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.