market, and great commercial distress resulting therefrom. Numerous banks had been chartered in the preceding year by the different State legislatures, to supply a supposed want of banking capital consequent upon the refusal of Congress to prolong the existence of the United States Bank, the charter of which was about to expire. These new banks being without any check to prevent excessive issues of paper circulation, the facilities of bank accommodations occasioned a scene of specu lation which extended far and wide over the whole Union, and all classes of citizens were more or less entangled in the operations which ensued. Extensive purchases of the public lands, by individuals and companies, were among the schemes of the day, for the employment of the abundance of bank paper. At length, the government required all payments for the public lands to be made in specie, which sometimes produced large drafts on the banks for that commodity, and not only prevented them from extending their lines of discount, but compelled them to commence calling in their circulating notes. An order had also been issued directing the surplus funds of the government to be distributed among the several States, and, from the mode in which that was managed, contributed to the derangement of the currency, Another cause of pecuniary embarrassment and pressure was an excessive importation of merchandise from abroad, beyond the wants and abilities of the country; payments for which falling due, and American credit being impaired in London, occasioned a large exportation of specie to Europe. On the 10th of May, all the banks in the city of New York, by common consent, suspended specie payments; the banks of Boston, Providence, Hartford, Albany, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and others in every quarter, adopted the same course. During the preceding two months, unprecedented embarrassments and difficulties were experienced among the mercantile classes, and were felt in all the commercial towns in the United States, especially in New York and New Orleans. The number of large failures which took place in New York in a short time was about three hundred, their liabilities amounting to many millions. In two days, houses in New Orleans stopped payment, owing an aggregate of twenty-seven millions of dollars. In Boston, one hundred and sixty-eight failures took place in six months.

Michigan was admitted into the Union on the 26th of Janu

ary.

Osceola, the Seminole chief, was captured near St. Augustine. His capture ended the Seminole war. He had come under a flag of truce, to hold a conference with the American general, and by the general's orders was detained. He was sent as a prisoner to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, where he was kept until the next year, when he died.

A mob attacked and fired a building in Alton, Ill., on the 7th of November, in which was printed an abolition newspaper published by Rev. E. P. Lovejoy. The editor was murdered, and the press broken and thrown into the river.

1838

Chicago was incorporated as a city on the 4th of March. On the 1st of July its population was forty-one hundred and seventy, and the number of buildings in the place about five hundred.

On the 8th of May, the large Louisville and New Orleans packet Ben Sherrod, while ascending the Mississippi and when about fourteen miles above Fort Adams, caught fire about one o'clock at night, and the passengers, about three hundred in number, had no alternative but to jump into the river without having time to save even their clothes. More than two hundred lives were lost by this catastrophe. The boat was engaged in a race at the time, and the firemen, to raise more steam, used pine-knots for fuel and sprinkled resin on the coal.

About fifty lives were lost on the night of the 27th of December, on the Mississippi, by the explosion of the boiler belonging to the steamboat Black Hawk as it was near the Red River.

The Baltimore Sun appeared on the 17th of May, and the New Orleans Picayune on the 25th of January.

The first successful introduction of the screw in steam-navigation was made this year, on the steamer Thames, by Captains Ericsson and F. P. Smith.

The dynamometer, an invention for ascertaining the power used in driving machinery, was first put to use this year.

The invention of one-day clocks with brass movements was introduced at this time in Connecticut, and resulted in a complete revolution of the clock business. The manufacture of clocks with wooden movements was immediately stopped.

The first establishment erected for the exclusive manufacture of machinists' tools was opened at Nashua, N. H.

A man was publicly whipped on the court-house parade in Providence, on the 14th of July, for horse-stealing. This method of punishment had never been legally abolished, though it had been discontinued for a long time. The law was soon after repealed.

The railroad between Richmond and Fredericksburg, in Virginia, was completed; the Michigan Central, from Detroit to Ypsilanti, a distance of thirty miles, was opened for travel; the road from Baltimore to Wilmington, also, on the 19th of July; and the Providence and Stonington, on the 10th of November. On the 26th of October, the tunnel between Thirty-fourth and Forty second streets, in New York, was completed by the Harlem Railroad Company.

The Chenango Canal, connecting the Susquehanna at Binghamton with the Erie Canal at Utica, was completed.

The Mormons expelled from Missouri by persecution, whither they had emigrated from Ohio, established themselves in Hancock County, Illinois, and commenced building a town, which they called Nauvoo. They numbered at this time about twelve thousand.

The Atlantic Ocean was crossed for the first time by vessels exclusively propelled by steam-power. There were two steamers, called the Sirius and the Great Western, which arrived at

1839

New York in the summer, within a few hours of each other. The Sirius started from London, and was seventeen days on her passage; the Great Western, from Bristol, fifteen days. From this period regular passages across the Atlantic were established. A legacy amounting to over five hundred thousand dollars, left the United States by Mr. James Smithson of England, arrived in August from London. The money was bequeathed by Smithson for the advancement of knowledge, and was used for the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. The first manufacture of gold thimbles and spectacles was commenced at Long Meadow, Mass.

The first solid-headed pins made in the United States were manufactured at Birmingham, Conn., by the Howe Pin Company which had removed to that town from New York. This new style of manufacture soon superseded the spun-headed pins heretofore used.

The first zinc manufactured in the United States was made at the arsenal at Washington, from the red oxide of New Jersey. It was used in the brass designed for the standard weights and measures ordered by Congress. The expense of its manufacture was so great, that for a long time any further attempts to use this ore were abandoned.

The Richmond and Petersburg Railroad in Virginia, the Nashua and Lowell, and a portion of the Mad River Railroad in Ohio, were completed and opened for travel.

On the 27th of April, a destructive conflagration occurred at Charleston, S. C. Eleven hundred and fifty-eight buildings were destroyed, and nearly one half the city was desolated. Property valued at three millions of dollars was lost. On the afternoon of the 25th of April, the steamboat Moselle, bound for St. Louis, left her landing at Cincinnati, with an unusually large number of passengers on board, supposed to be nearly three hundred. The boat proceeded about a mile up the river, to take on some German emigrants, and just as it was moving from shore at that point her four boilers exploded simultaneously, blowing the upper part of the vessel to atoms. The remainder, after floating a short distance, sank in the river. About one hundred and thirty persons lost their lives, and several others were badly injured.

On the 10th of October, the United States Bank failed, and closed its doors, on account of ruinous speculations in cotton. During the preceding year it bought cotton for a rise, and for a time it advanced to sixteen cents a pound, but soon declined in price, causing great loss to the bank. It made great exertions to sustain itself by the sale of bonds in Europe, and by issuing post-notes, which were sold in Boston and New York at a discount of eighteen to twenty-four per cent. This failure and cotton speculations caused a large number of bank suspensions, principally at the South and West. Three hundred and forty-three banks closed business entirely, and sixty-two partially. The government lost two millions of dollars in deposits by these failures.

The seat of Government for Illinois was removed from Vandalia to Springfield.

Greenwood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, was incorporated on the 11th of April, and in October lots were first offered for sale.

The first printing-press established west of the Rocky Mountains was set up at Walla Walla, in Oregon, a place founded by some Presbyterian missionaries.

The first Normal School in America was opened on the 3d of July, at Lexington, Mass.

The first successfully constructed screw-propeller was built this year by Captain Ericsson, in England, and navigated to this country. It demonstrated the value of screws over paddles for boats used for certain purposes.

The first carpets woven by a power-loom, in this or any other country, were produced this year at Lowell.

The first successful attempt to use anthracite coal in the manufacture of iron was made at a furnace in Pottsville, Pa. The proprietor was rewarded with a present of five thousand dollars, subscribed by citizens of the State.

The first white settlement on the site of Sacramento was made by J. A. Sutter.

The express business in this country originated on the 4th of March, when Mr. W. F. Harnden of Boston, according to previous advertisement, made a trip from that city to New York as a public messenger. He had in charge a few books and some Southern and Western bank notes for delivery. His route was by railroad from Boston to Stonington, thence by steamboat to New York. He proposed also to take charge of freight and attend to its early delivery, he having made a contract with the railroad and steamboat line on that route for that purpose. Charles Goodyear obtained his first patent for vulcanized india-rubber in February.

The Western Railroad, between Worcester and Springfield, was opened for travel on the 1st of October. The Syracuse and Utica, and the Syracuse and Auburn, railroads, were also completed this year.

1840 Congress established the Independent Treasury. The new system proposed to separate the government entirely from any dependence upon the banks in its fiscal operations, the collection, safe-keeping, transfer, and disbursements of the public money to be performed by agents of the government alone, and only specie to be used in all transactions of the government. This act was repealed during the administration of Mr. Tyler.

The result of the presidential election this year, after a campaign more than usually exciting, was successful for the candidates of the Whig party. These were William H. Harrison for President, who received two hundred and thirty-four electoral votes, and John Tyler for Vice-President, who received the same number. Martin Van Buren was the nominee for President of the Democratic party, and he received sixty votes. For Vice President, Richard M. Johnson received forty-eight

A

votes, L. W. Tazewell eleven, and James K. Polk one. third party, in favor of the abolition of slavery, had been organized for some time, and this year nominated James G. Birney for President, who received some scattering votes in the Northern States, but not sufficient in any one to give him a single electoral vote.

The census of Iowa showed a population of forty-three thousand; and of Wisconsin, of thirty-one thousand.

The town of Scranton, Pa., was founded.

Water was supplied to the city of Chicago by a private corporation. It was pumped from the lake into a reservoir about twenty-five feet square and eight feet deep, and thence conveyed to the citizens by means of pipes made of logs.

This year, Mr. P. B. Burke and Mr. Alvan Ådams commenced to take charge of freight, and packages of money and goods, and attend to their delivery, between Boston and New York, by the way of Springfield, in competition with Mr. Harnden, who had established the business in the preceding year by the Stonington route. This enterprise was the foundation of the Adams Express Company.

The first manufacture of gold pens in this country was commenced at New York.

The first iron-front building in America was erected on Washington Street, in Boston, this year, upon the guarantee of the builder that it should be taken down at his own expense if it proved a failure.

The first successful daguerreotype portraits were made at the New York University, by Dr. Draper. The process, invented by Daguerre, in France, was purchased by the French Government, and was never used in copying landscapes and likenesses, and was only adapted to statuary and architecture. When the news of Dr. Draper's discovery reached London, its success was ascribed to the peculiar brilliancy of the American sunlight.

A tornado visited the city of Natchez, on the 7th of May, occasioning an immense destruction of property and loss of life. Several steamboats were destroyed at the wharves, and many persons who had embarked in them were drowned. A large number of flat-boats were wrecked by the gale, and a number of boatmen, estimated at upwards of two hundred, perished. The wreck of one steamboat was afterwards found at Baton Rouge, with fifty-one dead bodies on it. Of one hundred and twenty flat-boats at the landing, all but four were lost. The water in the river was agitated to that degree that the best swimmers could not save themselves. Many houses were blown down and several unroofed.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was completed from Georgetown, D. C., to Cumberland, Pa., a distance of one hundred and ninety-one miles, at a cost of about sixteen millions of dollars.

The Housatonic Railroad, in Connecticut, was completed from Bridgeport to New Milford on the 12th of February;