Q. David Bowers
The Year 1844 in History
On February 20, 1844 President Tyler and other dignitaries were on board the steam frigate Princeton on the Potomac River to see the action of a powerful new gun, the Peacemaker, which could fire a 212-pound load the remarkable distance of three miles. Without warning, the gun exploded on deck, and eight people were killed, including the Secretary of State. James Knox Polk, a relatively unknown figure, was nominated for the presidency by the Democrats who were deadlocked in convention. Polk became the first "dark horse" candidate to run in a national election, which he did successfully, besting Henry Clay by 170 electoral votes to 105.
Samuel F.B. Morse harvested the fruits of his congressional backing and transmitted the first telegraph message, "What Hath God Wrought?" from the Capitol building to Baltimore. Wells, Fargo & Company had its beginnings in an express route between Detroit and Buffalo. At the time there were dozens of express companies that carried goods from one location to another, employing ship, rail, and horse transportation. Charles Goodyear obtained the basic patent for the vulcanization of rubber, which led to the expanded use of the product in overshoes, rainwear, and other articles.
On the literary scene The Three Musketeers, by French novelist Alexandre Dumas, was published. German socialist Karl Marx called religion "the opiate of the masses." Wealth and Biography of Wealthy Citizens of the City of New York, by New York Sun owner Moses Yale Beach, listed 850 New Yorkers worth an estimated $150,000 or more including John Jacob Astor ($44 million), Stephen Van Rensselaer ($10 million), William B. Astor ($5 million), Peter Stuyvesant ($4 million), and Cornelius Van Derbilt-later known as Vanderbilt-$1.2 million.
The Drunkard, a play by William Smith, made its debut in Boston and would go on (with the initial aid of impresario P.T. Barnum) to be a staple of the American stage, fitting in as it did with temperance, the all-important social question.
On the coinage scene at the Philadelphia Mint it was a slow year for dimes and dollars, and relatively few of these denominations were made. On July 23, 1844 Chief Engraver Christian Gobrecht, primary designer of the Liberty Seated coins, died. While in office, Gobrecht did his work quietly and competently. He was succeeded on September 6, 1844 by James Barton Longacre, an accomplished engraver of illustration plates, including 24 published in the highly successful three-volume (or four in another edition) The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans. Longacre had not been employed at the Mint prior to his appointment to the chief engravers hip.
Longacre was to become a controversial figure at the Mint (partly because o1'John C. Calhoun's help in obtaining the engravership) and was the subject of several notable disagreements with his superiors. Today in numismatics it is fashionable for scholars to call Longacre incompetent or worse (despite the excellence of his designs for the Flying Eagle cent, $3, double eagle, and many patterns), and to lay at his doorstep many of the date-punching blunders that occurred during his tenure, the 1844-O Doubled Date and 1846 6 over horizontal 6 half dollars being two notable examples. It is not really known whether or not he was responsible for such errors. As chief engraver he might have delegated date punching on certain dies-a menial task-to someone else at the Mint, though he admitted in writing that prior to 1849 his daily task was punching dates into working dies. Further, Franklin Peale's department also made working dies until the early 1850s. Some workman under Peale could have made blundered dies. Longacre complained bitterly to Director Patterson about Peale having control of certain hubs, but it was not until 1854 and Director James Ross Snowden that the matter was settled in Longacre's favor.