1806 in the United States

← 1805 1804 1803 1806 in the United States → 1807 1808 1809
Decades:	1780s 1790s 1800s 1810s 1820s
See also:	History of the United States (1789–1849) Timeline of United States history (1790–1819) List of years in the United States

Events from the year 1806 in the United States.

Incumbents[]

Federal Government[]

• President: Thomas Jefferson (DR-Virginia )
• Vice President: George Clinton (DR-New York)
• Chief Justice: John Marshall (Virginia)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nathaniel Macon (DR-North Carolina)
• Congress: 9th

Events[]

• March 23 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition and their Corps of Discovery, having reached the Pacific Ocean after traveling through the Louisiana Purchase, begins its journey home.
• March 28 – Washington College (modern-day Washington & Jefferson College) is chartered by the Pennsylvania General Assembly.^[1]
• March 29 – Construction is authorized of the National Road (the first United States federal highway).
• April 18 – The U.S. Congress passes the Non-importation Act in an attempt to coerce Great Britain to suspend its impressment of American sailors and to respect American sovereignty and neutrality on the high seas.
• May 30 – Future President Andrew Jackson fights his second duel, killing Charles Dickinson who had accused Jackson's wife of bigamy; Jackson has a bullet lodged close to his heart.
• July 4 – Ship The Irish Rover sets sail from the Cove of Cork, Ireland for New York.
• July 15 – Pike Expedition: Near St. Louis, Missouri, United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike leads an expedition from Fort Bellefontaine to explore the west.
• August 14 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition makes its return to the Mandan Indians while making its return trip to St. Louis.
• September 23 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition reaches St. Louis, Missouri, ending a successful exploration of the Louisiana Territory and the Pacific Northwest.
• November 15 – Pike Expedition: During his second exploratory expedition, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (later named Pikes Peak in his honor).

Undated[]

• Noah Webster publishes A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, his first American English dictionary.
• Parson Weems publishes a 2nd edition of his The Life of George Washington, with curious anecdotes laudable to himself and exemplary to his countrymen, first including the story of the young Washington and the cherry-tree.

Ongoing[]

Births[]

Deaths[]

• February 20 – Lachlan McIntosh, military and political leader (born 1725)
• April 10 – Horatio Gates, British soldier who served as an American general in the American Revolutionary War (born 1727 in Great Britain)
• May 30 – Charles Dickinson, attorney that Andrew Jackson killed (in a duel) after Dickinson accused Jackson's wife of bigamy (born 1780)
• October 9 – Benjamin Banneker, astronomer, surveyor (born 1731)
• October 25 – Henry Knox, first United States Secretary of War, military officer of the Continental Army and later the United States Army (born 1750)

See also[]

• Timeline of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
• Timeline of United States history (1790–1819)

References[]

Further reading[]

• Nathaniel Bowditch. Observations on the Total Eclipse of the Sun June 16, 1806, Made at Salem. Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1809), pp. 18–22
• Simeon De Witt. Observations on the Eclipse of 16 June 1806, Made by Simeon De Witt Esq. of Albany, State of New-York, Addressed to Benjamin Rush M. D. to Be by Him Communicated to the American Philosophical Society. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 6, (1809), pp. 300–302
• The Massachusetts Election in 1806. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Second Series, Vol. 20, [Vol. 40 of continuous numbering] (1906–1907), pp. 1–21
• Herbert E. Bolton. Papers of Zebulon M. Pike, 1806–1807. The American Historical Review, Vol. 13, No. 4 (July, 1908), pp. 798–827
• J. Madison. William and Mary College, July 4, 1806. The William and Mary Quarterly, Second Series, Vol. 3, No. 3 (July, 1923), pp. 201–205
• Elizabeth Heyward Jervey. Marriage and Death Notices from the Charleston Courier 1806. The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol. 30, No. 2 (April, 1929), pp. 117–124
• W. E. Hollon. Zebulon Montgomery Pike's Mississippi Voyage, 1805–1806. The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 32, No. 4 (June, 1949), pp. 445–455
• W. H. G. Armytage. A Sheffield Quaker in Philadelphia 1804–1806. Pennsylvania History, Vol. 17, No. 3 (1950), pp. 192–205
• Anthony Steel. Impressment in the Monroe-Pinkney Negotiation, 1806–1807. The American Historical Review, Vol. 57, No. 2 (January, 1952), pp. 352–369
• George S. Snyderman. Halliday Jackson's Journal of a Visit Paid to the Indians of New York (1806). Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 101, No. 6, Studies of Historical Documents in the Library of the American Philosophical Society (December 19, 1957), pp. 565–588
• John H. Reinoehl. Some Remarks on the American Trade: Jacob Crowninshield to James Madison 1806. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 16, No. 1 (January, 1959), pp. 83–118
• Ludwell Lee Montague. Cornelia Lee's Wedding. As Reported in a Letter from Ann Calvert Stuart to Mrs. Elizabeth Lee, October 19, 1806. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 80, No. 4 (October, 1972), pp. 453–460
• William G. McLoughlin. Thomas Jefferson and the Beginning of Cherokee Nationalism, 1806 to 1809. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 32, No. 4 (October, 1975), pp. 548–580
• Robert E. Moody, Leverett Saltonstall. Leverett Saltonstall: A Diary Beginning January AD. 1806. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, Vol. 89, (1977), pp. 127–177
• John M. Bryan. Robert Mills, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Thomas Jefferson, and the South Carolina Penitentiary Project, 1806–1808. The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 85, No. 1 (January, 1984), pp. 1–21
• Dan L. Flores. The Ecology of the Red River in 1806: Peter Custis and Early Southwestern Natural History. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 1 (July, 1984), pp. 1–42
• Donald R. Hickey. The Monroe-Pinkney Treaty of 1806: A Reappraisal. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 44, No. 1 (January, 1987), pp. 65���88
• John Taylor, Wilson Cary Nicholas, David N. Mayer. Of Principles and Men: The Correspondence of John Taylor of Caroline with Wilson Cary Nicholas 1806–1808. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 96, No. 3, "The Example of Virginia Is a Powerful Thing": The Old Dominion and the Constitution, 1788–1988 (July, 1988), pp. 345–388
• James P. Ronda. A Moment in Time: The West: September 1806. Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 2–15
• Dan Flores. A Very Different Story: Exploring the Southwest from Monticello with the Freeman and Custis Expedition of 1806. Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 2–17
• Matthew E. Mason. Slavery Overshadowed: Congress Debates Prohibiting the Atlantic Slave Trade to the United States, 1806–1807. Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 59–81

External links[]

• Media related to 1806 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons