- Jan 4 Thomas H. Rollinson, American composer, conductor and bandleader, born in Ware, Massachusetts (d. 1928)
- Jan 7 St Bernadette of Lourdes [Marie-Bernarde Soubirous], French saint and visionary (her visions led to establishment of Shrine of Lourdes), born in Lourdes, France (d. 1879)
- Jan 14 Clara Kathleen Rogers, American composer, born in Cheltenham, London (d. 1931)
- Jan 16 Ismail Qemali, Albanian nationalist (d. 1919)
- Jan 20 Johan Peter Selmer, Norwegian composer, born in Christiania, Norway (d. 1910)
- Jan 25 Frederick E. Kitziger, German composer, born in Altenburg, Germany (d. 1903)
- Jan 30 Moritz von Bissing, German gov-gen of Belgium (1914-17), born in Ober Bellmannsdorf, Prussia (d. 1917)
- Jan 30 Richard T. Greener, African-American pioneering scholar and diplomat who was Harvard College's 1st Black graduate, University of South Carolina 1st Black professor and America's 1st Black diplomat to a white country, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1922) [1]