•
Abraham Shadd is elected to the town council in
Raleigh, Ontario and becomes the first Black elected to public office. •
William Hall, becomes the first Nova Scotian and the first Black person to win the
Victoria Cross. • The all-Black Victoria Pioneer Rifle Company is formed to defend British Columbia. •
De Stoeckl returns to U.S. from
Saint Petersburg with authority to negotiate the sale of
Alaska. •
McGowan's War, a juridical and political crisis in the
Fraser River goldfields involving a spillover of San Francisco politics into British territory, has the potential to escalate into an annexationist uprising but is settled peaceably. Marines and Royal Engineers are dispatched to Yale, led by Colonel
Clement Francis Moody and escorting Justice
Matthew Baillie Begbie to resolve the matter, which ends amicably, and reassert British sovereignty over the fledgling Mainland Colony. •
Lyman Cutlar, an American settler, homesteads on
San Juan Island in defiance of British claims and triggers off the
Pig War.
Full date unknown •
Black Rock, Montreal completed •
1859 Newfoundland general election ==Births==