A Collection Of What We Love In Numismatic History

Looks rather serene.

Very interesting.

Andrew Jackson's Presidential Appointment of U.S. Mint Director Robert M. Patterson.



Born to Robert Patterson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the U.S. Mint from 1805 to 1824, Robert M. Patterson [the son] received an M.D. in 1808 and then journeyed to work in Europe. In 1811 he traveled to England and studied with the famed chemist Humphry Davy. Returning to the United States in 1812, the younger Patterson was appointed a professor of natural philosophy (science) and vice provost at the University of Pennsylvania. Patterson remained at Penn until 1828 when he joined the faculty of the University of Virginia, where he worked closely with James Madison. At the invitation of President Andrew Jackson, perhaps on Madison's recommendation, he returned to Philadelphia to become Director of the U.S. Mint, thus following in his father's footsteps. Patterson was also president of the American Philosophical Society. He retired as Director of the Mint in 1851. Between Patterson father and son, and excepting only 11 years, they were Directors of the U.S. Mint from 1806-1851, an unparalleled achievement.

Patterson's post as Director of the Mint was a great national trust, the same trust as his father had received from President Jefferson. The Directorship required an incumbent from the ranks of science, one conversant with the standards and relative values of metallic money, the appropriate metals of circulating mediums, and laws of coinage. Patterson digested and consolidated a code of Mint laws that was then approved by Congress, and superintended the main Mint and its branches with admirable efficiency. By the end of his term the Mint had an annual coinage, in gold alone, of over $50 million. Patterson's stewardship of the Mint met with universal approval.

U.S. Mint Call for Coin Designs 1853.

Excited to find a copy of a payroll listing the employees of the U.S. Mint with what they earned on October 10, 1795.

Have you noted that there are two women on the payroll? Sarah Waldrake and Rachel Summers were the lowest paid employees on the payroll at the U.S. Mint. Each earned 50 cents a day as adjusters, which was less than the 65 cents that John Bay, the boy, made. In fact, Boy was his title at the Mint.

As adjusters, Ms. Waldrake and Ms. Summers earned less than Henry Voight, Jr. (apparently the son of the Chief Coiner) who made 88 cents a day and Lewis Bitting and Lawrence Ford who shared the same adjuster title and made $1.20 a day. I wonder if the ladies did less work than the men who shared that title...

I guarantee you they probably did as much if not more. Nothing has changed since then.