HENRY WITTER BECKWITH (1869-1958)

When I compiled the recent listing of hundred-year-old numismatists, I left off the name of Dr. Henry Beckwith. I apologize, but there is a reasonable explanation.

Henry Beckwith was born on May 7, 1869, in Norwich, Connecticut. His parents were Gordon and Anna Witter Beckwith. He was noted for assembling a collection of high quality large cents sold at auction by S. H. Chapman on April 27, 1923. Walter Breen wrote an article calling Beckwith The First Perfectionist.

In the current version of American Numismatic Biographies, available on the Newman Numismatic Portal, I wrote that He died at age 100.

This followed a series of articles I submitted to Penny-Wise. In the issue of September 15, 1990, I wrote of Beckwith, He died at age 100.

My source for this was a talk C. Douglas Smith made to the EAC convention in Los Angeles. A transcription of the talk was published in Penny-Wise for July 15, 1978.

As most of you probably know, Dr. Beckwith had a gem collection of large cents which was sold by one of the Chapman brothers – I think it was S. Hudson, in 1923 – and that was sort of a pre-Helfenstein sale in that it consisted almost entirely of superb uncirculated large cents, and some of the very greatest cents ever were in that sale. The way Sheldon told the story to me when I asked him about the Beckwith sale, was this: Well. About that time. Dr. Henry C. Beckwith was 70 years old. And being a medical man and very practical, he figured he'd be shuffling off his mortal coil pretty soon. So he decided to sell his coins while he still had the power of their disposition. And so he put them into this public auction. They brought about 5 thousand dollars. Many years passed, and the coins were all distributed and Henry Hines bought quite a few of them at the Beckwith sale, And Dr. Beckwith was very interested in the way they were sold, and he kept records of where they went to, And he knew that Hines possessed quite a few of them.

But Dr. Beckwith lived 30 years more after the coins were sold – he lived to be 100 – a centenarian. So he started lusting for some of these coins. Hines was pouring over some of these coins one dark rainy night, burning the midnight oil – and downstairs, like the raven tap-tap-tapping at their door, came a knocking. And lo and behold, it was Dr. Beckwith, and he said, Henry, can't I just look at some of my old coins?

My profiles of Beckwith did not include his date of death. That was a gap I tried to fill this week. Turns out he died in Nahant, Massachusetts, on August 6, 1958, at age 89. At the time of the 1923 auction, he was 53, not 70. It is an amusing story but not supported by the facts.

Doug Smith referred to him as Henry C. Beckwith and that middle initial had me concerned for about an hour. There was no Henry C. Beckwith in the 1900 Census who was a physician. His 1917 Connecticut Military Census registration had his profession as physician and age as 47.

Occasionally I make a mistake. When informed of a mistake by a reader, I correct it. It took 32 years for me to find this one myself.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
PURNIE MOORE (1907-2008) (https://www.coinbooks.org/v25/esylum_v25n45a16.html)