Year 1851: Fun Facts, Trivia, and History
This quick read presents a mix of fun facts, trivia, and history events from the year 1851.
This quick read presents a mix of fun facts, trivia, and history events from the year 1851. Discover the year’s top news stories, most influential people, historic firsts, noteworthy inventions, famous birthdays and deaths, retail prices, entertainment trivia, and much more.
Take a journey through history in just minutes.
President of the United States: Millard Fillmore (Whig-New York)
Vice President: Vacant
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
Speaker of the House of Representatives: Howell Cobb (Democrat-Georgia)—Until March 4
Speaker of the House of Representatives: Linn Boyd (Democrat-Kentucky)—Beginning on December 1
The 31st U.S. Congress was in session until March 4, when the 32nd U.S. Congress convened. Both chambers had a Democratic majority.
Inflation rate: -1.28%
Consumer price index (CPI): 7.700
$100.00 in 1851 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $4,352.25 today. The U.S. dollar had “an average inflation rate of 2.18% per year” between 1851 and 2026, “producing a cumulative price increase of $4,252.25." In other words, a U.S. dollar today buys about 2.298% of what it could purchase back in 1851.
It’s also worth noting that the U.S. dollar has lost about 98% of its value since 1851.
American companies founded in 1851 included Castle & Cooke (a department store that sold farm tools, medicine, and sewing supplies); the Corning Glass Works (a consumer product company); Fruit of the Loom (a clothing manufacturer); Irving Trust (a New York City-based bank); Kiehl’s (a cosmetics company); the Los Angeles Star (the first newspaper published in Southern California); the Singer Corporation (a sewing machine manufacturer); and Western Union (a telecommunications company).
American railroads established in 1851 were the Charles River Railroad, the Florida Central and Western Railroad, and the Ohio and Mississippi Railway.
In 1851, there were 31 U.S. states. In order of admission to the Union, they were Delaware (1787), Pennsylvania (1787), New Jersey (1787), Georgia (1788), Connecticut (1788), Massachusetts (1788), Maryland (1788), South Carolina (1788), New Hampshire (1788), Virginia (1788), New York (1788), North Carolina (1789), Rhode Island (1790), Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1837), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama (1819), Maine (1820), Missouri (1821), Arkansas (1836), Michigan (1837), Florida (1845), Texas (1845), Iowa (1846), Wisconsin (1848), and California (1851).
In 1851, there were 16 free states, including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
There were also 15 slave states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
On May 6, Dr. John Gorrie of Apalachicola, Florida, was granted a U.S. patent for a machine that “artificially” produced ice.
On May 6, American mechanical engineer Linus Yale Jr. received a U.S. patent for the Yale cylinder lock.
On June 2, Maine became the first U.S. state to ban the manufacture and consumption of alcohol.
On June 3, New York Knickerbockers team members began wearing the world’s first baseball uniforms—white shirts, blue trousers, and straw hats.
On June 5, Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin began serialization in the American abolitionist weekly publication, The National Era.
On June 22, a devastating fire in San Francisco destroyed an estimated 10 to 16 city blocks, including the “original City Hall and the newly built Jenny Lind Theatre.”
On August 12, Isaac M. Singer of New York City received a U.S. patent for “the first sewing machine with a rocking treadle.” Sewing machines had already been patented, but Singer's machine was “revolutionary” because it had “a rocking treadle design, continuous feed, and a straight, vertical needle like modern machines.”
September 11: In Christiana, Pennsylvania, a group of African Americans and white abolitionists “skirmished with a Maryland posse intent on capturing four fugitive enslaved people hidden in the town. The violence came one year after the second fugitive slave law was passed by Congress, requiring the return of all escapees to their owners in the South.”
On September 15, Saint Joseph’s College opened its doors to an estimated 30 students in a building adjacent to Old Saint Joseph's Church, located on Willings Alley in Center City Philadelphia.
On September 18, Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones published the first edition of the New York Daily Times, later renamed the New York Times.
On September 22, the City of Des Moines, Iowa, was officially incorporated as "Fort Des Moines."
On November 11, American astronomer Alvan Clark of Cambridge, Massachusetts, received the first U.S. patent for a telescope.
On November 14, Harper & Brothers in New York City published Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick “in a single volume.”
On December 10, Melvil Dewey was born. While working at Amherst College, he created the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system for cataloging library books.
On December 24, a “devastating” fire at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroyed an estimated 35,000 books.
On December 29, the first Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) chapter in the U.S. opened in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1851, Baltimore dairyman Jacob Fussell “opened the first commercial ice cream factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania.”
American dairy farmer Jesse Williams opened the first “cooperative” cheese factory in the United States. Before Williams’ factory, “cheese was made in small, inconsistent batches on individual farms. Williams tackled this problem by collecting fresh milk from his own cows and neighboring farms to produce large, uniform wheels of high-quality cheese in an assembly-line fashion.”
Popular baby names for boys in 1851 were John, William, James, Charles, George, and Thomas. Popular baby names for girls were Mary, Anna, Emma, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Minnie.
The most common surnames in the United States were Smith, Johnson, Brown, Williams, Jones, Davis, Clark, Taylor, Thompson, and Hall. (Just so you know, the most common last names were tied to English, Irish, and Scottish origins.)
In 1851, the average life expectancy at birth in the United States was about 41 years for a white male and around 43 years for a white female. During the 1800s, if an individual survived to age 10, their remaining life expectancy would jump considerably, and they could often expect to live into their 50s, 60s, or even 70s.
Famous people born in 1851 were Asa Griggs Candler (an American entrepreneur who co-founded Coca-Cola); Bobby Mathews (an American baseball player); and Walter Reed (an American doctor).
Notable people who died in 1851 included James Fenimore Cooper (an American writer best known for his masterpiece The Last of the Mohicans); Louis Daguerre (a French inventor who created the daguerreotype—the first “publicly available photographic process”); and Mary Shelley (a British author who wrote the ever-popular novel Frankenstein).
In 1851 as well, the words “accident insurance,” “ashtray,” “blood test,” “box spring,” “carbohydrate,” “chauvinism,” “Chicagoan,” “chintzy,” “cum laude,” “deep freeze,” “end table,” “filibuster,” “hometown,” “least common denominator,” “magna cum laude,” “missing link,” “mooch,” “national park,” “nonsmoking,” “overindulge,” “paper clip,” “prayer rug,” saxophone,” “small-scale,” “Southernism,” “summa cum laude,” and “three sisters” all appeared in print for the first time.
Almonds: 37.5 cents a pound
Ax: $2.00
Bacon: Six cents a pound
Boots: $2.50 per pair
Bowls: 25 cents each
Broom: 19 cents
Buffalo robe: $3.00
Cheese: 15 cents a pound
Cigars: 25 cents a dozen or $7.00 a box
Coffee pot: 37.5 cents
Comb: 25 cents
Eggs: 10 cents a dozen
Ginger: 24 cents a pound
Lemons: 12 for $1.00
Marbles: 12.5 cents a dozen
Molasses: 16 cents a quart
Nails: 10 cents a pound
Olive oil: 62 cents a bottle
Pepper: 25 cents a pound
Pickles: 75 cents a jar
Raisins: 25 cents a pound
Rice: 10 cents a pound
Shaving soap: 37.5 cents a pound
Shoes: $1.25 a pair
Socks: 37.5 cents a pair
Spade: $1.00
Storage trunk: $5.00
Table salt: 18.25 cents a box
Tobacco: 56 cents a plug
Toothbrush: 25 cents
Wine: $1.00 per bottle
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_companies_established_in_1851
https://www.foodreference.com/html/html/food-history-1850.html
https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/teachers/lessonplans/Sutler%20Store%20prices_508.pdf
Disclaimer: In writing and editing this article, Gregory DeVictor has made every effort to ensure historical accuracy and not to mislead his audience. In addition, the contents of this article, including text, graphics, and captions, are for general informational purposes only.
© 2026 Gregory DeVictor
About the Creator
Gregory DeVictor
Gregory DeVictor is a trivia enthusiast who likes to write articles about American history and nostalgia. Each of his articles presents a mix of fun facts, trivia, and historic events about a specific calendar year, decade, or century.
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