1854

1854 was 17 years before the founding of the City of Birmingham and the 35th year of Alabama statehood.

Events

• The Arkadelphia Post Office was established.
• The Alabama Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church appointed a committee to select a site for a proposed college and to procure funds for its establishment and maintenance.

Business

• The original Shelby Furnace was damaged by fire.

Works

Buildings

• Shelby County Courthouse
• Thomas Rowan residence

Individuals

• Samuel Cooner became Walker County Sheriff.
• Michael Tuomey resigned his professorship at the University of Alabama to devote his full time to a survey of Alabama's mineral resources.

Births

• August 13: J. Q. A. Wilhite, pastor
• November 2: Thomas McDonald, police chief
• December 11: Rube Burrow, outlaw
• John Flowers, police officer

Marriages

• September 5: Pioneer farmer John Gillespy, Sr to Martha McAdory

Context

In 1854, the Taiping Rebellion and Crimean War continued. The Republican Party was founded. The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduated. An epidemic of cholera in London kills about 10,000 people. Henry David Thoreau published Walden.

Notable births in 1854 industrialist Friedrich Alfred Krupp, roll film inventor George Eastman, composer Engelbert Humperdinck, writer Oscar Wilde, cereal manufacturer C. W. Post, composer John Philip Sousa, and Pope Benedict XV. Notable deaths included painter John Martin, physicist Georg Ohm, chief Conquering Bear, and King Kamehameha III of Hawaii.

1850s

<< 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 >>

Births - Deaths - Establishments - Events - Works