A massive fire burned out of control in Bridgetown, Barbados and destroyed a large part of the central area of the island's main city.  The fire broke out late at night in a lumber yard and wind carried the flames to businesses and government buildings during much of the morning.  The commercial damage at the time was estimated at $500,000.  No residents suffered serious injuries, however, and no lives were lost.  (By John Osborne)

After a lengthy and contentious process, Thomas H. Ford was elected as Printer of the House of Representatives on the eighteenth ballot gaining two votes more than the required 92.  He resigned his office a year later as this post was abolished with the founding of the National Printing Office in 1861.  (By John Osborne) 

The commissioners of the Board of Revenue of Pennsylvania announced that the taxable value of property in the state amounted to $569,049,995.  The city of Philadelphia accounted for $167,396,725 of that valuation.  (By John Osborne)  

Thirteen men were killed when a wall of a church they were demolishing collapsed and buried them under the debris.  St. Francis Xavier's Catholic Church in Cincinnati was being torn down to be replaced with a larger building.  The northern wall fell suddenly on the group of mostly Irish immigrant workers and all were killed.  Twelve of the thirteen were married and had children.  (By John Osborne)  

In the afternoon two explosions swept through the Burradon Colliery near Newcastle in north-eastern England. Between 110 and 120 men worked in the mine and of these 76 men and pit-boys lost their lives immediately or from the effects of the gases or "choke-damp" released in the explosion.  (By John Osborne)

Martha Brewster Brown, the widow of John Brown's son Oliver Brown who had died at Harpers Ferry, herself died a few days after giving birth.  The child also died.  She had married Oliver Brown at the age of fifteen, over the protests of her family, and was barely seventeen years old when she died at the Brown Farm in North Elba, New York.  (By John Osborne) 

The Ohio Republican Convention gathered in Columbus with more than five hundred delegates attending.  By a vote of six to one, the gathering voted for Senator Salmon Chase as their preferred candidate for President of the United States.  (By John Osborne) 

William Jennings Bryan, future Democratic presidential standard bearer, was born in Salem in southern Illinois the son of successful lawyer and politician Silas Bryan and his wife Marion. Educated at  Illinois College, he became a lawyer and was elected to Congress in 1890.  He was three times the Democratic candidate for President but lost all three elections.  He died on July 26, 1925.  (By John Osborne)