1803 in the United States

1803 in the United States
Years 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805
Flag
The Star Spangled Banner, 15 stars, 15 stripes (1795–1818)
Timeline of United States history
History of the United States (1789–1849)

Events from the year 1803 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: Thomas Jefferson (DR-Virginia)
• Vice President: Aaron Burr (DR-New York)
• Chief Justice: John Marshall (Virginia)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nathaniel Macon (DR-North Carolina)
• Congress: 7th (until March 4), 8th (starting March 4)

Events

• January 30 – Monroe and Livingston sail for Paris to discuss, and possibly buy, New Orleans; they end completing the Louisiana Purchase.
• February 24 – Marbury v. Madison: The Supreme Court of the United States establishes the principle of judicial review.
• March 1 – Ohio is admitted as the 17th U.S. state, retroactive from August 7, 1953 (see History of Ohio).
• April 30 – Louisiana Purchase is made by the United States from France.
• July 4 – The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.
• October 20 – The Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, doubling the size of the United States.
• November 30 – At the Cabildo building in New Orleans, Spanish representatives Governor Manuel de Salcedo and the Marqués de Casa Calvo, officially transfer Louisiana (New Spain) to French representative Prefect Pierre Clément de Laussat. Barely three weeks later, on December 20, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.

Ongoing

• First Barbary War (1801–1805)

Births

• January 19 – Sarah Helen Whitman, poet, essayist, transcendentalist, spiritualist and a romantic interest of Edgar Allan Poe (died 1878)
• February 2 – Albert Sidney Johnston, Confederate general (died 1862)
• April 30 – Jeremiah E. Cary, politician (died 1888)
• May 25 – Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist and poet (died 1882)
• June 25 – Sumner Lincoln Fairfield, poet and teacher (died 1844)
• July 10 – William Todd, businessman, Canadian senate nominee (died 1873)
• July 16 – Sarah Yorke Jackson, Acting First Lady of the United States (died 1887)
• August 27 – Edward Beecher, theologian (died 1895)
• September 4 – Sarah Childress Polk, First Lady of the U.S. (died 1891)
• September 27 – Samuel Francis Du Pont, rear admiral (died 1865)
• September 29 – Mercator Cooper, sea captain (died 1872)
• October 24 – Albert Smith White, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1839 to 1845 (died 1864)
• November 14 – Jacob Abbott, children's writer (died 1879)
• December 18 or 27 – William Allen, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1837 to 1849 (died 1879)

Deaths

• May 14 – William Smith, Episcopalian priest, educator, theologian, poet and historian (born 1727)
• June 24 – Matthew Thornton, signatory of the Declaration of Independence (born 1714 in Ireland)
• October 2 – Samuel Adams, a Founding Father of the U.S. (born 1722)
• December 30 – Francis Lewis, signatory of the Declaration of Independence (born 1713 in Wales)
• Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, "Father of the American Revolution" (born 1726 in France; died in France)
• William Verstille, portrait artist (born c. 1757)

Further reading

• Max Farrand. The Commercial Privileges of the Treaty of 1803. The American Historical Review, Vol. 7, No. 3 (April, 1902), pp. 494–499
• Lewis Leary. Leigh Hunt in Philadelphia. An American Literary Incident of 1803. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 70, No. 3 (July, 1946), pp. 270–280
• Robert Mills, Hennig Cohen. An Unpublished Diary by Robert Mills, 1803. The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol. 51, No. 4 (October, 1950), pp. 187–194
• Bennard B. Perlman. Baltimore Mansion, 1801-03. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 14, No. 1 (March, 1955), pp. 26–28
• Jerry W. Knudson. The Jeffersonian Assault on the Federalist Judiciary, 1802–1805; Political Forces and Press Reaction. The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 14, No. 1 (January, 1970), pp. 55–75
• John F. Hoadley. The Emergence of Political Parties in Congress, 1789-1803. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 74, No. 3 (September, 1980), pp. 757–779
• John W. Wagner. New York City Concert Life, 1801-5. American Music, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer, 1984), pp. 53–69
• Kevin M. Gannon. Escaping "Mr. Jefferson's Plan of Destruction": New England Federalists and the Idea of a Northern Confederacy, 1803-1804. Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 413–443
• Peter S. Onuf. The Revolution of 1803. The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Winter, 2003), pp. 22–29.

External links

• Media related to 1803 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons