Illustrated history of the United States mint / with a complete description of American coinage, from the earliest period to the present time

by Unknown

JACOB R. ECKFELDT.

Extract from an Obituary Notice by Mr. Du Bois.

(Read before the American Philosophical Society, Oct. 4th, 1872.)

Jacob R. Eckfeldt, late Assayer of the Mint, was the son of Adam and Margaretta Eckfeldt, and was born in Philadelphia, March —, 1803. He was, therefore, in his seventieth year, at the time of decease, August 9th, 1872.

In the Spring of 1832, Mr. John Richardson, who had been Assayer about one year, and did not find the employment congenial to his tastes, informed Mr. Eckfeldt that he intended to resign, and wished him to prepare to take the place. Mr. E. shrank from this responsibility, and declined. But some of his friends who had influence with President Jackson, presented his name with a strong recommendation and he was appointed without being asked as to his party preferences. This occurred on the 30th of April, 1832. He therefore held the office over forty years.

When he entered upon the work, he had to encounter some embarrassments. The apparatus was old-fashioned, and not calculated for nice results. The silver assay had been well performed, without going to a close figure, for many years; but gold was little known in the country or at the Mint, and it is not surprising that its assay was incorrectly performed. Add to this, there was the coarse and cumbrous nomenclature, brought from the old country, of carats and grains for gold fineness, and so many grains to the pound for silver fineness.

Close upon all this, that is to say, in June, 1834, came the celebrated reduction in the standards of our gold coin, one of the chief measures of the Jackson administration. This changed gold from a curiosity to a currency; bullion and foreign coin flowed to the mint, and accuracy of assay was more than ever needful. Mr. Eckfeldt was equal to the emergency, and resolutely introduced reforms, which, at first, made the older officers stand in doubt.

In those days, about the time the new mint edifice on Chestnut street was finishing, Mr. Peale was sent to London and Paris to observe the methods of assaying and refining, and to procure a new apparatus. We were thus supplied with French beams, weights, and cupel furnaces, and with the appliances of Gay-Lussac’s humid assay, and the printed details of the process. Soon after, Mr. Saxton, famous for his skill in constructing balances and other delicate instruments, returned from a long schooling in that line in London, and was employed in the Mint. Thus furnished, Mr. Eckfeldt felt himself “set up,” and able to compete with the foreign assayers, and if he was ever more precise, it was because he disregarded certain allowances which had become a time-honored custom.

A large importation of fine gold bars from France, known as the French Indemnity, and which came because President Jackson declared he “would submit to nothing that was wrong,” gave a fine opportunity for testing and comparing foreign assays; and it was generally found that these bars were somewhat below the alleged fineness. A still more important discovery, was the fact that British Sovereigns ran below their standard of fineness. This happened when he had been in office less than three years, and the Director was unwilling to set the finding of young Eckfeldt against the experience of Old England. The Assayer being assured and re-assured of the accuracy of his results, Director Moore consented to notify the British Government of their error. The result was a closer scrutiny in the London Mint, and a final acknowledgement that they were wrong. This was no less a triumph for Mr. Eckfeldt, than it was a contribution to exact science, and an honor to the American Government.

It is not surprising, that he felt at first the inconvenience of passing from one form of nomenclature to another, though to a better one. A friend remarks, “I recall conversations with Mr. Eckfeldt, showing how seriously he felt the revolution. He would think in carats, and report in decimals. And I often recur to this as illustrating the kind of difficulties which would arise in case of a decimalising of weights and measures.”

For some years prior to 1842, Mr. Eckfeldt and his Assistant, in addition to their ordinary duties, engaged in the preparation of an original and comprehensive work on the Coins of all Nations; on the Varieties of Gold and Silver Bullion; on Counterfeit Coins, and on other subjects related thereto. This was published in 1842, and has long been regarded as a standard authority. In 1850, they issued a supplementary smaller work, and again in 1852.

As the United States increased in commerce, wealth and population, the Mint of course increased in work. In particular, Mexican dollars came in great quantities for recoinage. Not only were our vaults full, but our entries and corridors were at times crowded with rows of kegs. Every day, for years, we had the constant task of sixteen melts of silver ingots to melt and assay; and it was a great advantage and satisfaction to be supplied with the humid apparatus.

The success of gold mining in our Southern States, and the increasing commerce of New Orleans, gave rise to the establishment of three branch mints at the South, in 1837; and it devolved upon Mr. Eckfeldt to become schoolmaster, and educate the three assayers appointed for those places. The same had to be done again at a later date for other mints and assay offices.

In December, 1848, came the first lot of gold grains from California; and with the opening of the next year the tide set in most powerfully. I shall not here speak of this great turning-point in metallic currency any further than as it affected the mint, or rather the labor which it laid upon Mr. Eckfeldt and his department. As is well known, the lots were numerous, and the aggregate amount was enormous. Instead of making gold assays by dozens, we had to go through with hundreds every day, following the arrival of each steamer. We procured young men as operators in the weigh-room and additional workmen in the laboratory; and in spite all the help we were overworked. Here let me say that the persons who have been educated by Mr. Eckfeldt to this profession have done credit to the selection that was made, not only by skill, diligence, and good character while here, but wherever they are now scattered to other mints and assay offices, or to different pursuits.

The gold pressure continued for about five years, when it was relieved by the creation of a Government assay office in New York, and a branch mint at San Francisco. But directly sequent to this came the change of standard in silver coin, causing an immense recoinage in small pieces. Thus our daily assays continued to count by hundreds. This lasted for some years. When it began to slacken off, a law was passed for calling in the large copper coins and issuing in their stead pieces of copper-nickel alloy of much smaller size.

The analysis of Nickel alloys was not well laid down in the books, and the European or other assays which came with purchased lots showed an incorrect determination. Mr. Eckfeldt was therefore obliged to study out and perfect this assay, which is more tedious and laborious, though of less consequence, than the assay of the precious metals.

But it was his habit to be as scrupulous in minor matters as in major; and after the routine was well settled it went on with the same clockwork regularity as the other branches of assaying. I need not say that this nickel coinage imposed another heavy pressure upon the mint for years.

After this came the substitution of the Bronze alloy; and this called for another process of assay, and brought us a great deal of work.

I thus hastily review this sequence of gold, silver, nickel, and bronze, not only as an interesting part of Mint History, but to show the varied and abundant services of the untiring, energetic Principal Assayer, and the masterly skill with which he met every obligation.

His skill and success as an Assayer and Analyst largely consisted in his power of finding out what was defective or erroneous, and in applying the proper remedy. It often seemed that what was a puzzle to others was to him a matter of quick insight.

In the assays of certain complex alloys, and of low grades of gold and silver, he contrived various methods which are not in print, but which are of great use in the daily manipulations.

And here I may state that he not only introduced great accuracy and precision in the assays, but carried special investigations to a delicacy almost incredible. Thus, much interest was excited by a publication some years ago, both in this country and across the Atlantic, of his experiment upon the brick-clay which underlies our city. Taking two samples from the center of the town and the suburbs he found they contained gold at the rate of nearly 12 grains (say fifty cents) to the ton of clay in its ordinary moisture. Other experiments went to prove the very general diffusion of gold, in infinitesimal proportions.

Some analysts, through want of exactitude, or for the pleasure of making a sensation, may produce very curious results; but Mr. Eckfeldt was conscientious, I may say, nervously scrupulous, about stating anything he was not sure of. Partly for that reason, partly for the very love of work, he was laborious to a fault, all his life long.