Mary Elizabeth Hutton (1827 - 1879)

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Mary's lifetime.

In 1827, in the year that Mary Elizabeth Hutton was born, Englishman John Walker invented the first friction match, which he named Lucifer. The match consisted of a wooden stick coated with sulphur and tipped with a mixture of sulphide of antimony, chlorate of potash, and gum. A box of 50 matches was one shilling and came with folded sandpaper to use to strike a match.

In 1838, by the time she was merely 11 years old, on February 24th, Representatives William J. Graves (Kentucky) and Jonathan Cilley (Maine) fought a duel with rifles. They faced off at 94 yards. Cilley was hit on Graves' third try - in the femoral artery - and bled to death on the dueling field. The Panic of 1837 and Jackson's presidency had caused an extremely partisan Congress and the duel was a result.

In 1848, she was 21 years old when on January 31st, construction began on the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. - but the monument wasn't completed until 1888. A lack of money, the Civil War, and a dispute over who would manage the monument kept halting construction.

In 1850, by the time she was 23 years old, on June 1st, the 1850 census was conducted. The population of the US was counted as 23,191,876 - which included 3,204,313 slaves. It was the first census in the US to count every person of a household - including women, children, and slaves - and to ask the place of birth of household members.

In 1879, in the year of Mary Elizabeth Hutton's passing, on November 10th, Bell Telephone and Western Union reached an agreement. Bell Telephone would keep out of the telegraphy business and Western Union would stay out of the telephone business - leading to success for both.