List of events
Events from the year 1817 in the United States .
Incumbents
Events
March 4: James Monroe becomes the fifth U.S. president
Daniel D. Tompkins becomes the sixth U.S. vice president
January–March
April–June
July–September
The Gloucester sea serpent , a "large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent, seen near Cape Ann , Massachusetts, in August 1817"
October–December
Undated
Ongoing
Births
February 7 – LeRoy Pope Walker , 1st Confederate States Secretary of War (died 1884 )
February 8 – Richard S. Ewell , Confederate general (died 1872 )
March 22 – Braxton Bragg , Confederate general (died 1876 )
March 26 – Herman Haupt , railroad civil engineer (died 1905 )
July 1 – Hugh J. Jewett , railroad president and politician (died 1898 )
July 12 – Henry David Thoreau , author, poet, philosopher, naturalist, environmentalist, surveyor, historian, abolitionist, tax resister and transcendentalist (died 1862 )
August 4 – Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen , 29th United States Secretary of State (died 1885 )
August 14 – Alexander H. Bailey , politician (died 1874 )
September 13 – John M. Palmer , U.S. Senator for Illinois from 1891 to 1897 (died 1900 )
October 2 – Webster Wagner , inventor, manufacturer and politician (died 1883 )
October 28 – Cornelius Mathews , writer (died 1889 )
November 3 – Leonard Jerome , entrepreneur (grandfather of Winston Churchill) (died 1891 )
November 17 – Benjamin Champney , landscape painter (died 1907 )
November 19 – James A. McDougall , U.S. Senator from California from 1861 to 1867 (died 1867 )
December 23 – Warren Felt Evans , writer (died 1889 )
December 29 – Eli Saulsbury , U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1871 to 1889 (died 1893 )
December 31 – James T. Fields , publisher (died 1881 )
Date unknown – George R. Riddle , U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1864 to 1867, civil engineer and lawyer (died 1867)
Deaths
January 16 – Alexander J. Dallas , statesman and financier (born 1759 )
May 12 – William Goforth , physician and paleontologist (born 1766 )
June 24 – Thomas McKean , lawyer, President of the Continental Congress , and signatory of the Declaration of Independence (born 1734 )
August 7 – Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours , French-born industrialist (born 1739 )
September 18 – William Charles Wells , physician (born 1757 )
September 23 – Solomon Metcalf Allen , professor of languages, killed in fall from college roof (born 1789 )
Date unknown – Caleb Bingham , textbook author (born 1757)
See also
18th century 19th century 20th century 21st century By U.S. state/territory States
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Washington D.C. Territories