1847 in History

Donner Party rescued the first rescuers reach surviving members of the Donner Party, a group of California-bound emigrants stranded by snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

BELL, Alexander Graham was born.

EDISON, Thomas Alva was born.

U.S. adhesive postage stamps were first officially issued in 1847, picturing Benjamin Franklin (on the five-cent stamp) and George Washington (on the ten-cent stamp).

Liberia It became a republic July 26, 1847, with a constitution modeled on that of the U.S. Descendants of freedmen dominated politics.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Several states in the U.S. (led by Michigan in 1847) and a few countries (beginning with Venezuela in 1853 and Portugal in 1867) abolished the death penalty entirely.

TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s first long poem after gaining literary recognition was The Princess (1847), a romantic treatment in musical blank verse of the question of women’s rights.

INDIANAPOLIS INDIANAPOLIS. city, capital of Indiana and seat of Marion Co., on the White R., in the central part of the state; inc. as a city 1847.

DOUGLASS, Frederick In 1845, Douglass, at the urging of his friends, went to England to escape the danger of seizure under the FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS, (q.v.). His lectures in the British Isles on the slavery question in the U.S. aroused sympathy for the abolitionists’ cause and prompted his admirers to raise funds to purchase his freedom. After returning to the U.S. in 1847, Douglass became the “station-master and conductor” of the Underground Railroad in Rochester, N.Y., where he also established the abolitionist newspaper North Star, which he edited until 1860.

ANESTHESIA In 1847 the British physician Sir James Simpson (1811–70) discovered the anesthetic properties of CHLOROFORM

APPLESEED, Johnny APPLESEED, Johnny. real name John Chapman (c. 1774–1847), American pioneer, born in Leominster, Mass.

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATIONAMA), federation of state and territorial medical associations, founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, to promote medical knowledge and protect the welfare of U.S. physicians.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA In 1847 Alexandria and the remainder of the District on the W bank of the Potomac were returned to the state of Virginia by an act of Congress.

FLUTE In 1832 the German flute maker Theobald Boehm created an improved conical-bore flute, and in 1847 he patented his cylindrical-bore flute, which is the model in widest use in the 20th century

LEE, Robert E(dward) He distinguished himself in the battles of the Mexican War and was wounded in the storming of Chapultepec in 1847; for his meritorious service he received his third brevet promotion in rank.

McCORMICK, Cyrus Hall In 1847 he built a factory in Chicago and began the large-scale manufacture of reapers.

OGDEN, Peter Skene In 1847 Ogden rescued the survivors of the Marcus Whitman massacre, in which the members of the missionary’s family and 12 members of his group were slain by Cayuse Indians.

PULITZER, Joseph PULITZER, Joseph. (1847–1911), American journalist, born in Makó, Hungary.

VEGETARIANISM In 1847 the Vegetarian Society, a nonreligious organization, was founded.

PASTEUR, Louis In 1847 he earned a doctorate at the École Normale in Paris, with a focus on both physics and chemistry.

CARSON, Kit Carson served in the Mexican War in 1846 and 1847, playing an important part in the conquest of California.