Apr 17 Hannah Webster Foster, American author (The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton), dies at 81 Apr 19 Jean-Jacques Lartigue, Roman catholic bishop of Montreal (b. 1777) Apr 25 Siméon-Denis Poisson, French mathematician (Poisson distribution) and physicist, dies at 58 1839 Famous Deaths by Year 1841