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Articles
Timeline of Johnson's Life by Various
1808
• Born December 29 in Raleigh, N.C. to Jacob and Mary McDonough Johnson.
• Congress prohibited the importation of African slaves into the United States (smuggling continued).
• "The Indian Princess," a play by James Nelson Barker with music by John Bray, was produced (April 6) in Philadelphia at the New York Theater and (June 14) in New York at the Park Theater. It is the earliest known dramatization of the story of Pocahontas.
1827
• Marries Eliza McCardle, Greeneville, TN. They have five children, 1828-52.
• The United States made an unsuccessful attempt to purchase Texas from Mexico.
• The New York State Legislature abolished (July 4) slavery in the State.
1829-1830
• Alderman for the city of Greeneville.
• General Andrew Jackson, Democrat, of South Carolina, was inaugurated as the seventh President. He was popularly known as "Old Hickory."
• Kit (Christopher) Carson, Kentucky frontiersman, was coming into prominence as a Santa Fe guide for the first overland expeditions
1832
• Appointed trustee of Rhea Academy, Greeneville.
• In the fall Illinois state elections, young Abraham Lincoln, then 23 years old, ran for his first public office (a seat in the state legislatur
1834
• Mayor of Greeneville.
• Cyrus Hall McCormick, Virginia-born inventor, patented the practical reaper he had perfected in 1831.
• A new kind of cigar, called the locofoco and invented by John Marck of New York, came on the market. It was a self-lighting cigar which, at one end, had a substance that was ignited by friction.
1835-1837
• Tennessee State Legislator, Democratic Party. Defeated 1837 and re-elected 1839.
• Samuel Colt, American inventor, patented the revolver, the "six-shooter" of desperado legends.
• The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia cracked (July 8) as it tolled for the funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall.
• Texas officially proclaimed (November 13) its independence from Mexico. It called itself the Lone Star Republic until its admission to
1840
• Presidential elector; supports Democrat Martin Van Buren.
• John W. Draper is believed to have been the first American to take a photograph.
• Ladies were served at special post-office windows and even special bowling alleys to help them avoid the tobacco-chewing male.
• Football was played in colleges at this time as a crude game among freshmen and sophomores.
1841
• Tennessee State Senator.
• General William Henry Harrison, Whig, of Virginia, was inaugurated as the ninth President. He contracted pneumonia at the rainy inaugural ceremonies and died, aged 68, on April 4 after serving only 31 days. He was succeeded by Vice President John Tyler, also a Whig, also of Virginia, who took the oath as the tenth President.
• President Tyler vetoed the bill for rechartering the Bank of the United States, and all members of his cabinet, except Daniel Webster, resigned in protest.
• A cargo of Negro slaves, en route from Richmond, VA to New Orleans aboard the American vessel Creole, mutinied, seized the ship, and took it to the British port of New Providence in the West Indies, where the local authorities assisted their escape.
1843-1853
• U.S. Representative, 1st Congressional District of Tennessee. Term marked by fiscal conservatism, opposition to tariffs, support for annexation of Texas, campaign for Homestead Bill.
• The Department of the Interior was established (March 3, 1843).
• Samuel Morse successfully demonstrated (May 24, 1844) before Congress his electric telegraph by sending a message from the United States Supreme Court room in the Capitol to Baltimore by wire. The message read: "What hath God wrought!" (Mrs. Dolley Madison, widow of the fourth President, dispatched the first personal message.)
• James K. Polk, Democrat, was inaugurated as the 11th President in 1845. His wife, Sarah Childress Polk, prohibited liquor and dancing in the white house.
• Women pursuing the right to vote held a convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Among the leaders were Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
• Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, appeared in book form in 1852; 300,000 copies were reported to have been sold during the first year.
1853-1857
• Governor of Tennessee. Reforms public education, establishes State Agriculture Department and public libraries.
1857-1862
• U.S. Senator. Continues support of Homestead Bill, urges popular election of President, U.S. Senators, and federal judges. Delivers famous anti-secession speech, December 18-19, 1860. Only senator from seceding state to return to Capitol after outbreak of Civil War.
1862-1864
• Military Governor of Tennessee. Establishes provisional government. Emancipates slaves in Tennessee. Advocates general amnesty for secessionists.
1865
• Vice-president of the United States.
1865-1866
• 17th President of the United States as of Lincoln's death April 15. Seeks to restore Union; opposes radical Reconstruction. Signs purchase of Alaska Territory, 1867. Impeached 1868 for violation of Tenure of Office Act; acquitted in May. Proclaims general amnesty for secessionists in December 1868.
1875
• U.S. Senator. Only former President to return to U.S. Senate. Dies July 31; buried in Greeneville.
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