1830:
A race to prove which is more powerful and reliable, the horse or steam locomotive, is run near Baltimore, Maryland, by Peter Cooper. Cooper's little railroad engine, the Tom Thumb, loses the race due to mechanical difficulties. The first regular railroad service in America begins in South Carolina, with engines built in America at West Point, New York. Joseph Smith founds The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Fifth census: U. S. Population- 12,866,000.

1831:
William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of The Liberator, marking the beginning of an organized, nation-wide abolitionist movement. Garrison states in the first edition: "I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard!" Cyrus McCormick invents the mechanical reaper.

1832:
The first Asiatic cholera epidemic sweeps through the U.S. New York City alone reports 2,251 deaths. During a twelve-day period in New Orleans, more than 6,000 perish.

1833:
Samuel Colt perfects a successful revolving pistol. Andrew Jackson becomes the first U.S. President to ride on a railroad train.

1834:
Buffalo replaces beaver as the most profitable pelt in the fur trade. Silk replaces beaver felt as the most fashionable hat material.

1835:
Samuel F.B. Morse invents the telegraph. More than 200 U.S. railway charters have been granted in 11 states, and more than 1,000 miles of track have opened for operation.

1836:
Missionaries Marcus Whitman and Henry H. Spaulding travel overland to Oregon with their wives.

1837:
Martin Van Buren is inaugurated as the eighth President of the United States. Elijah P. Lovejoy, an anti-slavery newspaper editor, is attacked and killed by a mob in his office in Alton, Illinois. John Deere invents the "singing plow". It is made of wrought iron and has a steel share that can cut through sticky soil without clogging.

1838:
Over 18,000 Cherokee Indian people are forcibly relocated to Indian Territory from Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee along the "Trail of Tears".

1839:
The last fur trade rendezvous is held at Fort Bonneville. The business panic of 1837, the change in men's fashions from beaver to silk top hats, and the exhaustion of the beaver supply has led to the decline of trapping and trading.

1840:
The expression "O.K." comes into use. A campaign slogan, it alludes to Martin Van Buren's nickname, "Old Kinderhook". Kinderhook, New York, is Van Buren's birthplace. The sixth census: U.S. population- 17,069,453.

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