Events from the year 1837 in the United States.

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See also:	History of the United States (1789–1849) Timeline of United States history (1820–1859) List of years in the United States

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• January 6 – DePauw University founded in Greencastle, Indiana.^[1]
• January 26 – Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state (see History of Michigan).
• February 4 – Seminoles attack Fort Foster.
• February 8 – Richard Johnson becomes the only vice president of the United States chosen by the United States Senate.
• February 15 – Knox College founded in Galesburg, Illinois.
• February 16 – Lake County, Indiana is established by the European Americans.^[2]
• February 25
  • In Philadelphia, The Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) is founded as the first institution for the higher education of coloreds.
  • Thomas Davenport obtains the first United States patent on an electric motor.^{[3][4][non-primary source needed]}
• March – Victor Séjour's short story "Le Mulâtre", the earliest known work of African American fiction, is published in the French abolitionist journal Revue des Colonies.
• March 4
  • Martin Van Buren is sworn in as the eighth president of the United States, and Richard M. Johnson is sworn in as the ninth vice president.
  • Chicago is granted a city charter by Illinois.
• May 10 – Panic of 1837: New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels.
• June 5 – Houston, Texas, is granted a city charter.
• June 11 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, fueled by ethnic tensions between the Irish and the Yankees.
• July – Charles W. King sets sail on the American merchant ship Morrison. In the Morrison incident, he is turned away from Japanese ports with cannon fire.
• July 31 – Groundbreaking ceremony for St. Charles College (Louisiana), the first Jesuit college established in the South.
• October – First publication of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review.^{[5][6][non-primary source needed]}
• October 21 – General Thomas Jesup captures Seminole leader Osceola under pretext of negotiations.
• November 7 – In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot and killed by a pro-slavery mob while he attempts to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a fourth time.
• November 8 – Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which will later become Mount Holyoke College.
• John Deere (inventor) begins his agricultural implement manufacturing business, John Deere, in Grand Detour, Illinois.
• The Little, Brown and Company publishing house opens its doors in Boston.^[7]
• John Greenleaf Whittier's first poetry book, Poems Written During the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, is published by Boston abolitionists.
• Antonija Höffern becomes the first Slovene woman to immigrate to the United States.^[8]

• January 9 – Julius C. Burrows, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1895 to 1911 (died 1915)
• January 19 – William Williams Keen, brain surgeon (died 1932)
• February 5 – Dwight L. Moody, evangelist (died 1899)
• March 1 – William Dean Howells, writer, historian, editor and politician (died 1920)
• March 7 – Henry Draper, physician and astronomer (died 1882)
• March 18 – Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897 (died 1908)
• March 27 – Kate Fox, medium (died 1892)
• April 3 – John Burroughs, nature writer (died 1921)
• April 10 – (Byron) Forceythe Willson, poet (died 1867)
• April 17 – J. P. Morgan, financier (died 1913 in Italy)
  • May 26
  • Mary Frances McCray, church founder, leader and preacher (died 1898)^[9]
  • Washington Roebling, civil engineer (died 1926)
• May 27 – James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, gunfighter (killed 1876)
• May 28
  • Samuel D. McEnery, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1897 to 1910 (died 1910)
  • Tony Pastor, impresario and theater owner (died 1908)
• June 22
  • Paul Morphy, chess player (died 1884)
  • Touch the Clouds, Native American Miniconjou chief 7 feet tall (died 1905)
• June 25 – Charles Yerkes, financier of rapid transit systems in Chicago and London (died 1905)
• July 1 – Henry Rathbone, military officer and diplomat (died 1911 in Germany)
• July 21 – Helen Appo Cook, African American community activist (died 1913)
• July 22 – George N. Bliss, Medal of Honor recipient (died 1928)
• July 31 – William Quantrill, Confederate leader during the American Civil War (died 1865)
• August 30 – Nell Arthur, wife of Chester A. Arthur (died 1880)
• September 2 – James H. Wilson, Union Army general in the Civil War (died 1925)
• September 8
  • Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Heine Miller, "Poet of the Sierras" (died 1913)
  • Raphael Pumpelly, geologist and explorer (died 1923)
• October 10 – Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army general in the Civil War and reformer (killed in action 1863)
• October 12 – Preston B. Plumb, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1877 to 1891 (died 1891)
• October 29 – Harriet Powers, African American folk artist (died 1910)
• November 3 – John Leary, politician, 37th Mayor of Seattle (died 1905)
• November 20 – Lewis Waterman, inventor and businessman (died 1901)
• November 28 – John Wesley Hyatt, inventor and industrial chemist (died 1920)
• December 10 – Edward Eggleston, novelist and historian (died 1902)
• December 15 – George B. Post, architect (died 1913)
• December 26
  • Morgan Bulkeley, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1905 to 1911 (died 1922)
  • George Dewey, U.S. Admiral of the Navy (died 1917)

• June 29 – Nathaniel Macon, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1815 to 1828 (born 1757)
• September 28 – David Barton, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1821 to 1831 (born 1783)
• October 1 – Robert Clark, politician (born 1777)
• October 9 – Oliver H. Prince, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1828 to 1829 (born 1787)
• November 7 – Elijah P. Lovejoy, abolitionist (born 1809)
• November 11 – Thomas Green Fessenden, poet (born 1771)
• December 20 – Francis Neale, Jesuit, President of Georgetown College (born 1756)
• Date unknown – Mary Dixon Kies, first American recipient of a U.S. patent (born 1752)

• Timeline of United States history (1820–1859)