Year 1816 in Review: Fun Facts, Trivia, and Historic Highlights

This quick read is a collection of fun facts, trivia, and historical events from the year 1816. Discover the year’s top news stories, most influential people, historic firsts, erratic weather patterns, and much more.

Take a journey through history in just minutes.

1. President of the United States: James Madison (DR-Virginia)
2. Vice President: Vacant
3. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: John Marshall (Virginia)
4. Speaker of the House of Representatives: Henry Clay (DR-Kentucky)
5. In 1816, the 14th U.S. Congress was in session. Both chambers—the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives—had a Democratic-Republican majority.
6. Unemployment rate: A precise unemployment rate for 1816 does not exist.
7. Inflation rate: -8.44% (According to In2013Dollars.com, an inflation rate of -8.44% means that purchasing power increased by 8.44% in 1816 compared to 1815. On average, you would have spent 8.44% less in 1816 than in 1815 for the same item.)
8. Consumer price index (CPI): 14.100
9. $1.00 in 1816 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $22.99 today. OfficialData.com clarifies that “The dollar had an average inflation rate of 1.50% per year between 1816 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 2,198.74%. This means that today's prices are 22.99 times as high as average prices since 1816, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index. A dollar today only buys 4.350% of what it could buy back then.”
10. American companies and brands established in 1816 included Baltimore Gas and Electric, E. Remington and Sons, Hodgdon Yachts, the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society (PSFS), and Remington Arms.
11. In 1816, the average life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 40 to 45 years because of a high infant mortality rate. Americans who survived childhood often lived into their 50s, 60s, and even 70s.
12. In 1816, there were 19 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 (1812), and Indiana (1816).
13. 1816 was known throughout the United States and Europe as the “Year Without a Summer” because of “a global climate crisis caused by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.” Volcanic ash and aerosol clouds blocked sunlight and caused unseasonal freezing and snowfalls in both North America and Europe, which resulted in “massive crop failures, famine, and food riots.”
14. On January 22, English Romantic poet Lord Byron completed the narrative poems Parisina and Siege of Corinth.
15. On February 20, Gioachino Rossini's comic opera, Barber of Seville, premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, Italy.
16. On April 10, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge recited his poem, Kubla Khan, to fellow poet Lord Byron, who persuaded him to publish it.
17. On April 11, Richard Allen and a group of African American Methodists established the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Philadelphia. The nation’s first “independent Black denomination” was created “to escape severe racial discrimination and segregation in white Methodist churches.”
18. On April 16, English Romantic poet George Gordon Byron, more commonly known as Lord Byron, signed a Deed of Separation, thus dissolving his one-year marriage to Annabelle Milbanke. (It is believed that Annabelle’s pivotal reason for leaving Lord Byron was his mental illness, which made him uncomfortable to be around.)
19. On April 27, Congress passed the Dallas tariff, proposed by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander J. Dallas, to protect American manufacturers, particularly textiles, from a surge of low-quality British imports that flooded the U.S. marketplace following the War of 1812. Under the bill, there would be a 25% tariff on cottons and woolens for three years.
20. On May 9, Anglo-Irish novelist and aristocrat Lady Caroline Lamb published her scandalous Gothic novel, Glenarvon, “that thinly veiled her affair with Lord Byron, who is depicted as the charismatic but destructive Lord Glenarvon.”
21. On May 11, the American Bible Society was founded in New York City.
22. On May 25, English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge published a collection of poems, including Kubla Khan and Christabel.
23. In June, Fort Dearborn, adjacent to the Chicago River in what is now Chicago, Illinois, was rebuilt. It had been destroyed by Potawatomi warriors in August 1812 following the Battle of Fort Dearborn.”
24. On June 6, 10 inches of snow fell in New England.
25. On June 11, Rembrandt Peale founded Baltimore Gas and Electric.
26. On June 18, apothecary and surgeon Thomas Henry passed away in Manchester, England. He developed a method “to inject carbon dioxide into water,” which created the first artificially carbonated “soda water.”
27. On June 26, the renowned French chef and restaurateur Louis Bignon was born. His Café Riche became one of the most “fashionable and famous” restaurants in Paris and was known worldwide.
28. On July 8, there was unseasonal frost in Waltham, Massachusetts, as part of the “Year Without a Summer.”
29. On October 7, the Washington, the world’s first double-decked steamboat, arrived in New Orleans, “marking a milestone in Mississippi River transportation.” It was designed by Captain Henry Miller Shreve and “featured a two-story deck, a high-pressure engine, and a shallow hull, serving as the prototype for future Western riverboats.”
30. November 1 to December 4: In the U.S. presidential election, Democratic-Republican James Monroe became the fifth U.S. president by defeating Federalist Rufus King in a landslide. Monroe won 183 electoral votes to King’s 34.
31. On November 7, Jonathan Jennings was sworn in as the first governor of Indiana.
32. On December 2, the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society (PSFS), America’s first savings bank, opened for business in Philadelphia.
33. On December 11, Indiana became the 19th U.S. state.
34. On December 13, John Adamson of Boston, Massachusetts, received a U.S. patent for a floating dry dock.
35. On December 30, English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley married Mary Godwin, the author of the novel Frankenstein.
36. What was the typical American diet like in 1816? In 1816, “the United States was vastly agricultural, and many families lived off the land, cultivating their vegetable and herb gardens and raising their livestock and poultry. Hunting and fishing provided wild game and other meat alternatives.”
37. In 1816, Revolutionary War veteran and horticulturist Henry Hall harvested the first cranberry crop in the village of Dennis, Massachusetts.
38. The Peale Museum on Holliday Street in Baltimore, Maryland, became the first building in the United States to be illuminated by “manufactured gas light.”
39. Key literary works published during 1816: Ann Hatton’s Chronicles of an Illustrious House, Benjamin Constant’s Adolphe, Jane Harvey’s Brougham Castle, Thomas Ashe’s The Soldier of Fortune, and Walter Scott’s The Black Dwarf
40. Famous people born during 1816 included Carl Ludwig (physiologist), Charlotte Bronte (novelist), Frances Browne (poet), Morrison Waite (Supreme Court Justice), and Paul Reuter (entrepreneur).
41. Notable people who died in 1816 included James McHenry (U.S. statesman) and Mary Katherine Goddard (publisher of The Providence Gazette).
42. In 1816 as well, the words “à la carte,” “applejack,” “boozer,” “campfire,” “chalkboard,” “cold shoulder,” “European American,” “fella,” “mountain dew,” “patent leather,” pleasure dome,” “sobering,” “sunbath,” “viaduct,” and “waterloo” all appeared in print for the first time.
43. 10 ounces of honey: Eight cents
44. Five pounds of cheese: 63 cents
45. Four pounds and 12 ounces of veal: 23 cents
46. One and a half bushels of beans: $2.25
47. One bushel of corn: 75 cents
48. One bushel of oats: 40 cents
49. One bushel of rye: 75 cents
50. One half bushel of onions: 50 cents
51. One half pound of candles: 12 cents
52. One scythe: $1.85 (A scythe is an agricultural hand tool used for mowing grass or harvesting crops)
53. One ton of plaster: $13.00
54. Seven pounds and 12 ounces of salted pork: $1.00
55. Six bushels of potatoes: $2.60
56. Six pounds of bear meat: 36 cents
57. Wages for one day of mowing clover: 80 cents
58. Wages for one day of splitting rails: 40 cents
59. Wages for one day of thrashing: 50 cents
60. Wages for three days of breaking flax: $1.50

References:

1. https://www.foodreference.com/html/html/food-timeline-1811.html
2. https://www.famousbirthdays.com/year/1816.html
3. https://www.famousbirthdays.com/deceased/1816.html
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1816_in_literature
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1816_in_the_United_States
6. https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1816
7. https://www.infoplease.com/history/world/1800-1899-ad-world-history
8. https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1816
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_date_of_admission_to_the_Union
10. https://www.in2013dollars.com/inflation-rate-in-1816
11. https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1816?amount=1

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