Q.David Bowers
Franklin Peale, a son of Charles Willson Peale (a prominent artist and founder of Peale's Museum), was born on October 15, 1795, in the Hall of the American Philosophical Society. When he was four months old his father suggested that the Society should name him. He was thus given the name Franklin, after the founder and first president of the group...
At an early age Franklin Peale exhibited an interest in mechanics. He soon gained skill and engaged in trade as a mechanic and draftsman. Later he helped Baldwin build the first steam locomotive in the United States. In 1833 he began employment at the Mint. Director Moore sent him to Europe to evaluate foreign coinage methods. He remained there for two years, during which time he ordered French weights, beams, furnaces, and other appliances. Returning to the Mint, he instituted a number of improvements based upon his observations abroad. In 1836 Peale was appointed melter and refiner. In 1839 he became chief coiner. He remained at the Mint until 1854. During his stay he helped with the introduction of the first steam coining press (1836), the automatic milling machine, and other devices. Historian Don Taxay has written that Franklin Peale was a fraud and despite the acclaim given to him by others, he contributed very little to the Mint. In 1851 a former Mint employee brought accusations against Peale which outlined numerous abuses which had been perpetrated. Apparently Peale used Mint employees to work in his home and to do various personal tasks. It was charged that furniture for Peale's home was made at the Mint, that his personal silverware was cleaned there, and that when fine silverware and other objects wrought of precious metals were brought to the Mint to be converted into bullion, Peale bought them personally at the metal price, thereby realizing a profit. Nine workmen at the Mint testified that Peale used them for personal services during Mint hours.
Titian Peale, also a son of Charles Willson Peale, was involved with the Mint during the 1830s. At the request of the director, he submitted a number of drawings of Liberty heads and other emblems. A year later, 1833, Thomas Sully, another well known artist, contributed sketches. None of these saw adoption.
On June 28, 1834, Congress passed a law which reduced the weight of gold coins, effective August 1st of that year. This was done to reduce their intrinsic value. Previously, nearly all gold coins were exported or melted as soon as they were released from the Mint, for the metallic content was greater than face value. The new legislation provided that the $10 piece would be reduced from 247.5 grains of gold to 232 grains. The full weight, including the alloy, was set at 258 grains. The lower denomination gold coins were adjusted in proportion. Kneass redesigned the half eagle and quarter eagle, removing E PLURIBUS UNUM from the reverse and restyling the head on the obverse.
In 1835 Christian Gobrecht joined the Mint staff. Prior to his employment at the Mint, he was used on a contract basis to prepare letter punches and to do other work. For example, he received $100 in August 1826 for preparing models of dies and for executing designs.
Gobrecht who was to become one of the Mint's most famous engravers, was born December 23, 1785, in Hanover, York County, Pennsylvania. He was the sixth son of John Christopher Gobrecht, a German who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1753, where he became a clergyman in the German Reformed Church. In 1811 Christian Gobrecht went to Philadelphia where he engaged in engraving bank notes, seals, bookbinder's dies, calico printer's rolls, and other things. Then he went to Baltimore and continued work in the same field.
In 1817 he invented a medal-ruling machine. The device permitted an engraving or illustration of a medal to be prepared by moving a tracing point over the medal itself. The final result showed the correct shading to indicate the relief. A device constructed with Gobrecht's ideas was put into operation in London in 1819 by Asa Spencer. Gobrecht wrote to President James Monroe on December 1, 1823, to seek the Mint engravership. Nothing came of the request. On August 23, 1825, the director of the Mint wrote to the president as follows:
The individual with whom it would be my first wish to introduce on this occasion into the Mint, as assistant engraver, is Mr. Gobrecht, a native American artist of much merit, residing in this city. A trial was made of his talent for the execution of dies by Mr. Patterson on the occasion of the death of Mr. Scot in 1823, and before the appointment of Kneass, the present engraver, and his work was highly ap-proved. We resort to him now for the letter stamps of the inscriptions on our coins, his specimens of which are not surpassed by any known at the Mint. He is at present engaged in modelling the medallions here before alluded to, some of which have been privately seen by Mr. Biddle, Mr. Sergeant, Mr. Sully, and Prof. Patterson, and the style of their execution highly commended by those gentlemen ...
The request to employ Gobrecht was denied. On January 12, 1826, the president reconsidered, with the provision that Congress would have to appropriate $600 per year for Gobrecht's salary. As Gobrecht was earning more than this as an engraver outside of the Mint, he was not interested in the proposal. Nearly a decade later, in 1835, he joined the Mint staff as an assistant at $1,500 per year.
Gobrecht's work received high acclaim. Of his Franklin medal, John Nehele wrote: I am delighted with it, and as a specimen of art, am proud to acknowledge it from the hands of a friend. I had the opportunity of comparing it in one hand with the same head by the celebrated Dupre in the other, and it gives me great pleasure to say that, in my opinion, it surpasses the other very far in merit. Yours has more of the genuine character of our great philosopher and statesman.
In 1835 and 1836 Gobrecht worked with what was eventually to become the Liberty seated design for silver coins. Inspired by the seated Britannia figure on English coinage, the device was suggested by Director Patterson. At the same time a new eagle concept for the reverse was tried. Gobrecht prepared patterns based upon sketches by Peale, Sully, and Kneass. These efforts culminated in December 1836 with the production of pattern dollars depicting on the obverse the seated figure of Liberty and on the reverse an eagle flying upward amidst a field of 26 stars. In the field above the date on the obverse Gobrecht's signature appeared boldly as C. GOBRECHT F (for "c. Gobrecht made it"). The appearance of the engraver's name in such a prominent position caused some criticism in the press, so in response the signature was relocated to an inconspicuous place on the base of Liberty.
From the pattern dollar of 1836 a new design for silver coinage was made. Liberty seated half dimes and dimes made their appearance in circulation the following year, 1837. Within the next several years the device was adopted for the quarter, half dollar, and silver dollar as well.