1804 in the United States
overview of USA-related events during the year of 1804
Events from the year 1804 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
President: Thomas Jefferson (DR-Virginia)
Vice President: Aaron Burr (DR-New York)
Chief Justice: John Marshall (Virginia)
Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nathaniel Macon (DR-North Carolina)
Congress: 8th
State governments
Events
January–March
February 15 – New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery.
February 16 – First Barbary War: Stephen Decatur leads a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate Philadelphia.
February 18 – Ohio University is chartered by the Ohio General Assembly.
March 10 – Last formalities of the Louisiana Purchase; in St. Louis, a ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership from France to the United States.
March 26 – Orleans Territory is created.
April–June
May 14 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois near St. Louis and begins their journey by traveling up the Missouri River.
June 15 – The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified by New Hampshire, and arguably becomes effective (subsequently vetoed by the Governor of New Hampshire).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1804 in the United States” is overview of USA-related events during the year of 1804. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through United, States and overview, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2412842. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1804.
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This entry incorporates text from “1804 in the United States” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.