1820 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: James Monroe
• Vice President: Daniel D. Tompkins
• Chief Justice: John Marshall
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Henry Clay , John W. Taylor
• Congress: 16th

  Governors

• Governor of Alabama: William Wyatt Bibb , Thomas Bibb
• Governor of Connecticut: Oliver Wolcott Jr.
• Governor of Delaware:
• * until January 18: John Clark
• * January 18: Henry Molleston
• * starting January 18: Jacob Stout
• Governor of Georgia: John Clark
• Governor of Illinois: Shadrach Bond
• Governor of Indiana: Jonathan Jennings
• Governor of Kentucky: Gabriel Slaughter , John Adair
• Governor of Louisiana: Jacques Villeré , Thomas Bolling Robertson
• Governor of Maine: William King
• Governor of Maryland: Samuel Sprigg
• Governor of Massachusetts: John Brooks
• Governor of Mississippi: David Holmes , George Poindexter
• Governor of New Hampshire: Samuel Bell
• Governor of New Jersey: Isaac Halstead Williamson
• Governor of New York: DeWitt Clinton
• Governor of North Carolina: John Branch , Jesse Franklin
• Governor of Ohio: Ethan Allen Brown
• Governor of Pennsylvania: William Findlay , Joseph Hiester
• Governor of Rhode Island: Nehemiah R. Knight
• Governor of South Carolina: John Geddes , Thomas Bennett, Jr.
• Governor of Tennessee: Joseph McMinn
• Governor of Vermont: Jonas Galusha , Richard Skinner
• Governor of Virginia: Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr.

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Jonathan Ingersoll
• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Pierre Menard
• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Ratliff Boon
• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant, William T. Barry
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: William Phillips, Jr.
• Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Duncan Stewart , James Patton
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: John Tayler
• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Edward Wilcox
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: William Youngblood , William Pinckney
• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Paul Brigham , William Cahoon

  Events

• February 6 – 86 free African American colonists sail from New York City to Freetown, Sierra Leone.
• March 3 & 6 - Slavery in the United States: The Missouri Compromise becomes law.
• March 15 - Maine is admitted as the 23rd U.S. state.
• April 24 - The Land Act of 1820 reduces the price of land in the Northwest Territory and Missouri Territory encouraging Americans to settle in the west.
• August 7 - The 1820 United States Census is conducted, eventually determining a population of 9,638,453 of which 1,538,022 are slaves.
• December 3 - U.S. presidential election, 1820: James Monroe is re-elected, virtually unopposed.

  Undated

• Mount Rainier erupts over what is today Seattle.
• Indiana University is founded as the Indiana State Seminary and renamed the Indiana College in 1846, to later be renamed Indiana University.
• Charlottesville Woolen Mills built along the Rivanna River

  Ongoing

• Era of Good Feelings

  Births

• February 1 - George Hendric Houghton, Episcopal clergyman
• February 4 - David C. Broderick, U.S. Senator from California from 1857 to 1859
• February 6 - Henry Howard Brownell, poet and historian
• February 8 - William Tecumseh Sherman, Civil War general
• February 15 - Susan B. Anthony, suffragist
• March 1 - George Davis, Confederate States Senator from North Carolina, 4th and last Confederate States Attorney General
• March 3 - Henry D. Cogswell, temperance campaigner and philanthropist
• March 17 - William F. Raynolds, military engineer
• March 24
• * Fanny Crosby, mission worker and hymnist
• * George G. Wright, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1871 to 1877
• April 8 - John Taylor Johnston, businessman and patron of the arts
• April 17 - Alexander Cartwright, baseball pioneer
• April 26 - Alice Cary, poet and short story writer, sister to Phoebe Cary
• May 23 - Lorenzo Sawyer, 9th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California
• May 30 - Edward Doane, Protestant missionary
• June 2 - Willard Saulsbury, Sr., U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1859 to 1871
• July 5 - Luke Pryor, U.S. Senator from Alabama in 1880
• July 23 - Julia Gardiner Tyler, First Lady of the United States
• July 31 - John W. Garrett, banker, railroad president and philanthropist
• August 26 - James Harlan, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1865 to 1866
• August 30 - George Frederick Root, songwriter
• September 3 - George Hearst, U.S. Senator from California from 1887 to 1891
• September 20 - John F. Reynolds, U.S. Army general
• October 5 - David Wilber, politician
• October 28 - John Henry Hopkins, Jr., Episcopal clergyman and hymnist
• November 13 - Eugene Casserly, U.S. Senator from California from 1869 to 1873
• December 12 - James L. Pugh, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1880 to 1897
• December 19 - Mary Livermore, born Mary Ashton Rice, journalist, abolitionist and women's rights advocate
• December 21 - William H. Osborn, railroad president and philanthropist
• December 29 - John S. Barbour, Jr., U.S. Senator from Virginia from 1889 to 1892
• Eagle Woman, Lakota leader

  Deaths

• February 5 - William Ellery, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court
• March 11 - Benjamin West, American-born painter of historical scenes
• March 22 - Stephen Decatur, U.S. Navy commander
• April 14 - Levi Lincoln Sr., statesman from Massachusetts
• April 20 - James Morris III, Continental Army officer from Connecticut
• July 10 - William Wyatt Bibb, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1813 to 1816, 1st Governor of Alabama
• August 12 - Manuel Lisa, fur trader
• September 3 - Benjamin Henry Latrobe, architect
• September 21 - Joseph Rodman Drake, poet
• September 26 - Daniel Boone, pioneer
• September 29 - Barthelemy Lafon, Creole architect, engineer, city planner, surveyor and smuggler
• October 4 - Thomas Hope, architect
• November 8 - Lavinia Stoddard, poet and educationalist