Jan 1
Dr. William Kirkpatrick, superintendent of the Onondaga Salt works at Salina, reports 1814 revenue of $8,976.45 on 295,215 bushels of salt. Other revenues amount to $940.00.

Feb 13
New Yorker Staats-Zeitung publisher Anna Behr (Uhl) is born in Würzburg, Germany.

Feb 15
New York representative Alfred Ely is born in Connecticut's New London County.

Feb 23
Inventor Robert Fulton dies, in New York City, of pneumonia.

Feb 25
The town of Colonie is divided and merged into the towns of Albany and Watervliet. ** Fulton is buried in lower Manhattan.

Feb 28
Eri Lusher & Company advertises in the Utica Patriot that they will run scheduled packet boat service between Schenectady and Seneca Falls by way of the Mohawk and Seneca rivers, every Saturday during the shipping season.

Mar 4
Educator Myrtilla Miner is born in Brookfield. ** Daniel Cady, district attorney of the fifth district, takes his place in the Fourteenth U. S. Congress, as a Federalist.

Mar 20
U. S. Brigadier General John Henry Martindale is born in Sandy Hill.

Mar 23
Rochester Theological Seminary professor Ezekial Gilman Robinson is born in Attleborough, Massachusetts.

Apr 11
The Ontario County town of Honeoye changes its name to Richmond.

Apr 18
The village of Auburn is incorporated.

May 20
Stephen Decatur sails from New York for the Mediterranean with a fleet of ten ships, to deal with the Barbary pirates.

June
Horatio Gates Spafford begins publishing American Magazine - a monthly miscellany.

Jun 19
The area around Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan is sold by the city.

Jul 4
Jonathan Ingersoll begins publishing the first newspaper in Tompkins County, the Seneca Republican, in Ithaca.

Jul 26
Elizabeth Wadsworth is born in Geneseo to James and Naomi Wolcott Wadsworth.

September
Ship owner Jacob Townsend and his son Sheldon C. Townsend sail from Oswego, late in the month, to Niagara, aboard the schooner Genesee Packet, commanded by Captain Obed Mayo.

Oct 6
The Genesee Packet arrives at Niagara.

Nov 12
Suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton is born in Jamestown.

Nov 28
The First Baptist Society in Pompey meets, makes plans to build a church.

December
Martin Van Buren visits Washington, to assess Daniel Tompkins as a possible rival for a presidential nomination. Meanwhile, Tompkins decides to run for another term as governor. He is nominated for Vice-President. ** Rochester carriage manufacturer James Cunningham is born in County Down, Ireland.

Dec 2
The Hudson River freezes over.

Dec 3
New York City Mayor De Witt Clinton is appointed to prepare a memorial to the state legislature, proposing a canal across the state.

Dec 15
Rochesterville's first census is taken; the population has reached 331.

Dec 25
Contracts are let out for Pompey's First Baptist Church.

City
Jacob Radcliff is appointed mayor for each of the next three years. ** The city's tax valuation is $81,636,042 and tax revenues are $197,613.38. State tax revenues from the city are $163,372.08. ** 435,066 tons of coastal trade goods pass through the port. ** The Tammany Society convinces the Council of Appointment to remove De Witt Clinton from the mayor's office. He's replaced by Tammany Grand Sachem John Ferguson. ** Financier Jacob Barker founds his privately-run Exchange bank, on Wall Street. ** The approximate date merchant shippers Anson G. Phelps and Elisha Peck open their business at 165 John Street and 181-189 Front Street. ** Politician Myndert Van Schaick marries Elizabeth Hone, niece of future mayor Philip Hone.

State
The price for Genesee River wheat reaches $15 a barrel. ** Ephraim Russ's Episcopal Church in Rensselaerville is built. ** The approximate date Samuel De Veaux opens a store in Le Roy, that will one day become the Wiss House Hotel. ** Historian physician Dr. William Seaver becomes the first physician in Darien. ** Martin Van Buren becomes New York State Attorney General. His clerk, Benjamin F. Butler, becomes his law partner. ** Businessman Nathaniel Rochester moves from Dansville to East Bloomfield. ** The approximate date the shipbuilding firms of Townsend, Bronson & Co. and Porter & Barton merge to form Silas Thompson & Co. at Black Rock. Thompson moves there. His firm will build the Michigan and Red Jacket and become part owners of the Erie. ** New York City mayor De Witt Clinton presents the state legislature with a "memorial" pressing for a trans-state canal, predicts it will make his city a world commercial leader. ** Ira Chubb begins building a farm in the Yates County Town of Barrington. ** The first church in the Oswego County town of Hannibal is organized by the Baptists. ** Conjoined brick houses are built in Cooperstown at 16 and 18 Main Street for newspaperman Colonel John Holmes Prentiss and Judge Morrell. ** The house of Dr. Ives, a dentist, on the East Seneca Turnpike, east of Jamesville, begun in 1812, is completed. ** Construction begins on the Delphi Baptist Church in Delphi Falls, Town of Pompey. ** Monticello businessman and Baptist Church clerk Moses Rathbun, his wife Patience and their youngest children, move to Hartwick Township, leaving son Benjamin behind to run operations at home. ** 98,905 men are currently enrolled in the state militia. ** The Reverend Abram Foreman graduates from Union College.

Batavia
The Holland Land Company builds a limestone fire-proof land office building. It will become the Holland Land Office Museum. Total cost for the building and a retaining wall behind the building for the Tonawanda Creek - $8,593. ** Trumbull Cary is appointed postmaster, taking over the position held by his brother Ebenezer. ** The village takes over the entire building that had housed the courthouse and a tavern. ** Hinman Holden builds a three-story frame inn in the Town of Batavia.

Buffalo
The city is rebuilt. ** The Buffalo Baptist Association is organized, with 21 churches and 2,512 parishioners.

Rochesterville
The First Presbyterian Church of Rochester is founded. ** Elisha Johnson lays out the first Court Street. ** Lyell Street is created. ** Josiah Bissell and Hervey and Elisha Ely build the Red Mill, near the western end of the Genesee River bridge at Main Street. ** The village's first wedding ceremony is celebrated. ** Flour Merchant Wickens Killick is born.

February
The first settlers - Vermonters Isaac Smith, Rufus Trumbull and Reuben Wolcox, and Otsego County's Elias Smith - arrive in Allegany County and settle the future Town of Granger.

Feb 12
Hamilton County is formed from Montgomery County.

Mar 8
The New York State Canal Commission submits its final report to the legislature, based on surveys done by Benjamin Wright.

April
Martin Van Buren is reelected to the state Senate. ** The approximate date Jacob Townsend sends his son Sheldon to Oswego aboard the schooner Niagara to work for his partner Alvin Bronson, a Lake Ontario commission agent.

Apr 17
Stephen van Rensselaer, De Witt Clinton, Samuel Young, Joseph Ellicott and Myron Holley are appointed as commissioners for a canal across the state to Lake Erie.

June
Killing frosts over the next three months wipe out all major crops in the Genesee Valley - The Year Without a Summer.

Jun 7
Light snow falls over the Finger Lakes.

September
Edwin Scrantom is apprenticed to A. G. Dauby, publisher of the new Weekly Gazette, the first newspaper in Rochesterville. ** Trustees of the Town of Pompey's First Baptist Society in Delphi Falls begin selling pew rights to raise money for a church building.

Sep 3
Holland Land Office clerk David E. Evans marries Lucy Grant in Batavia.

Sep 7
The steamboat Frontenac is launched in Buffalo for the Lake Ontario trade.

Sep 21
The new Fulton-Livingston steamboat Connecticut makes its first trip, the 115 miles from New York to New London, Connecticut, and ascends the Connecticut River to Middletown, under the command of captain Elihu S. Bunker.

Oct 4
Irish-born canal engineer Christopher Colles dies in New York at the age of 77. He will be buried at St. Paul's Chapel.

November
Bethlehem, Connecticut, store clerk Charles J. Hill, left without a job when his employer retires, and having moved to Rochesterville, then to Utica, then back to Rochesterville, accepts a bookkeeper's job with Bissell & Ely.

Nov 29
A public meeting is held to discuss forming a savings bank in New York City. Boston establishes the first one in the U. S. the following month.

Dec 2
Rochester nurseryman George Ellwanger is born at Gross-Heppach, Germany.

City
The American Bible Society is founded. ** Five shipments of ice are made to the South, Asia and South America. ** Population - 93,634. ** Gouverneur Morris has his property in today's Bronx surveyed and recorded. ** Asa Hall runs stagecoaches between the village of Greenwich and lower Manhattan at Pine and Broadway. ** A fire injures 20 volunteer firemen. ** The Common Council appoints a committee to determine if the city can build it's own water supply, apart from the Manhattan Company. Nothing is done. ** The Bellevue charitable institution building, begun in 1811, opens as a hospital, penitentiary and almshouse, run by the Common Council.

Brooklyn
The village of Brooklyn is incorporated within the Town of Brooklyn. ** Brooklyn Heights is laid out in lots. ** The Brooklyn Sunday School Union Society is founded.

State
The Ontario, the first steamboat on the Great Lakes, is launched at Sackets Harbor. ** The grandparents of temperance reformer Frances Willard settle in the Churchville area. ** The first printing press in Monroe and Seneca counties. ** The approximate date David Rumsey founds the Bath Gazette and Benjamin Smead begins the Steuben (& Allegany) Patriot. ** The approximate year Rumsey also attempts to revive the Bath Farmers' Advocate; the paper lasts about a year. ** General Peter Porter is appointed to the commission studying the boundary with Canada. He builds a house in Black Rock. ** A front porch with Doric columns is added to Batavia's Holland Land Office. ** Dansville's Colonel Nathaniel Rochester is appointed a presidential/vice-presidential elector for the second time. ** The steamer Chancellor Livingston, the last steamboat built to Fulton's specifications, goes into service on the Hudson River. ** Joseph Rodman Drake writes the fantasy The Culprit Fay. It is not published until 1834, 14 years after his death. ** Elisha Swift tours the state as a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. ** Eliphalet Follet settles on Chautauqua Road to the east of Rutledge, founding he village of Connewango, where he will soon build a tavern. ** Ilion gunsmith Eliphalet Remington begins producing rifles. ** The original Auburn Academy is destroyed by fire. ** The first church in Brutus is founded by the Methodist Episcopalians. ** Geneva hardware merchant Phineas Prouty, Sr. begins advertising in local newspapers. He joins the first fire company, formed this year. ** Parts of the Otsego County towns of Richfield and Plainfield were annexed by Herkimer County, forming the town of Winfield. ** The state office of Deputy Superintendent of the Onondaga Salt Works is abolished and the salary of the Superintendent is increased by $250 a year. A duty of 12.5¢ per bushel is levied on Onondaga salt for the increase of the canal fund. The Superintendent, instead of making a yearly report, is required to make one quarterly, and pay into the State treasury , all money collected, except expenses, on the first Tuesday of February, May, August and November. ** The Seneca Republican becomes the Ithaca Journal . ** Amos Bliss opens the first inn in the Erie County village of Alden. Seth Eastabrook opens the first store there. ** A fireproof clerk's office building is constructed at Watertown. ** Nathaniel and Mehitable Kellogg arrive in Sodus with their family, from Williamstown, Massachusetts. They build a frame house at Main and Mill streets.Grandson Nathaniel Kellogg Fairbank will keep a journal of his life in Rochester in the early 1850s. ** Construction gets under way on the Warren County Court House in Caldwell. A jail is contained in the basement. ** The capital earmarked for the Seneca Lock Navigation Company project is increased to $60,000. ** The New York Sunday School Union is founded. ** Joseph Adams and his son Bina, along with Joseph Bartlett, make the first settlement in the Cattaraugus County Town of Otto. ** Erastus Corning, an employee of Troy's John Spencer and Company, becomes a partner. ** Canandaigua's St. John's Episcopal Church builds a wooden building at 183 North Main Street. ** The approximate date Benjamin Rathbun builds Monticello's second tavern. ** Settler Horace Fowler becomes a deacon in Cohocton's First Presbyterian Church. ** Amos Eaton enrolls at Yale to study Geology under Benjamin Silliman.

Alfred
The town annexes part of the town of Angelica. ** The first Seventh Day Baptist church is completed.

Auburn
Judge Elijah Miller has a house built in Auburn. He will give it to his daughter Frances and her new husband William Henry Seward in 1824. Carpenter Brigham Young works on the house. ** Auburn Prison is built.

Buffalo
The city is reincorporated. ** The Old Red Warehouse is built on the waterfront just north of Main Street.

Cooperstown
The village's population reaches 826. ** The Otsego Mansion inn (later the Bassett House) is built on Fair Street.

Rochesterville
Pioneer Oliver Culver builds a house and tavern. ** Pioneer Ashbel W. Riley arrives. ** Elisha Johnson buys eighty acres of Enos Stone's farm on the eastern bank of the Genesee River for $10,000. ** A cotton mill, utilizing 1,392 spindles, is built.

Philadelphia
French traveler Baron de Montlezun visits the city, predicts New York will become even bigger.

February

Publisher Horatio G. Spafford puts out the 12th and final edition of his American Magazine - a monthly miscellany.

Feb 14

A soup kitchen opens on New York 's Franklin Street.

March

New York State's Bank of Geneva (today's National Bank of Geneva) is chartered.

March 17

Fisheries expert Seth Green is born in Rochesterville.

Mar 21

The village of Rochesterville is incorporated.

Apr 5

The Niagara County town of Royalton is formed from Hartland.

Apr 7

Part of Montgomery County is annexed by Herkimer County. ** The village of Utica is incorporated as a town, out of the Town of Whitestown. ** The Tompkins County town of Lansing is formed from the Cayuga County town of Genoa.

Apr 15

The state legislature authorizes construction of the Erie Canal, after Federal backing is denied.

Apr 17

Tompkins County is formed from Cayuga and Seneca counties. The county courthouse is fixed at Ithaca.

May

Edward B. Crandall takes over as publisher of Cooperstown's Watchtower newspaper.

Jul 4

The first ground is broken for the Erie Canal, at Rome, with Benjamin Wright as chief engineer of the Middle Section.

Jul 28

Sylvanus Thayer takes command of West Point.

August

Henry Bradshaw Fearon, of Coates & Fearon wine merchants of London, England, hired by 39 families wishing to emigrate to the U. S., arrives in New York City to explore potential settlement sites. At the invitation of a Fishkill land owner named DeWint, Fearon travels up the Hudson River on the steamboat Chancellor Livingston. Also on board is newly-elected U. S. Vice-president Daniel D. Tompkins, on his way to Albany, where he had served as governor. Bradshaw disembarks at Fishkill.

September

Botanist-geologist Amos Eaton earns his MA degree from Williams College.

Sep 1

The Albany Academy opens.

Nov 25

The first sword swallower to appear in the U. S. performs in New York City.

City

The Irish force their way into the Tammany organization. ** The New York Stock and Exchange Board is organized, with 25 member brokers. ** First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Allen, Chrystie, Eldridge, Forsyth, Ludlow, and Orchard streets are built. ** Anthony Street (Worth), is extended to Orange Street (Baxter), meeting at the intersection with Cross Street (Park) Street to form the Five Points neighborhood.

State

Leonard Jerome, grandfather of Winston Churchill, is born in Pompey. ** The first printing press in Chataugue (sic), Livingston and Yates counties. Hezekiah Ripley begins publishing the Advertiser and Genesee Farmer, at Livingston County's Moscow. ** A shipping dock is built three miles from the mouth of the Genesee River, followed by a wooden arch bridge - the longest in the world - across the river's gorge. The new settlement is called Carthage. The steamboat Ontario out of Sackets Harbor is the first to arrive at the landing. ** 5,000 bushels of flour are shipped out of the Genesee River to Montréal during the last three months of the season. ** Chief Erie Canal engineer Judge Benjamin Wright appoints David Stanhope Bates assistant engineer on the middle division of the Erie Canal. ** A new treaty with the Onondaga reduces the size of their reservation further. ** Port Gibson, in the future Wayne County, is settled. ** The open boat Troyer brings Buffalo the first flour from the west. ** Colonel Nathaniel Rochester attends a session of the legislature at Albany to attempt to get recognition of Monroe County. This year he is also made secretary of then convention meeting in Canandaigua to consider De Witt Clinton's canal proposal. ** Batavia banker Trumbull Cary builds a post-colonial house on East Main Street. ** The Wyoming Academy is founded. ** Vermont native James Battles arrives in the Connewango area to settle. ** Seneca County annexes part of Tompkins County. ** De Witt Clinton is elected governor. ** Alden sawmill owner John Rogers builds the town's first grist mill. ** Following the Treaty of Ghent, West Point mathematics instructor Andrew Ellicott is named astronomer for the U. S., in order to lead the survey of the 45th parallel, establishing the western Canada-U. S. international border. ** A Methodist class is begun in Canadice. ** Mack & Shepherd buy the Ithaca Journal. ** Botany lecturer Amos Eaton publishes A Manual of Botany for the Northern States. The popular work will go into eight editions. He begins lecturing through New England and the Hudson Valley. ** Rush coal merchant H. H. Babcock is born to Isaac and Elizabeth Wilbur Babcock, in Albany County. ** NY-to-Liverpool packet captain William Henry Stewart saves the life of a passenger, the daughter of merchant George Ragg, when she's swept overboard. The two marry and settle on land outside of Penn Yan given to them by Ragg. ** The Warren County Court House and jail in Caldwell is completed. ** Horatio Spafford publishes the pamphlet Hints to Emigrants, on the Choice of Land, under the pseudonym Agricola.

Albany

The Lancasterian Society erects a school building, later occupied by the Albany Medical College. ** W. L. Stone merges the Albany Daily Advertiser with the Albany Gazette.

Le Roy

Orange Ridson creates a map of the Triangle Tract. ** Judge Egbert Benson, Jr. becomes the third land agent for the tract. ** Innkeeper James Ganson purchases additional property, on the Village Green.

Rochesterville

Francis Brown is elected the first mayor of the newly incorporated village, which now includes the annexed Frankfort. ** The population reaches 700. ** Austin Steward, a black grocer, goes into business. ** Spring floods damage the business section. ** Elisha Johnson and Orson Seymour lay out a subdivision on the east bank of the Genesee River. ** A mill is built on Water Street.

January
The Erie Canal is under contract for the entire Rome Summit section to just east of Syracuse. ** Pompey's Delphi Baptist Church authorizes its board of trustees to sell up to 25 pews to any person or group donating $1,197.50 to complete construction of the church.

Jan 17
The Reverend Comfort Williams of Ogdensburg, newly arrived in Rochesterville, is installed as the city's first pastor, for the Presbyterian Society.

Feb 7
Slave and future abolitionist Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (Frederick Douglass) is born in Tuckahoe, Maryland.

Mar 6
The Orleans County town of Shelby is formed from Ridgeway. ** The Wyoming County town of Bennington is formed from Sheldon. ** Rochester bridge builder Thomas Leighton is born.

Mar 26
New York City's first savings bank opens.

April
Buffalo's Niagara Journal begin intermittently running an ad of a tavern for sale, recently owned by Gaius Kibbe.

Apr 4
The Steuben County town of Troupsburgh annexes part of the town of Canisteo. ** The first steamboat on the Great Lakes, Walk-in-the-Water, is launched in Buffalo.

Apr 10
The Niagara County town of Wilson is formed from Porter. ** The Erie County town of Amherst is taken off of Buffalo. ** The Cattaraugus County town of Little Valley is taken off the town of Perry (now Perrysburg).

Apr 18
The Great Lakes shipping season for the Genesee River opens. In the next four months 1158 bushels of pearl ash and 120,000 barrel staves are shipped out for export. The total value of the shipments for the season will reach $300,000. ** The U. S. establishes the Cape Vincent Collection District, New York, to regulate foreign commerce on the lakes. It acts as a center for offices in Alexandria Bay (formed this year), Millens Bay, Clayton, Chaumont, Three Mile Bay and Point Peninsula.

Apr 20
The Oswego County town of Oswego is formed from Hannibal. ** The Saratoga County town of Corinth is formed from Hadley.

Apr 21
The New York State Library is founded, located in the upper stories of the Capitol. ** The Columbia County town of New Lebanon is formed from Canaan. ** The Cortland County town of Freetown is formed from Cincinnatus.

May 12
Engineer Josiah Wolcott Bissell is born in Rochester.

May 27
Suffragette Amelia Jenks Jenks Bloomer is born in Homer.

June
The Fulton I is brought out of mothballs to take U. S. President James Madison on a ceremonial excursion to Staten Island.

Jun 10
Construction is begun on the Champlain Canal, linking the Erie Canal near Cohoes to Lake Champlain.

Jun 14
The first loaded boat passes through the newly completed locks of the Seneca and Cayuga Canal at Seneca Falls, New York. The toll is 50 cents.

Jul 10
Contractor Josiah Olcott signs a contract to build Erie Canal Section 40, east of the Nine Mile Aqueduct, with the exception of the embankment in the immediate vicinity of the aqueduct, which William Melville undertakes. Henry Bogardus and Andrew and William Thompson contract for Section 41, west of the crossing. Benjamin Gumaer contracts for Section 50 and part of 51, to the west of Skaneateles Outlet.

Aug 23
Walk-in-the-Water, leaves Buffalo on its maiden voyage, stopping at Dunkirk, and continuing on to Cleveland and Detroit.

November
Rochesterville bookkeeper Charles J. Hill leaves Bissell & Ely to go into the mercantile business with partner A. V. T. Leavitt. ** John Barker Church, MP, former business ally of Aaron Burr, dies in Windsor, England, at the age of 70.

Nov 21
Pioneering anthropologist-ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan is born near Aurora.

Dec 19
The congregation of the Delphi Baptist Church, in Delphi Falls, votes to elect its first minister.

City
The Army discusses fortifications for the Throgg's Neck area, overlooking Long Island Sound. ** Attorneys John Wells and George Washington Strong become partners, forming what will become Cadwallader, Wickersham & Taft. ** Cadwallader D. Colden is appointed mayor for each of the next three years. ** Sea captain Israel Collins retires and becomes a shipping merchant. ** The Black Ball Line begins the first regularly scheduled voyages to Liverpool, England. ** Episcopal bishop John Henry Hobart announces plans for establishing an upstate college in Geneva. ** The approximate date Alexander Turney Stewart emigrates here from Ireland. ** The Union marine and life insurance company is chartered.

State
James Roosevelt buys a tract of land in Hyde Park. ** The first printing press in Cattaraugus County. ** The steamboat Ontario begins regular visits out of Carthage for Ogdensburg and Lewiston. ** Governor De Witt Clinton buys 1,000 acres at Chadwick's Bay (Dunkirk), lays out a town. The name is changed to Garnsey's Bay after the land agent for the purchase Daniel G. Garnsey. ** The first locks on the Seneca Canal are opened, bypassing the falls of the Seneca River. ** During the six-month shipping season an average of fifteen boats a day sail down the St. Lawrence River. ** The approximate date Josephus Bradner Stuart begins steamboat service on lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan. ** Connewango settlers Cyrus Childs and Lyman Wyllys arrive from Massachusetts. James Blanchard and his wife Eunice, Daniel Grover, and David Davidson arrive from Vermont, Remus Baldwin arrives from Caledonia, New York. Brothers Nicholas and Thomas Northrup arrive from Stephentown. ** Each county is made a separate legal district with its own District Attorney. ** Gerrit Smith gives the valedictory address for his class at Hamilton College. ** Joseph Ellicott reports to his superiors at the Holland Land Company that all of their best land has been sold. ** Marlborough, Connecticut, schoolteacher Epaphroditus Bigelow, his wife Sarah and infant son Orimel move to Geneseo; 330 miles in eighteen days. ** Five businesses open in Le Roy between South Street and the Public Square. ** Robert McGlashen settles in Rutledge, near Connewango. He will become the first justice. ** Governor Clinton asks botanist Amos Eaton to deliver lectures to the state legislature. Eaton publishes An Index to the Geology of the Northern States, with a Transverse Section from the Catskill Mountains to the Atlantic, in Leicester, Massachusetts. ** Sylvester Hosmer replaces his log tavern near Avon with a two-story frame structure, which will one day become part of the Genesee Country Museum. ** Erie Canal contracts are signed for raising the Onondaga County summit level between Nine Mile Creek and Jordan, avoiding swamp areas. ** Holland Land Office official David E. Evans is elected to the state senate as a Clintonian Republican. ** A ship building shed is erected at Sackets Harbor. ** Nehemiah Pratt settles in Eagle Harbor in what will become Orleans County. ** Self-trained surveyors Benjamin Wright and James Geddes separately run levels between Rome and Syracuse, come out within two inches of each other over the 35-mile distance. ** John Eddy makes a map of the state. ** Governor Clinton vetoes a bill backed by Martin Van Buren and Tammany Hall for a state constitutional convention, an attempt to extend the franchise. ** Monticello bankrupt Benjamin Rathbun arrives in Toledo, Ohio, with his family.

Buffalo
Construction begins on the city's South Pier, into Lake Erie. ** William Peacock makes the first complete survey of the harbor.

Canandaigua
The approximate date Abner Bunnell's Congregational Church is built. ** A Methodist chapel is completed, on Chapel Street. ** Oliver Phelps and Company begin a stage line between here and Newburgh, crossing the Catskills to the Hudson River.

Pompey
Freight express owner William G. Fargo is born. ** The Delphi Baptist Church is completed.

Rochesterville
Nathaniel Rochester moves to Rochesterville from West Bloomfield, settles at the corner of Exchange and Spring streets. ** Construction begins to the east, to carry the Erie Canal through the city's Irondequoit Valley. ** Abelard Reynolds holds the first Methodist services in the city. He is named alderman of the first ward ** Band musicians become too drunk to rehearse. ** The town exports 26,000 barrels of flour, as well as other goods, totaling $380,000. ** Saint Luke's Episcopal Church is formed. ** The Baptists begin meeting, informally. ** Charles Harford's grist mill is destroyed by fire. The Phoenix Mill is erected on its foundations. ** Population reaches 1,000. ** Storekeeper Jonathan Child marries Sophia Eliza Rochester, daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Rochester. ** Azel Ensworth builds a tavern at the Four Corners (Main and State). ** The first Sunday School is formed.

Immigrants
Close to 18,000 Irish enter the U. S., double last year's number.

North America
New York surveyor Peter B. Porter and with British surveyor John Ogilvie continue their project to rerun the New York-Canada border, completing it by year's end. ** Scottish visitor John M. Duncan tours New York City, Philadelphia, and Canada, this year and next.

Jan 4
Martin Van Buren has William Thompson nominated as speaker of the State Senate.

Feb 13
A bill enabling Missouri to draft a constitution and prepare for statehood is introduced in the House. New York State's James Tallmadge proposes an amendment to limit slavery in Missouri.

Feb 15
Martin Van Buren's wife Hannah dies of tuberculosis.

Feb 19
The Monroe County town of Clarkson is formed from the Orleans County town of Murray.

Feb 23
General Andrew Jackson visits New York City and is presented with the freedom of the city. At an entertainment given him by the Fourteenth Regiment, he gives a politically risky complimentary toast to state governor De Witt Clinton.

Feb 25
A Quaker Meeting is established in Rochesterville.

Mar 10
Troy hardware clerk Erastus Corning marries benefactor Joseph Weld's daughter Harriet.

Apr 7
The State Legislature establishes the Board of Agriculture, to oversee appropriations for agriculture. They vote $10,000 for each of the next two years. Albany County will spend $350 over the period.

Apr 12
The Jefferson County town of Pamelia is created from Brownville.

May 3
Rossini's The Barber of Seville is performed, in English, in New York City.

May 31
Poet Walt Whitman is born in West Hills, Long Island, to housebuilder Walter Whitman and wife Louisa Van Velsor. ** New York City has a balance of $1850.34 in its Treasury. Its income over the previous year amounted to $682,829.51, Its total expenses, $671,319.83, or $5.60 per capita.

June
Charles Butler becomes a clerk in the Albany law office of Martin Van Buren.

Jul 3
The first bank in the U.S., the Bank for Savings in New York City, opens and takes in a total of $2,807.00 in deposits. By the end of the year 1,572 customers have deposited $153,378.31, of which $6,606 has been later withdrawn.

Jul 4
Future governor Reuben Eaton Fenton is born to George W. and Elsie Owen Fenton in Carroll.

Aug 1
Author Herman Melville is born on Pearl Street in New York City, to importer Allan Melvill and Martia Gansevoort Melvill, daughter of Revolutionary War general Peter Gansevoort.

Aug 19
Martha Fowler, mother of nine-year-old future phrenologist Orson Fowler, dies in Cohocton.

Oct 22
The Erie Canal opens between Rome and Utica when the canal boat The Chief Engineer arrives in Rome, after a four-hour trip.

December
Van Buren and William L. Marcy write a recommendation of Rufus King's reelection to the State Senate, and launch an attack against Governor Clinton.

Dec 31
Transplanted Virginia politician John Nicholas dies in Geneva at the age of 55.

City
Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett begin canning fish. ** A Mr. Van Ness buys the Peter Warren property for $15,000. ** An open sewer is built to help drain the Collect Pond into the Hudson River. ** Robert Macomb offers to supply the city with water from Rye Pond, carried across the Harlem River by way of his dam/bridge, in exchange for the right to lay pipe in Manhattan and sell the water. ** Jacob Barker's privately-run Exchange bank fails. ** Baron Axel Leonhard Klinckowstrom paints a watercolor of Broadway and City Hall.

State
Utica has 400 houses. ** Frederick Follett is apprenticed to his brother Oran as a printer on Batavia's Spirit of the Times. ** A brick courthouse is built at Angelica. ** Deeds are issued for property on Geneva's Pulteney Street, ranging from No. 388 through No. 402. ** Van Buren meets with Vice-President Tompkins to plan strategy for running Tompkins as governor for a second time. ** Nine citizens of Buffalo, including Samuel Wilkeson, form The Buffalo Harbor Company, the first local businessmen's