April 8 – Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway reopens its Dabhoi-Miyagam line (32 km of 760 mm (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in) narrow gauge) relaid with stronger rails allowing locomotives to replace oxen as motive power (although this is not done regularly until 1880). Later part of the Gaekwar's Baroda State Railway and Western Railway, the Dabhoi system is in continuous operation until gauge conversion in the early 21st century.[6]
December 24 – Johns Hopkins, entrepreneur (b. 1795), died without heirs, leaving $7 million, mostly in Baltimore and Ohio Railroad stock, to establish his namesake institutions, the single largest philanthropic donation ever made to educational institutions at that time.