This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "1872 in the United States" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

← 1871 1870 1869 1872 in the United States → 1873 1874 1875
Decades:	1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s
See also:	History of the United States (1865–1918) Timeline of United States history (1860–1899) List of years in the United States

Events from the year1872 in the United States.

• President:Ulysses S. Grant (R-Illinois)
• Vice President:Schuyler Colfax (R-Indiana)
• Chief Justice:Salmon P. Chase (Ohio)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives:James G. Blaine (R-Maine)
• Congress:42nd

• January 2 –Brigham Young is arrested for allegedly being an accessory to murder.
• January 3 – Firstpatent list issued by theU.S. Patent Office.
• February 13 –Rex, the most famous parade onMardi Gras, parades for the first time inNew Orleans forGrand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of Russia.
• February 20 – TheMetropolitan Museum of Art opens inNew York City.
• February 22 – TheProhibition Party holds its first national convention inColumbus, Ohio, nominatingJames Black as its presidential nominee.
• March – One of the firstPersonal Liberty League formed in the United States in response to the threat posed to the liquor industry by the growing political strength of thetemperance movement.
• March 1 –Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's firstnational park.
• March 4 –The Boston Globe is founded inBoston, Massachusetts, as the largest newspaper of theNew England region.
• March 5 –George Westinghouse patents theair brake for railroads.
• April 10 – The firstArbor Day is celebrated inNebraska.
• May 10 –Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated forPresident of the United States.
• May 22 –Reconstruction: PresidentUlysses S. Grant signs theAmnesty Act of 1872 into law restoring fullcivil rights to all but about 500Confederate sympathizers.
• June 4 – Two men lead investors to land near theWyoming-Colorado border claiming to have founddiamonds there, starting a diamond craze in the western U.S. (which is laterrevealed as a fraud).^[1]
• August –Aaron Montgomery Ward issues the firstMontgomery Ward mail order catalogue from Chicago.
• September 4 – TheNew York Sun breaks the story on theCrédit Mobilier of America scandal
• September 26 – The firstShriners Temple (called Mecca) is established inNew York City.
• October 1 – The Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College begins its first academic session (the university is later renamedVirginia Tech).
• November –Ulysses S. Grant defeatsHorace Greeley in theU.S. presidential election
• November 2 –Spiritualist, suffragette, andFree Love advocateVictoria Woodhull publishes shocking allegations inWoodhull & Claflin's Weekly claiming in "The Beecher-Tilton Scandal Case" article thatHenry Ward Beecher had committed adultery withTheodore Tilton's wife. The subsequent trials and hearings, "drove Reconstruction off the front pages for two and a half years" and became "the most sensational 'he said, she said' in American history", in the words ofWalter A. McDougall.^[2]
• November 5
  • Women's suffrage: In defiance of the law, suffragistSusan B. Anthony votes for the first time (on November 18 she is served an arrest warrant and in the subsequent trial is fined $100 - which she never pays).
  • David P. Lewis iselected the 23rdgovernor of Alabama defeatingThomas H. Herndon.
• November 7 – TheMary Celeste sets sail from New York, bound for Genoa.
• November 9 –Great Boston Fire of 1872: InBoston, Massachusetts, a large fire begins to burn on Lincoln Street. The two-day event destroys about 65 acres (260,000 m²) of city, 776 buildings, much of the financial district and causes US$60 million in damage.
• November 25 –David P. Lewis is sworn in as the 23rdGovernor of Alabama replacingRobert B. Lindsay.^[3][4]
• November 28 – GeologistClarence King uncovers thediamond hoax inWyoming inThe New York Times.^[5]
• November 29 –Indian Wars: TheModoc War begins with the Battle of Lost River.
• December 4 – The crewless American-owned shipMary Celeste is found by theBritish brigDei Gratia in the Atlantic.
• December 9 –P. B. S. Pinchback takes office asGovernor of Louisiana, the firstAfrican American governor of a U.S. state.
• William Lawrence, a dairyman ofChester (village), New York, creates the first Americancream cheese.^[6]
• First known publication ofspiritual "The Gospel Train", byFisk Jubilee Singers.

• Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
• TheWheeler Survey of the southwestern U.S., 1872–1879

• January 4 –Albert Tyler, pole vaulter and educator (died1945)
• January 20 –Julia Morgan, California architect (died1957)
• January 31 –Zane Grey, Western novelist (died1939)
• February 1 –Jerome F. Donovan, politician (died1949)
• February 9 –Charles Klauder, university architect (died1938)
• March 3 –Willie Keeler, baseball player (died1923)
• March 6 –Ben Harney, ragtime pianist and songwriter (died 1938)
• March 14 –William Emerson Brock, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1929 to 1931 (died1950)
• March 15 –Harry Holman, character film actor (died1947)
• April 5 –Samuel Cate Prescott, food scientist and microbiologist (died1962)
• April 23 –Nathan Philemon Bryan, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1911 to 1917 (died1935)
• April 29 –Harry Payne Whitney, businessman and horse breeder (died1930)
• May 16 –John O'Connell, baseball player (died1908)
• May 21 –Henry E. Warren, inventor (died 1957)
• May 26 –Zachary Taylor Davis, Chicago architect (died1946)
• May 31 –Charles Greeley Abbot, astrophysicist (died1973)
• June 13 –Thomas N. Heffron, film director (died1951)
• June 27 –Paul Laurence Dunbar, African American poet, novelist, playwright and publisher (died1906)
• July 4 –Calvin Coolidge, 30thpresident of the United States from 1923 to 1929, 29thvice president of the United States from 1921 to 1923 (died1933)
• July 8 –John H. Bankhead II, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1931 to 1946 (died1946)
• August 2 –George E. Stewart, U.S. Army officer, Medal of Honor recipient (died1946)
• August 4 –Ruth Ward Kahn, lecturer and writer (unknown year of death)
• August 10 –William Manuel Johnson, African American dixieland jazz double-bassist (died1972)
• August 15 –Rubin Goldmark, composer (died1936)
• August 26:
  • Joseph Taylor Robinson, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1913 to 1937 (died1937)
  • James J. Couzens, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1922 to 1936 (died 1936)
• August 31 –Edith Rockefeller McCormick, socialite, daughter ofStandard Oil co-founderJohn D. Rockefeller (d.1932)
• September 8 –James William McCarthy, judge (died 1939)
• September 20 –Walter E. Scott, "Death Valley Scotty", confidence trickster (died1954)
• September 28 –Charles F. Watkins, physician (died 1936)
• October 10 –Arthur Talmage Abernethy, journalist, scholar, theologian and poet, 1stNorth Carolina Poet Laureate from 1948 to 1953 (died1956)
• October 11 –Harlan F. Stone, 12thChief Justice of the United States from 1941 (died1946)
• October 15 –Edith Wilson, wife ofWoodrow Wilson,First Lady of the United States, (died1961)
• November 2 –John N. Heiskell, U.S. Senator from Arkansas in 1913 (died1972)
• November 7 –Leonora Speyer, née von Stosch, classical violinist and poet (died1956)
• November 11 –Maude Adams, stage actress (died1953)
• December 9 –Thomas W. Hardwick, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1914 to 1919 (died1944)
• December 17 –Walter Loving, African American military bandleader (killed 1945 in the Philippines)

• January 4 –Arnold Naudain, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1830 to 1836 (born1790)
• January 7 –James Fisk, financier (born1835)
• January 9 –Henry Halleck, general (born1815)
• January 21 –Thomas Bragg, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1859 to 1861, 2ndConfederate States Attorney General (born1810)
• January 25 –Richard S. Ewell,Confederate general (born1817)
• February 7 –James W. Grimes, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1859 to 1869 (born1816)
• March or April –Mercator Cooper, sea captain (born1803)
• March 31 –Samuel Henry Dickson, poet, physician, writer and educator (born1798)
• April 2 –Samuel Morse, inventor of theMorse code (born1791)
• April 9 –Erastus Corning, businessman and politician (born1794)
• April 10 –John Mix Stanley, painter (born1814)
• May 17 –Eduard Sobolewski, violinist, composer and conductor (born 1804 or 1808 in Poland)
• August –Asa Whitney, merchant and promoter of the first transcontinental railroad (born 1791)
• August 11 –Lowell Mason, organist and composer (born1792)
• September 18 –Augustus Seymour Porter, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1840 to 1845 (born1798)
• September 22 –Garrett Davis, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1861 to 1872 (born1801)
• October 10 –William H. Seward,United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869 (born1801)
• November 5 –Thomas Sully, portrait painter (born1783 in Great Britain)
• November 6 –George Meade, Civil War general (born 1815)
• November 16 –William Gilham, military writer (born1818)
• November 29 –Horace Greeley, newspaper editor and presidential candidate (born1811)
• December 23 –George Catlin, painter specializing in portraits of Native Americans (born1796)
• Henry Howard Brownell, poet and historian (born1820)

• Timeline of United States history (1860–1899)

• "American Annual Cyclopaedia ... 1872",American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year, NY: D. Appleton & Co.: 14 v – via HathiTrust

• Media related to1872 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons

• 1872 in the United States
• 1870s in the United States
• 1872 by country
• 1872 in North America
• Years of the 19th century in the United States

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles needing additional references from October 2010
• All articles needing additional references
• Use mdy dates from April 2023
• Use American English from April 2023
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Commons category link from Wikidata