for a Revised System of Weights, and a Restoration of Silver
Currency.” The development of his views on these subjects
is a model of clear exposition, and the conclusions reached
were such as might be expected from a mind aiming to attain
practical results rather than to impose visionary theories.
From the beginning he was highly esteemed at the Mint. It was
his ambition to acquire a knowledge of every branch of the
service, and with his capacity and opportunities this end was
attained. He early became the trusted friend and counsellor
of his colleagues, and was able to serve them in many ways,
perhaps most of all with his ready pen. As time passed, and
forty-eight years of experience was given to him, he was
recognized by all as the Nestor of the Mint service. And here I
pause to draw a lesson, from the example of Mr. Du Bois’s life,
as to the value of a properly organized civil service. In the
department with which he was connected, political tests were
never obtruded, and permanence of tenure followed on merit.
On no other basis could his services have been claimed or
retained. They would have been transferred to a private sphere,
probably to his pecuniary gain, certainly to the public loss.
He was very accessible, and ever ready to lend aid from the
stores of his knowledge, but in particular did he delight to
instruct and bring forward his younger friends.
Mr. Du Bois was able to fulfill his official duties until
within a few months of his death. He was fully conscious of his
approaching end, preserving his intelligence to the last, and
the faith which had comforted him in this life supported him at
its close.
The following minute was adopted at a meeting of the officers
and employees after his decease:
“The remarkably close conformity of the United States coins to
the standard assigned them by law, has been recognized by the
highest Mint authorities of the world to be unsurpassed, if
quite equalled, in its uniform exactness. The founding of such
a reputation and its continuance during the last half-century,
are largely due to the joint labors of the late Jacob R.
Eckfeldt and William E. Du Bois.”
MELTERS AND REFINERS.
JOSEPH CLOUD, appointed January, 1797; served until January, 1836 (39
years).
FRANKLIN PEALE, appointed January 5, 1836.
JONAS R. MCCLINTOCK, appointed February 19, 1840.
RICHARD S. MCCULLOCH, appointed in April, 1846; served until April 1,
1849.
JAMES CURTIS BOOTH, Melter and Refiner, was born in Philadelphia in
1810, educated in the same place, and graduated in the University of
Pennsylvania 1829. After study and field practice in the Rensselaer
School, at Troy, N. Y., in 1831-32, under the late Professor A. Eaton,
Mr. Booth studied Practical Chemistry in Germany, in 1833-34-35, in the
laboratories of Professors F. Wohler and G. Magnus, and in visiting
accessible manufacturing establishments in Germany and England having
relation to chemistry. The late Prof. J. F. Frazer and Mr. Booth were
the two Assistants on the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania in its
first year, 1836. Mr. Booth next had charge of the Geological Survey of
Delaware in 1837-38 (being often assisted by Prof. Frazer), and published
his report on the survey in 1839-40.
Mr. Booth, observing the great deficiency in the knowledge of Applied
Chemistry in his native place, opened a laboratory for teaching the same,
by chemical analysis and by operating, in 1836, and the same laboratory
has been continued successfully to the present time by Dr. T. H. Garrett
and Mr. A. Blair.
With the same object in view, Mr. Booth lectured at the Franklin
Institute for nine successive winters, giving three full courses of
lectures, each of three winters’ duration (1836-1845).
Prior to 1850 Mr. Booth published the Encyclopædia of Chemistry, being
the author of the majority of the articles contained in it, with valuable
contributions by Prof. R. S. McCulloch and others. It was a valuable
adjunct to the study of chemistry for many years.
The Director and officers of the Mint unsuccessfully solicited the
appointment of Mr. Booth as Melter and Refiner of the Mint in 1838-40,
but in 1849 Mr. Booth obtained, through his friend, Mr. Meredith, the
appointment, over the signature of President Z. Taylor, and has continued
in the same position from that date to 1887, a period of more than
thirty-six years. He resigned his office at the close of the year 1887.
DR. DAVID K. TUTTLE, of the Carson City Mint, appointed Melter and
Refiner January 10, 1888.
NATHANIEL B. BOYD, Assistant Melter and Refiner, was born in
Philadelphia, January, 1832. Twenty years later, he was graduated with
honors at Burlington College. After leaving College he studied law, and
was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar in 1854. In 1869 he accepted an
appointment in the National Mint, tendered him by Director Pollock. In
1873 he was appointed Assistant Melter and Refiner, a position which he
still occupies (1885).
THE MINT ENGRAVERS.
(Extract from Patterson Du Bois’ Biographical Sketch of “Our Mint
Engravers.”)
Whatever may be said concerning the peculiar responsibilities of the
officers of the Mint, who are occupied with the various operations of
turning bullion into coin, it must be conceded that none of them occupies
a position so dubious and, in some ways, so unenviable as the Engraver.
In the general transactions of the Mint, he is the most retired—the most
obscure—of its officers; yet his card is in every one’s pocket.
As to the types of coinage, the standards are as numerous as the eyes
that water for them, and there is no piece but may be said to be outside
of _somebody’s_ tolerance. No other artist undergoes such an ordeal, for
those who do not admire this painting or that statue are not compelled to
hug and hoard it, much less to toil for its possession. The engraver who
can, from his retired window, see the critical millions clutching for his
little _relievos_, is in some sort a hero _ex-officio_, and it has been
well suggested that we look briefly upon the uneventful lives of this
worthy line of officers.
I. Robert Scot received his appointment as the first Engraver of the
Mint, November 23, 1793. Information is wanting as to his nativity,
but at the time of his appointment he seems to have been turning the
down-hill of life. He is remembered as rather under size, and as an
honorable and agreeable gentleman.
According to Loubat, Joseph Wright was “appointed first a draughtsman
and die-sinker to the United States Mint, and made the dies of a medal,
the bust on the obverse of which was considered to be the best medallic
profile likeness of Washington.[21] He also made the medal voted by
Congress to Major Lee.” Wright died in 1793.
II. William Kneass, second of the line, was born in Lancaster, Pa.,
September, 1781, and was appointed Engraver January 29, 1824. Mr. Kneass
had been chiefly a plate engraver for book-work. There were some changes
in the coinage during his term, notably in 1834 and 1838, for gold, and
1836, 1837, 1838, and 1840, for silver. But some of this work was done by
Gobrecht as assistant. Kneass appears upon a pattern half dollar of 1838;
but the silver dollar of 1836, as well as a pattern half of 1838, were
the work of his assistant. Prior to his appointment he had an engraving
office on Fourth above Chestnut street, Philadelphia, which was a
well-known rendezvous for the leading wits and men of culture, for which
Philadelphia was then eminent.
Mr. Kneass died in office, August 27, 1840. A good engraving of him hangs
in the Assayer’s Office, inscribed “to his friend Adam Eckfeldt, Chief
Coiner,”—who had been chiefly instrumental in securing his appointment.
III. Christian Gobrecht was appointed December 21, 1840, to fill the
vacancy made by the death of Kneass. He was born in Hanover, York Co.,
Pa., December 23, 1785. In 1811 he went to Philadelphia, and became an
engraver of bank notes, seals, calico printers’ rolls, bookbinders’ dies,
etc. In 1836 he received an appointment as assistant to Mr. Kneass at
the Mint, in which capacity he executed some important work. Among other
similar performances he was highly commended for his Franklin Institute
Medal.
Christian Gobrecht continued in office until his death, July 23, 1844.
IV. James B. Longacre was born August 11, 1794, in Delaware Co., Pa.
He served an apprenticeship as a line engraver with George Murray,
Philadelphia, and did some high class plate-work before he was free, in
1819. He was one of the originators of the _National Portrait Gallery of
Distinguished Americans_, the first volume of which appeared in 1834.
Longacre drew from life and engraved many of the portraits entire.
Like his predecessors, he died in office—January 1, 1869. During his
term Mr. Longacre was variously assisted by P. F. Cross, William Barber,
Anthony C. Paquet, and William H. Key. Cross was born in Sheffield,
England, served several years in the Mint here, and died in 1856. He
engraved the obverse of the Ingraham medal. Paquet was born in Hamburg,
1814, emigrated 1848, served as assistant 1857 to 1864, died, 1882.
He engraved the medals of Grant, Johnson, Buchanan, Everett, and the
Life Saving Medals, with some others. Key is a native of Brooklyn, was
appointed an assistant, 1864, and is still in the service. He executed
the Kane Expedition and Archbishop Wood Medals. The changes and additions
during the Longacre term were numerous and important, both as to alloys
and denominations. The pattern pieces also record various experiments in
the art of coining.
V. William Barber, fifth Engraver of the Mint, was born in London, May
2, 1807. He learned his profession from his father, John Barber, and was
employed on silver-plate work, after his emigration to this country.
He resided in Boston ten years, and was variously employed in his line
of work. His skill in this way came to the knowledge of Mr. Longacre,
then Engraver of the Mint, and he secured his services as an assistant in
1865.
In January, 1869, upon the death of Mr. Longacre, he was appointed as his
successor, and continued in that position for the remainder of his life.
His death, which resulted from severe chills, brought on by bathing at
the seashore, occurred in Philadelphia, August 31, 1879.
Besides much original work on pattern coins, he also produced over forty
medals, public and private. The work on all of them was creditable, but
we may specify those of Agassiz, Rittenhouse, and Henry, as very superior
specimens of art. Mr. Barber was assisted by Mr. William H. Key, Mr.
Charles E. Barber, and Mr. George T. Morgan.
VI. Charles E. Barber, sixth Engraver, is a son of the preceding, and was
born in London in 1840. He was appointed an assistant in 1869, and became
the official head by promotion in 1880, to fill the vacancy caused by his
father’s death. The appointment was not unmerited. One of Mr. Barber’s
latest cards to the public is the new five-cent piece—a successful
venture in very low relief. But his handiwork is more or less visible in
all the principal medals executed since 1869. Since his appointment as
Chief Engraver, the work of his department has been enormously increased
by the number of medal dies demanded for the War Department and from
other Government sources. Mr. Barber’s best work is seen in the medals of
Presidents Garfield, Arthur, Indian Peace, Army Marksmanship, and Great
Seal. He is particularly happy in “catching a likeness.” The head of
Superintendent Snowden is a rare specimen of medallic portraiture.[22]
Messrs. Key and Morgan are the Engraver’s assistants. The former has
already received notice; the latter, Mr. George T. Morgan, was born in
Birmingham, England, in 1845; he studied at the Art School there, and won
a National Scholarship at the South Kensington, where he was a student
two years. He is best known to the country by the so-called “Bland
dollar,” which is his design and execution.
We have reason to congratulate both the Government and the people that
the engraving service is well and judiciously furnished.
BENJAMIN RUSH,
An eminent physician and philanthropist, was born near Philadelphia,
December 24, 1745; he graduated from Princeton College in 1760; he
afterwards studied medicine in Edinburgh, London, and Paris; returning
to this country, he was elected Professor of Chemistry in the Medical
College of Philadelphia in 1769. In 1776 he was elected to the
Continental Congress, and was one of the signers of the Declaration
of Independence in the same year; he was afterwards appointed
Surgeon-General of Revolutionary Army, and voted for the adoption of
the Constitution of the United States in 1787. Dr. Rush was a popular
lecturer, and eminently qualified as a teacher of medicine. When the
yellow fever scourged the City, and the public buildings were closed in
1799 and 1800, he was very successful in his treatment of the victims
of that epidemic. It is said that he visited and prescribed for one
hundred patients in a single day. He was treasurer of the first United
States Mint during the last fourteen years of his life. Dr. Rush died in
Philadelphia in April, 1813. Among his nine children was Richard Rush,
the statesman.
NOTE.—Dr. Rush was the author of the first pamphlet on temperance
published in this country, showing the injurious effects of alcoholic
drinks on the human system, and is justly regarded as the father of the
temperance movement, the Centennial of which has lately been celebrated
throughout the United States, September, 1885.
CASHIER.
MARK H. COBB, the Cashier of the Mint from 1871 until the present time
(1885), was born in Colebrook, Connecticut, in 1828. In 1861, Hon. Simon
Cameron, then Secretary of War, appointed him Chief Clerk in the War
Department, he having previously been his private secretary. After Mr.
Cameron’s resignation as Secretary, Mr. Cobb, at the solicitation of the
late Col. John W. Forney, accepted the position of Enrolling Clerk of the
United States Senate in 1862. In 1871 he was appointed to the responsible
position of Cashier in the United States Mint.
ALBION COX, first assayer of the Mint was appointed April 4, 1794. His
commission, signed by Washington, until recently, hung upon the walls of
the assay office. But little is known of Mr. Cox, save that he was an
Englishman by birth, and a good officer, as appears from the following
report to the Secretary of the Treasury made by Director Boudinot, under
date, December 3, 1795. He says: “The sudden and unexpected death of the
assayer, Mr. Albion Cox, on Fryday last by an apoplectic fit, deprived
the Mint of an intelligent officer, essentially necessary to the future
progress in the coinage of the precious metals. Until this officer is
replaced, the business at the Mint must be confined to striking cents
only.”
He therefore held office about a year and eight months.
Joseph Richardson, second assayer, was appointed December 12, 1795. He
belonged to an old Quaker family distinguished for ability and character.
Mr. Richardson fulfilled the duties of his office with credit and honor.
He died in March, 1831. A water color portrait of him, dressed in plain
Quaker garb, hangs in the assayers’ room. He held office over thirty-five
years.
John Richardson, son of the preceding, was appointed assayer March 31,
1831. Finding the office not congenial with his tastes, and so subjecting
him to undue responsibilities, he resigned April, 1832, holding office
only a little over a year.
CURATOR.
R. A. MCCLURE, a gentleman skilled in the science of numismatics, was
appointed Assistant Curator of the Coin Cabinet in 1868, and, upon the
death of the Assayer and Chief Curator in 1881, the responsibilities of
the Curatorship fell upon Mr. McClure.
STANDARD WEIGHTS.
The earliest series of standard weights now known, are two sets
discovered by Mr. Layard in the ruins of Nineveh. They are now in the
British Museum. William the Conqueror decreed the continuance, as the
legal standard, of the pound in use by the Saxons. This and other
standards of weight and measure were removed by the King from the City of
Winchester to the Exchequer at Westminster, and placed in a consecrated
building in charge of his chamberlains. The place of deposit is said
to have been the crypt chapel of Edward the Confessor, in Westminster
Abbey. In 1866 the office of Exchequer was abolished, and the Standards
Department of the Board of Trade was established in London, assuming
charge of the standards—an arrangement still in force.
The old Saxon pound was the earliest standard of England. It was
identical in weight with the old apothecaries’ pound of Germany,
and equal to 5,400 of our later Troy grains. The pound sterling was
determined from this weight in silver. Henry III., in 1266, decreed the
following standards: The sterling, or penny, to weigh equal to thirty-two
wheat corns, taken from the middle of the ear; twenty pence, one ounce;
twelve ounces, one pound; eight pounds, one gallon of wine, which is
the eighth part of a quarter. The idea of the grain was borrowed by the
English from the French, and the Black Prince brought back with him from
France the pound Troye, which was derived from the commercial town of
that name. The use of the Troy standard was adopted by the druggists and
jewelers, on account of its convenient reduction into grains.
The pound avoirdupois, weighing 7,000 grains Troy, (Fr. _Avoir-du-poids_,
“to have weight”), first appears in use during the reign of Edward III.,
and it, as well as the Troy pound, has been employed without change ever
since. In the year 1834 the English standards of weight and measure,
consisting of a yard and pound Troy of brass, were destroyed by fire at
the burning of the Houses of Parliament. A few years later a commission
of scientific men was appointed to determine upon the restoration of
the standards. This resulted in a succession of difficult problems
resultant upon the oxidation to a greater or less extent of duplicates
of the standard still existing, as also of the variation of the cubic
inch of water, as in use in different lands. A cubic inch of distilled
water, weighed in air against brass weights, at a temperature of 62
degrees Fahr., the barometer being at 30 inches, had been determined by
scientific men to be equal to 252.458 grains, of which the standard Troy
pound contained 5,760.
As the unit of length was also lost, a series of experiments was made in
the vibration of a pendulum in a vacuum, marking seconds of mean time
in the latitude of London at the level of the sea. These deductions,
however, failed to be satisfactory, and the commission was compelled to
fall back upon the best preserved of the duplicate standards existent.
The Imperial Standard Pound is declared to be the true weight of an
avoirdupois pound in a vacuum. It is a curious fact that the Imperial
standards of platinum (which metal is not subject to oxidation), although
balancing brass weights in a vacuum, weigh in air more than one-half a
grain heavier than the latter. This is due to their greater displacement
of space.
The unit of weight in the United States is a Troy pound weight obtained
from England, a duplicate of the original standard fixed by the
commission of 1758, and reasserted by the commission of 1838. It is a
bronze weight of 5,760 grains Troy. It is kept in a strong safe at the
United States Mint, in Philadelphia. The President appoints an assay
commission, whose members meet at Philadelphia annually, upon the second
Wednesday in February, open the safe, and compare the copies, or the
working weights, with the original upon the most delicately poised
balances. Working standards of weights and measures are supplied by the
Secretary of State to the State governments, which in turn supply them to
the sealers of weights and measures of the various countries, who must
compare with the State standard once a year.
[Illustration: TROY STANDARD POUND WEIGHT.
Fac-simile, exact size.]
All of the scales and delicate test instruments in use by the government,
not only in Philadelphia Mint, but at the several branch mints, are
manufactured in this country, and as examples of wonderful mechanical
machines of minute accuracy they lead the world. Some of them are the
work of Mr. Henry Troemner, of Philadelphia, to whom, it is proper to
say, the writer is largely indebted for the facts given in this article.
Mr. Troemner, in the capacity of government expert, makes frequent visits
to the most distant points in the Union for the verification of national
standards. The Treasury Department made an especial request of him to
exhibit at the New Orleans Exposition, a line of his fine balances.
EXTRACT FROM CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
ARTICLE I., Sect. 8. The Congress shall have power ... to coin
money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coins, and fix
the standard of weights and measures, ... to provide for the
punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of
the United States.
ARTICLE I. Sect. 2. No State shall ... coin money, emit bills
of credit, make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in
payment of debts, ...
Coinage, fiscal year 1887.
---------------+------------+---------------
Description. | Pieces. | Value.
---------------+------------+---------------
Gold | 3,724,720 | $22,393,279.00
Silver | 44,231,288 | 34,366,483.75
Minor Coins | 50,166,509 | 943,650.65
---------------+------------+---------------
Total | 98,122,517 | $57,703,413.40
---------------+------------+----------------
Total number of Coinage Dies made during the year 1887.
Gold coinage 120
Silver coinage 359
Minor coinage 684
Proof coinage 27
Bullion for the Silver Dollar Coinage, 1887.
--------------------------------------+---------------+---------------
| Standard |
Mode of acquisition. | ounces. | Cost.
--------------------------------------+---------------+---------------
Purchases, Treasury Department, | |
Bureau of the Mint | 29,018,932.12 | $25,624,487.37
Purchases by mint officers | 282,626.95 | 249,150.73
Partings, bar charges and fractions | 131,783.20 | 114,982.36
+---------------+----------------
Total delivered on purchases | 29,433,342.27 | $25,988,620.46
Balance on hand July 1, 1886 | 3,258,495.66 | 2,960,969.02
+---------------+----------------
Available for coinage of silver | |
dollars during the fiscal year 1887 | 32,691,837.93 | $28,949,589.48
--------------------------------------+---------------+----------------
Value of the Gold and Silver (not including re-deposits) received at the
Mints and Assay Offices during the fiscal years 1880-1887.
--------+------------+------------+-------------
Fiscal | | |
years. | Gold. | Silver. | Total.
--------+------------+------------+-------------
1880 |$ 98,835,096| $34,640,522| $133,475,618
1881 | 130,833,102| 30,791,146| 161,624,248
1882 | 66,756,652| 33,720,491| 100,477,143
1883 | 46,347,106| 36,869,834| 83,216,940
1884 | 46,326,678| 36,520,290| 82,846,968
1885 | 52,894,075| 36,789,774| 89,683,849
1886 | 44,909,749| 35,494,183| 80,403,932
1887 | 68,223,072| 47,756,918| 115,979,990
--------+------------+------------+-------------
Silver Coins of the United States.