1819

William Wyatt Bibb

1819 was 52 years before the founding of the City of Birmingham.

Events

• March 2: The United States Congress passed an act authorizing the Alabama Territory to form a state constitution and to be admitted to the United States.
• March 3: William Wyatt Bibb was appointed the first and only governor of the Alabama Territory.
• March 23: The first pioneers settled in Jones Valley at Ruhamah.
• August 2: The Alabama Constitution of 1819 was adopted by the territorial general assembly.
• October 25–December 17: The first Alabama State Assembly met in Huntsville.
• October 28: John Williams Walker was elected by an almost unanimous vote of the state legislature as the first U.S. Senator from Alabama.
• October 28: Levi Reid became the first Jefferson County Sheriff.
• November 8: William Wyatt Bibb became the first elected Governor of Alabama.
• December 13: Jefferson County was established, split from Blount County.
• December 13: Tuscaloosa was incorporated.
• December 14: Alabama was admitted to the U.S. as the 22nd state by Congress.
• Branchville was first settled.
• Falls of the Cahawba was made the first seat of Cahawba (Bibb) County
• The Tarrant Post Office was established.
• Peyton King (physician) settled near Jonesboro as the first practicing doctor in Jones Valley.

Religion

• March 27: Ruhama Baptist Church was organized.
• Rehobeth Baptist Church of Lawley, Enon Baptist Church, and Hebron Baptist Church were founded.

Works

Buildings

• Peter Ingle residence

Individuals

• Williamson Hawkins slew a bear with an ax.
• Samuel Massey and Warren Truss settled near what is now Advent Circle.
• Benjamin and Morning Richardson Tarrant settled in Jefferson County.
• Revolutionary War veteran Edward Tatum settled with family near McCalla
• Jefferson County Sheriff Levi Reid married Eleanor Rusher.

Births

• Margaret Rowan

Context

In 1819, the first major financial crisis in the United States, the Panic of 1819, occurred. Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia. Spain ceded Florida to the United States. The SS Savannah became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Notable births included social critic John Ruskin, poet James Russell Lowell, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, poet Walt Whitman, novelist Herman Melville, and detective Allan Pinkerton. Notable deaths included philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, King Kamehameha I of Hawaii, founding father Hugh Williamson, naval officer Oliver Hazard Perry, and inventor James Watt.

1810s

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