Q. David Bowers
New Machinery to be Used
The Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, 1876, noted that gold coins and trade dollars were weighed and adjusted by hand. The 1876 report said that arrangements had been made to import automatic weighing and sorting machines that would be used for coins other than trade dollars and gold coins.
Specie Payments Resumed
Although the Act of January 14, 1875 provided for the exchange of subsidiary silver coins for Fractional Currency, little was done, and immense quantities of freshly-minted dimes, quarters, and half dollars accumulated in Treasury vaults. The Act of April 17, 1876 directed the secretary of the Treasury to begin such exchange, but still relatively few coins were paid out. Then came the Act of July 22, 1876, which provided that Legal Tender notes could be exchanged for silver coins as well. The doors of the Treasury vaults swung open wide, and beginning in the autumn of 1876 there was an abundance of silver coins in circulation for the first time since early 1862.
A new generation of American citizens saw for the first time the figure of Miss Liberty, seated, on hard money dimes, quarters, and half dollars. Presumably, some long-stored Liberty Seated silver dollars were paid out as well. Interestingly, the specie resumption acts of 1875 and 1876 were illegal under a provision still in effect from the Act of 1873, which stated that silver coins be paid out only in exchange for gold.
In 1876 there was a very curious double standard between the San Francisco Mint and the Philadelphia Mint. Silver coins were placed into circulation in quantity when specie payments were resumed. However, the San Francisco Mint had never stopped specie payments to begin with, but in recent times had been selling silver coins to anyone who wanted them, with the purchasers paying for them in gold (for paper money did not circulate in San Francisco). On the other hand, in Philadelphia silver coins in 1876 were obtainable at face value in greenback notes, but the notes themselves were selling at a discount in terms of gold coins. Thus, in effect, there were two different purchase prices for subsidiary silver coins depending upon from which mint they were purchased.
By December 31,1876 more than $15 million worth of the despised, and often dirty and tattered, Fractional Currency notes had been exchanged for coins (by October 1877 the total was $23 million). An additional $13 million worth of Legal Tender "greenback" notes had been exchanged for Liberty Seated silver ($3 million more than the law allowed for, but Congress was generally unaware of the niceties of coinage and currency laws and, in any event, typically forgot to repeal the provisions of old ones when enacting new ones).
Ever innovative, Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman came up with an idea. It was certainly the case that large amounts of paper money had been lost in the 1871 Chicago fire, shipwrecks, and other disasters. Obligingly, the Treasury Department staff determined that $8 million of "greenback" notes had met various fates over the years. Sherman then declared that additional coins could be paid out in an amount equal to such lost paper money (after all, Congress didn't say that it couldn't). Now, the "legal" limit of $10 million worth of Legal Tender to be exchanged was raised to $18.million.
Neil Carothers continues the story:(Fractional Money, p. 259.) "The estimate of $8 million as.the amount lost turned out to be too conservative. By the end of October 1877 there was still $16 million in fractional notes officially outstanding. More than $36 million worth of silver coins had been issued, making a total of $2 million in excess of the $50 million limit stipulated in the resolution of 1876. More than $6 million worth of additional coins had been produced and stored in vaults. Further sales were brought to a complete stop by an unexpected and dramatic development-the winter of 1877 there reappeared in circulation hundreds of millions of silver three-cent pieces, silver half dimes, dimes, quarters, and half dollars that had gone to Canada in 1862. These came in from Canada, Central America, from South America, and from the West Indies. Some may have come from domestic hoards. People were startled, for many thought in 1862 all of these coins had been melted. This great influx showed that they had not been melted or exported to Europe as bullion, but instead, gone to Latin America [and Canada 1 and served as local currency for 15 years and then brought back. In 1880 Sherman estimated that $22 million worth of silver coins had come back, and even more came back after 1880."
Coin Designs
There was much criticism leveled against the designs used by the Mint during the nineteenth century. An article in Galaxy Magazine, June 1876, contained this commentary: (As quoted by Ted Schwarz in The Numismatist, November 1975. The description is of Gobrecht's Liberty Seated design.)
"Why is it that we have the ugliest money of all civilized nations? -for such undoubtedly our silver coinage is. The design is poor, commonplace, tasteless, characterless, and the execution is like thereunto. Our silver coins do not even look like money. They have rather the appearance of tokens or mean medals. One reason of this is that the design is so inartistic and so insignificant. That young woman sitting on nothing in particular, wearing nothing to speak of, looking over her shoulder at nothing imaginable, and bearing in her left hand something that looks like a broomstick with a woolen nightcap on it-what is she doing there? What is the meaning of her?
"She is Liberty, we are told, and there is a label to that effect across a shield at her right, her need of which is not in any way manifest. But she mightas well be anything else as Liberty, and at the first glance she looks much more like a spinster in her smock, with a distaff in her hand. Such a figure has no proper place upon a coin. On the reverse the eagle has the contrary fault of being too natural, too much like a real eagle. In numismatic art animals have conventional forms, which are far more pleasing and effective than the most careful and exact imitation of nature can be .... "
The Year 1876 in History
The presidential election ended in dispute in November when neither Democrat Samuel J. Tilden nor Republican
Rutherford Birchard Hayes captured the needed 185 Electoral College votes to win, although Tilden had a plurality of popular votes. Votes from Louisiana, Florida, Oregon, and South Carolina were in dispute, with conflicting numbers from different sources. In early 1877 the mess was adjudicated by a commission of five senators, five representatives, and five Supreme Court justices, numbering eight Republicans and seven Democrats. Voting strictly along party lines (what else?), the committee declared the winner to be (who else?) Hayes. If there had been fair voting allowed in the South, Hayes would have won. If the reported vote totals had been treated fairly, Tilden would have won. There was also the question of the secret agreement over military occupation of the South. (In short, the Republicans stole the election from the Democrats, who had stolen it from the Republicans in the first place.) (Per letter from R W.Julian to the author, April 23, 1992.)
The Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876 ended in an overwhelming victory for the Indians (one of only a few such instances in American history), led by Sioux Chief Sitting Bull. General George Armstrong Custer and his 264-man contingent were killed.
The Homestake Mining Company was formed at Lead, a town in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory, and would become the largest single United States gold producer. By this time, most major California deposits had been played out, many by monitors (high-pressure hoses) that obliterated entire hills. Meanwhile, in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, "Wild Bill" Hickok was murdered on August 2nd when he was shot from behind by Jack McCall in Saloon No. 10. Hickock was playing poker, and died holding two pairs: two black aces and two black eights (plus a jack of diamonds), which would become known as "the dead man's hand."
The Centennial Exhibition was held in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia on a 236-acre site. On opening day, May lOth, President U.S. Grant addressed the assembled throng, with Dom Pedro, emperor of Brazil, at his side, the first major foreign head of state to visit the United States. A Corliss steam engine, another version of the device that created a sensation at the world's fair in London in 1851, powered much of the machinery at the Exhibition. Thirty-seven nations and 26 states mounted exhibits of their art, industries, agriculture, and other accomplishments.
Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone he had invented the year before. The president of Western Union declined the offer to buy the device for $100,000, stating that it was only a "scientific curiosity," a decision that would rank in the annals of business with the Regina Music Box Company not buying the Victor phonograph in 1904, and the General Aniline & Film Co. (Ansco) not buying the Xerox patents from the Haloid Company in the early 1950s.
In Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University was founded under terms of the will of the late Johns Hopkins, a bachelor. In 1942, the University would acquire by bequest the Garrett Collection of United States coins. On the medical scene, the Eli Lilly Company was founded in Indianapolis, while in Massachusetts, Lydia E. Pinkham patented her label for her Vegetable Compound, which, it was said, was ideal for curing female ills.
A colony of passenger pigeons in Michigan was reported to occupy an area of over 60 square miles. Within decades, the bird would become extinct and go the way of the dodo and other unfortunate species; Henry Martin Robert's guide, Robert's Rules of Order, was published. Popular songs include I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen and Grandfather's Clock.
In Carson City, 10,000 1876-CC 20-cent pieces were minted, but all but about 20 were melted, thus creating a rarity.