1885 Archives | HISTORY

On February 18, 1885, Mark Twain publishes his famous—and famously controversial—novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the U.S.

The Washington Monument, built in honor of America’s revolutionary hero and first president, is dedicated in Washington, D.C.

On February 23, 1885, a 19-year-old man named John Lee is sent to the gallows in Exeter, England, for the murder of Emma Keyse, a rich older woman for whom he had worked. Although he insisted he was innocent, Lee had been convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. However, after the noose was put around his neck and the lever that would release the floor beneath his feet was pulled, something malfunctioned and Lee was not dropped.

On May 2, 1885, Good Housekeeping magazine debuts in Holyoke, Massachusetts with this bold stated mission: “To produce and perpetuate perfection—or as near unto perfection as may be attained in the household.” And an American institution begins, with a place in the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.

For the second time in two years, the Apache leader Geronimo breaks out of an Arizona reservation, sparking panic among Arizona settlers.

On June 17, 1885, the dismantled Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of America, arrives in New York Harbor after being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in 350 individual pieces packed in more than 200 cases. The copper and iron statue, which was reassembled and dedicated the following year in a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Grover Cleveland, became known around the world as an enduring symbol of freedom and democracy.

On July 23, 1885, just after completing his memoirs, Civil War hero and former president Ulysses S. Grant dies of throat cancer.

On September 2, 1885, 150 white miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, brutally attack their Chinese coworkers, killing 28, wounding 15 others, and driving several hundred more out of town.

At a remote spot called Craigellachie in the mountains of British Columbia, the last spike is driven into Canada’s first transcontinental railway.