1797 in the United States

1797 in the United States
Years:	1794 1795 1796 – 1797 – 1798 1799 1800
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Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1789–1849)

Events from the year 1797 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: George Washington (no political party-Virginia) (until March 4), John Adams (F-Massachusetts) (starting March 4)
• Vice President: John Adams (F-Massachusetts) (until March 4), Thomas Jefferson (DR-Virginia) (starting March 4)
• Chief Justice: Oliver Ellsworth (is originally now residing at this time in from of the U.S. state of Connecticut)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Jonathan Dayton (F-New Jersey)
• Congress: 4th (until March 4), 5th (starting March 4)

Governors and Lieutenant Governors

Governors Governor of Connecticut: Oliver Wolcott (Federalist) (until December 1), Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. (Federalist) (starting December 1) Governor of Delaware: Gunning Bedford, Sr. (Federalist) (until September 28), Daniel Rogers (Federalist) (starting September 28) Governor of Georgia: Jared Irwin (Democratic-Republican) Governor of Kentucky: James Garrard (Democratic-Republican) Governor of Maryland: John Hoskins Stone (Federalist) (until November 17), John Henry (Democratic-Republican) (starting November 17) Governor of Massachusetts: Samuel Adams (no political party) (until June 2), Increase Sumner (Federalist) (starting June 2) Governor of New Hampshire: John Taylor Gilman (Federalist) Governor of New Jersey: Richard Howell (Federalist) Governor of New York: John Jay (Federalist) Governor of North Carolina: Samuel Ashe (Anti-Federalist) Governor of Pennsylvania: Thomas Mifflin (no political party) Governor of Rhode Island: Arthur Fenner (Country) Governor of South Carolina: Charles Pinckney (Democratic-Republican) Governor of Tennessee: John Sevier (Democratic-Republican) Governor of Vermont: Until August 25: Thomas Chittenden (no political party) August 25-October 16: Paul Brigham (Democratic-Republican) starting October 16: Isaac Tichenor (Federalist) Governor of Virginia: James Wood (Democratic-Republican Party) Lieutenant Governors Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. (Federalist) (until December 1), John Treadwell (Federalist) (starting December 1) Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Moses Gill (political party unknown) Lieutenant Governor of New York: Stephen Van Rensselaer (political party unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Samuel J. Potter (Democratic-Republican) Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Robert Anderson (Federalist) Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Paul Brigham (Democratic-Republican)

Events

March 4: John Adams becomes President

• January 3 – The Treaty of Tripoli (a peace treaty between the United States and Tripoli) is signed at Algiers (see also 1796 in the United States).
• February 22 – The last invasion of Britain: An American colonel named William Tate leads French forces in a landing near Fishguard in Wales.
• March 4 – John Adams is sworn in as the 2nd President of the United States of America.
• April 17 – Sir Ralph Abercromby unsuccessfully invades San Juan, Puerto Rico in what will be one of the largest British attacks on Spanish territories in the western hemisphere, and one of the worst defeats of the English navy for years to come.
• May 10 – The first ship of the United States Navy, the frigate USS United States (1797), is commissioned.
• October 21 – In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli.

Undated

• The XYZ Affair inflames tensions between France and the United States.

Ongoing

• Panic of 1796–1797 (1796–1797)

Births

• February 28 – John Henderson, United States Senator from Mississippi from 1839 till 1845. (died 1857)
• May 24 – James Morehead, United States Senator from Kentucky from 1841 to 1847. (died 1854)

Further reading

• John Lathrop. An Account of the Deleterious Effects of Mephitic Air, or Marsb Miasmata, Experienced by Three Men, July 27, 1797. In a Well, on the Boston Pier. Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1804), pp. 81–84.
• Notes of Travel of William Henry, John Heckewelder, John Rothrock, and Christian Clewell, to Gnadenhuetten on the Muskingum, in the Early Summer of 1797. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 10, No. 2 (July, 1886), pp. 125–157
• Charles E. Peterson. Virginia Penitentiary, 1797. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 12, No. 4 (December, 1953), pp. 27–28.
• Herman R. Friis, Ralph E. Ehrenberg. Nicholas King and His Wharfing Plans of the City of Washington, 1797. Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C., Vol. 66/68, The 46th separately bound book (1966/1968), pp. 34–46.
• William K. Bottorff, Roy C. Flannagan, Frances Baylor Hill. The Diary of Frances Baylor Hill of "Hillsborough" King and Queen County Virginia (1797). Early American Literature Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 3, (Winter, 1967), pp. 3–53.
• David J. Brandenburg, Millicent H. Brandenburg. The Duc De La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt's Visit to the Federal City in 1797: A New Translation. Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C., Vol. 49, The 49th separately bound book (1973/1974), pp. 35–60.
• William Stinchcombe. Talleyrand and the American Negotiations of 1797-1798. The Journal of American History, Vol. 62, No. 3 (December, 1975), pp. 575–590.
• Lee W. Formwalt. An English Immigrant Views American Society: Benjamin Henry Latrobe's Virginia Years, 1796-1798. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 85, No. 4 (October, 1977), pp. 387–410.
• John L. Brittain and Henry Middleton Rutledge. Henry Middleton Rutledge to His Father, November 1, 1797. The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 83, No. 3 (July, 1982), pp. 235–240.
• Arthur Scherr. "Vox Populi" versus the Patriot President: Benjamin Franklin Bache's Philadelphia Aurora and John Adams (1797). Pennsylvania History, Vol. 62, No.4 (Fall 1995), pp. 503–531.
• Richard S. Chew. Certain Victims of an International Contagion: The Panic of 1797 and the Hard Times of the Late 1790s in Baltimore. Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Winter, 2005), pp. 565–613.

External links

• Media related to 1797 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons