JOHNSON ANNOTATES EARLY U.S. MINT ACCOUNT

D. Wayne Johnson Annotates Early U.S. Mint Account

The mid-19th century era is a fertile ground for numismatic research. Few dedicated numismatic publications exist, and authors published in whatever venues were available. This produced numerous needles in haystacks, as numismatic information might be buried almost anywhere. Eric P. Newman recalled a thorough search of 1830s anti-slavery periodicals, often religious in nature, for mentions of anti-slavery tokens. “I read so many of them I nearly turned fundamentalist,” Newman observed. Researchers of Newman’s era all had similar experiences.

Dick Johnson has happily transcribed and annotated one such resource, a series of articles in the Philadelphia Dispatch from 1853 that contained a lengthy description of the workflow of the U.S. Mint. At the time, this was the most extensive such description that had been published. In addition to a firsthand account of the technical operation, the writer also included, almost verbatim, certain historical information from the Pittsburgh Morning Chronicle of December 12, 1843. The Dispatch article further closely echoes parts of the John McAllister memorandum, prepared by McAllister following a meeting with Adam Eckfeldt on April 9, 1844. This attests to the unnamed writer’s connections, as only a few in Philadelphia would have been aware of these two sources.

Link to The Way to Make Money on the Newman Portal:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/535296

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