William Avery “Devil Bill” Rockefeller Sr. was an American businessman, lumberman, herbalist, salesman, and con-artist who went by the alias of Dr. William Levingston. He worked as a lumberman and then a traveling salesman who identified himself as a “botanic physician” and sold elixirs.
Junius Spencer Morgan I was an American banker and financier as well as the father of John Pierpont “J.P.” Morgan. He founded J. S. Morgan & Co. along with George Peabody.
On April 6, 1814, Napoleon, then in his mid-40s, was forced to abdicate the throne. With the Treaty of Fontainebleau, he was exiled to Elba, a Mediterranean island off the coast of Italy.
On August 24, 1814, as the War of 1812 raged on, invading British troops marched into Washington and set fire to the U.S. Capitol, the President’s Mansion, and other local landmarks.
In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted on Sumbawa, an island of modern-day Indonesia. Historians regard it as the volcano eruption with the deadliest known direct impact: roughly 100,000 people died in the immediate aftermath.
Peace is re-established between the United States and Britain after the War of 1812. Immigration from Western Europe turns from a trickle into a gush, which causes a shift in the demographics of the United States. This first major wave of immigration lasts until the Civil War.
Between 1820 and 1860, the Irish—many of them Catholic—account for an estimated one-third of all immigrants to the United States. Some 5 million German immigrants also come to the U.S., many of them making their way to the Midwest to buy farms or settle in cities including Milwaukee, St. Louis and Cincinnati
After five years, the federal government chartered its successor, the Second Bank of the United States (1816–1836). James Madison signed the charter with the intention of stopping runaway inflation that had plagued the country during the five-year interim. It was basically a copy of the First Bank, with branches across the country. Andrew Jackson, who became president in 1828, denounced the bank as an engine of corruption. His destruction of the bank was a major political issue in the 1830s and shaped the Second Party System, as Democrats in the states opposed banks and Whigs supported them. He was unable to get the bank dissolved, but refused to renew its charter. Jackson attempted to counteract this by executive order requiring all federal land payments to be made in gold or silver. This produced the Panic of 1837.
At the time, bulk goods were limited to pack animals with a 250-pound (113 kg) maximum and there were no railways, so water was the most cost-effective way to ship bulk goods. Political opponents to the canal and to New York Governor DeWitt Clinton denigrated it as “Clinton’s Folly” or “Clinton’s Big Ditch”
William George Fargo was a pioneer American expressman who helped found the modern day financial firms of American Express Company and Wells Fargo with his business partner, Henry Wells. He was also the 27th Mayor of Buffalo, serving from 1862 until 1866 during the U.S. Civil War.
Many of newcomers arrive sick or dying from their long journey across the Atlantic in cramped conditions. The immigrants overwhelm major port cities, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston. In response, the United States passes the Steerage Act of 1819 requiring better conditions on ships arriving to the country. The Act also calls for ship captains to submit demographic information on passengers, creating the first federal records on the ethnic composition of immigrants to the United States.