Famous People Who Died In 1813

Tecumseh was a Shawnee chief, diplomat, orator, and warrior. He is best known for promoting resistance to the United States' expansion onto Native American lands. He also promoted tribal unity and is credited with forming a Native American confederacy. He died trying to unite Native Americans and is considered an iconic folk hero in Canadian, Indigenous, and American history.

Joseph Louis Lagrange was an Italian mathematician and astronomer who made significant contributions to the fields of number theory, analysis, and both classical and celestial mechanics. He served as the director of mathematics at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin for over 20 years. He later moved to France and became a member of the French Academy of Sciences. 

While in prison, in the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War, army pharmacist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier was forced to eat potatoes, which were considered fit only for prison ration and animal feed back then. Parmentier later persuaded the Paris Faculty of Medicine to declare potatoes edible and popularized them in France.

Granville Sharp was an activist who became one of the first English campaigners to support abolitionism in the UK. Sharp devised a plan to settle people in slavery and black people in Sierra Leone. He also established the St George's Bay Company and is thus considered a founding father of Sierra Leone. Sharp also worked towards correcting other social injustices.

American army officer Zebulon Pike is best remembered for his exploration of areas around the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. While traversing through the southern Colorado region, he was detained by Spanish colonial authorities. He lent his name to the famed Pikes Peak in Colorado.

Polish military general Józef Antoni Poniatowski was initially part of the Austrian army and was later drafted into the Polish army on the instructions of his uncle, King Stanisław II August Poniatowski. Best remembered for his exploits in the Napoleonic Wars, he was later made a marshal but drowned after being wounded.

Trapper-explorer John Colter, who was part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, is remembered as the first white man to visit and describe the Yellowstone National Park. He had a brush with death on three occasions, when he came face-to-face with Indian tribes. He later settled in a Missouri farm.

James McGill was a Scottish Canadian politician, philanthropist, and businessman best remembered for founding McGill University in Montreal, Canada. One of the most important members of the Château Clique, McGill was also one of the founding members of the famous gentleman's dining club, The Beaver Club.

Swiss artist Anton Graff is remembered for his state portraits of various Saxon rulers. A self-portrait that he sent to Dresden earned him the positions of the court painter of Saxony and the portrait painting teacher at the Dresden Art Academy. He was a major figure of the Neoclassical movement in art.

Swedish analytical chemist Anders Gustav Ekeberg is primarily known for his discovery of tantalum in 1802. He first studied at and later taught at the University of Uppsala. He was also a member of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 2018, Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center started an award in his name to acknowledge work in the field of tantalum research. 

Peter Jacob Hjelm was a Swedish chemist best remembered for isolating the element molybdenum; he became the first person to do so in 1781, four years after it was discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele. In 1784, Peter Jacob Hjelm was inducted into the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Yaakov Yitzchak Rabinowicz was the founder and first Grand Rabbi of the Peshischa movement of Hasidic philosophy. Also known as Yehudi, he was an important figure of Polish Hasidism. He was the leading disciple of Yaakov Yitzchak of Lublin and encouraged individuality of thought and critical judgment of religious routine. His teachings had a great influence on modern Hasidism. 

André Grétry was a composer best remembered for his opéras comiques. Although he was born in present-day Belgium, Grétry took French nationality and worked in France for most part of his life. While he was still alive, a commemorative statue was commissioned by Hippolyte, comte de Livry in 1804. The statue is now part of the Met in New York.