.
• August 1 – Action of 1 August 1801 (First Barbary War): United States Navy schooner captures the 14-gun Tripolitan corsair polacca Tripoli off the north African coast in a single-ship action.
• November 16 – The first edition of New York Evening Post is printed.
• Jefferson, the first American yacht, is built in Salem, Massachusetts, for George Crowninshield Jr.

Ongoing

• First Barbary War (1801–1805)

File:Thomas_Jefferson_by_Rembrandt_Peale,_1800.jpg|March 4: Thomas Jefferson becomes the third U.S. president File:John Vanderlyn - Official Portrait of Vice President Aaron Burr.jpg|Aaron Burr becomes the third U.S. vice president File:EnterpriseTripoli.jpg|August 1: Enterprise defeats the corsair Tripoli

Births

• January 20 – Thomas Hickman Williams, United States Senator from Mississippi from 1838 to 1839 (died 1851)
• March 15 – George Perkins Marsh, diplomat, philologist and pioneer environmentalist (died 1882)
• March 27 – Alexander Barrow, United States Senator from Louisiana from 1841 to 1846 (died 1846)
• April 26 – Ambrose Dudley Mann, first United States Assistant Secretary of State (died 1889)
• May 6 – George S. Greene, Union Army general (died 1899)
• May 16 – William H. Seward, United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869 (died 1872)
• June 1 – Brigham Young, leader in the Latter Day Saint movement (died 1877)
• July 5 – David Farragut, flag officer of the United States Navy during the American Civil War (died 1870)
• June 14 – Heber C. Kimball, religious leader (died 1868)
• June 15 – Benjamin Wright Raymond, 3rd Mayor of Chicago (died 1883)
• August 10 – Robert Woodward Barnwell, United States Senator from South Carolina from 1862 to 1865 (died 1882)
• August 31 – Pierre Soule, United States Senator from Louisiana in 1847 and from 1849 to 1853 (died 1870)
• September 10 –
  • Garrett Davis, United States Senator from Kentucky from 1861 to 1872 (died 1872)
  • Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen of New Orleans (died 1881)
• November 4 – Ambrose Hundley Sevier, United States Senator from Arkansas from 1836 to 1848 (died 1848)
• November 9 – Gail Borden, surveyor, newspaper publisher and inventor of condensed milk (died 1874)
• November 10 – Samuel Gridley Howe, physician and abolitionist (died 1876)
• December 28 – James Barnes, Union Army general (died 1869)
• Date unknown – Solomon W. Downs, United States Senator from Louisiana from 1847 to 1853 (died 1854)

Deaths

• January 9 – Margaretta Faugères, playwright, poet and political activist (born 1771)
• February 6 – Annis Boudinot Stockton, poet and sponsor of literary salons (born 1736 )
• February 23 – Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, poet and sponsor of literary salons (born 1737)
• March 14 – Margarita "Peggy" Schuyler, youngest child of Philip Schuyler (born 1758)
• June 4 – Frederick Muhlenberg, first Speaker of the House of Representatives (born 1750)
• June 14 – Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary hero and traitor (born 1741)
• September 10 – Jason Fairbanks, murderer (born 1780)
• November 4 – William Shippen, physician and Continental Congressman (born 1712)
• November 23 – Philip Hamilton, first son of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, (fatally shot by George Eacker in a duel at age 19) (born 1782)