1794 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: George Washington
• Vice President: John Adams
• Chief Justice: John Jay
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Frederick Muhlenberg
• Congress: 3rd

  Governors

• Governor of Connecticut: Samuel Huntington
• Governor of Delaware: Joshua Clayton
• Governor of Georgia: George Mathews
• Governor of Kentucky: Issac Shelby
• Governor of Maryland: Thomas Sim Lee , John Hoskins Stone
• Governor of Massachusetts: Samuel Adams
• Governor of New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett , John Taylor Gilman
• Governor of New Jersey: Richard Howell
• Governor of New York: George Clinton
• Governor of North Carolina: Richard Dobbs Spaight
• Governor of Pennsylvania: Thomas Mifflin
• Governor of Rhode Island: Arthur Fenner
• Governor of South Carolina: William Moultrie , Arnoldus Vanderhorst
• Governor of Vermont: Thomas Chittenden
• Governor of Virginia: Henry Lee III , Robert Brooke

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Oliver Wolcott
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Samuel Adams , Moses Gill
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: Pierre Van Cortlandt
• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Samuel J. Potter
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: James Ladson , Lewis Morris
• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Peter Olcott , Jonathan Hunt

  Events

• February 11 - The first session of the United States Senate is open to the public.
• March 14 - Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin.
• March 27 - The United States Government authorizes the building of the first six United States Navy vessels, not to be confused with October 13, 1775, which is observed as the .
• July 17 - Whiskey Rebellion: 500 armed Pennsylvanians attack and burn the home of General John Neville.
• August 7 - Whiskey Rebellion: President Washington invokes the Militia Acts of 1792 mobilize a federal army of 12,500 men. The force would later be put under the command of General "Light Horse Harry" Lee to be led into western Pennsylvania against the insurrection.
• September 10 - The University of Tennessee is established at Knoxville.
• November - Whiskey Rebellion: The federal army quells the uprising and begins the return march to Philadelphia with prisoners.

  Undated

• Britain agrees to evacuate border forts in the Northwest Territory and thereby end British support for the Indians.
• The Age of Reason - Thomas Paine
• Springfield Armory was founded; one of the most universally known and influential gun producers in the United States

  Ongoing

• Northwest Indian War

  Births

• March 16 - Lawrence Brainerd, U.S. Senator from Vermont from 1854 to 1855
• April 10
• * Matthew C. Perry, commodore
• * John McCracken Robinson, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1830 to 1841
• April 11 - Edward Everett, politician
• May 27 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, entrepreneur
• June 7 - Elias Kane, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1825 to 1835
• July 5 - Sylvester Graham, nutritionist and inventor
• August 10 - Jackson Morton, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1849 to 1855
• October 6 - Charles Wilkins Short, botanist
• October 22 - Carlos Wilcox, poet
• October 23 - Oliver H. Smith, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1837 to 1843
• November 3 - William Cullen Bryant, romantic poet, journalist and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post
• November 10 - Alexander O. Anderson, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1840 to 1841
• Date unknown - Arthur P. Bagby, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1837 to 1841
• Approximate date - Maria Gowen Brooks, born Abigail Gowen, poet

  Deaths

• September 15 - Abraham Clark, American signer of the Declaration of Independence
• June 19 - Richard Henry Lee, 12th President of the Confederation Congress. signatory of the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, and United States Constitution
• November 15 - John Witherspoon, American signer of the Declaration of Independence
• November 22 - John Alsop, American Continental Congressman