By Barbara A. Bither, Bank Note Reporter March 22, 2010

In 1869, Laban Heath, the publisher of Heath’s Greatly Improved and Enlarged Infallible Government Counterfeit Detector…,1 appeared before the Senate Joint Select Committee on Retrenchment as part of an investigation into the methods adopted by the Treasury Department in printing securities. During an inquiry by Sen. George F. Edmunds, the following interchange took place:

Edmunds: “I see that you have a very handsome frontispiece in your book containing the heads of Washington, Grant, Sherman, Johnson, McCulloch, Clark, and Colby, together with a perspective of the treasury [sic] building. How did you procure that, from whom, and under what circumstance?” – A. [Heath] From Mr. Clark [Spencer M. Clark, chief of the First Currency Bureau (the early Bureau of Engraving and Printing)]. Mr. Clark had the plate in his possession. It was something he had gotten up, I believe. He was showing it to me one day, and we suggested the idea between us that it might be a very fine thing for the book.”2

Despite Edmunds’ description, that frontispiece has over time posed questions as to the identity of the men pictured. Appearing only in the larger banking and counting house editions of Heath’s book, it is labeled at the bottom, “Engraved & Printed at the Treasury Department” and consists of a grouping of seven small portraits surrounding an eagle about to take flight with a shield and the United States flag in its talons. Above the inscription is a depiction of the Treasury Department.

The gentlemen whose portraits encircle the eagle have been, for the most part, identified. In the past, clockwise from bottom left to bottom right, the portraits have been noted as: Spencer M. Clark, Chief of the First Currency Bureau, Sen. Stephen A. Douglas (incorrectly), Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, Gen. William T. Sherman, Hugh McCulloch, Secretary of the Treasury from 1865 to 1869, and Francis E. Spinner, Treasurer (incorrectly).

Using as my source a copy of Heath’s 1867 counterfeit detector located in the Historical Resource Center (HRC) collections in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP), I intend to clarify the identity of two of the portraits depicted on Heath’s frontispiece. In addition, I will explore some of the background of the portraits and vignettes that compose this piece.

Appearing in the 1830s-1840s, bank note reporters (frequently also called counterfeit detectors) were periodicals designed to aid bankers and merchants in avoiding bad currency. The bank note reporter provided rates of discount for notes that would not be taken at their full-face value in a business transaction,3 and lists of counterfeit, altered, raised, and spurious notes, as well as lists of defunct banks.4 In the late 1850s another type of counterfeit detector appeared, a bound book which had samples of actual bank note engravings and focused on studying the engravings as a way to detect counterfeits. The Laban Heath books, first appearing in 1864, were a primary example of this type of counterfeit detector.5

Five of the individuals depicted have been easily identified, including Spencer Clark, Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, William T. Sherman, and Hugh McCulloch. These men were well known as military heroes, as members of the Government, or as, in the case of George Washington, “Father of the Country.” Only “Douglas” and “Spinner” are questionable. Stephen A. Douglas was identified by Eric P. Newman in his article, “Heath’s Counterfeit Detectors: An Extraordinary Successful Comedy of Errors”6 and by Gene Hessler in his book, An Illustrated History of U.S. Loans 1775-1898;7 but by browsing the portrait books in the HRC collections, the identical picture was located with Andrew Johnson’s name written beside it. The record card for miscellaneous die number 237 confirmed Johnson’s name.

At the time of the engraving Johnson was president of the United States, following the death of Abraham Lincoln. Douglas, a well-respected representative and later senator, did not have a direct relationship with the Treasury Department making the choice of his portrait for a book about counterfeiting doubtful. In addition, Douglas had died in June 1861, six years before the 1867 publication of Heath’s book. Once compared with other depictions of Johnson, including those in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, there was no question, it was President Andrew Johnson.

The small portrait at the bottom right in the frontispiece proved to be more difficult. No identified images of this man exist in the HRC collections, although there are several copies of this particular engraving. Because Newman indicated that this was possibly a portrait of Francis Spinner, Treasurer of the United States from 1861 to 1875, images of Spinner were examined.

Spinner was balding (as was this man), but that was the only similar feature between the two. Spinner did not have mutton-chop whiskers; and although his hairline receded in the same way, Spinner did not have the waves of hair that curled off the back of the unidentified gentleman’s head. In addition, Spinner had a rather bulbous nose instead of the long slightly pointed nose of this man, and Spinner’s head was much rounder. It was doubtful that the portrait could be the treasurer.

Casting about for other possible individuals, I checked the acknowledgements in Heath’s counterfeit detector. McCulloch, Spinner, Spencer Clark, William P. Wood (the Secret Service’s first official detective) and the Hon.William E. Chandler (assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury) were all mentioned.8 McCulloch, Clark and Spinner were accounted for. Chandler and Wood were unknowns as far as their portraits were concerned. Were there identified photographs or art work of these two that could help solve this puzzle? After searching the Internet for portraits contemporary to the date of the engraved frontispiece, an image of Chandler was located. The gentleman with the mutton-chop whiskers was definitely not Chandler. Chandler had a good head of hair, a closely cropped beard and glasses. He worked as assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury from 1865 to 1867.9

Wood was more elusive as an image of him available in the book Illegal Tender by David R. Johnson10 showed a very fuzzy three-quarter portrait. It was a poor choice for the purposes of comparison, but the portrait did not match as Wood was depicted with a relatively good head of hair, a square face and no whiskers. I asked a colleague in New York who is familiar with early bank note engraving for assistance. He was also puzzled, but searched his records without luck.

Finally, while looking for images related to President Abraham Lincoln, a small oval portrait of the unidentified gentleman’s profile was located. Later, a coupon with the same portrait was found. This coupon was for the Consol of 1867, paying $1.50 for six months’ interest on a $50 bond and was signed by Register of the Treasury Stoddard B. Colby. As register, Colby’s duties included keeping accounts of receipts and expenditures of public money, and of all debts due to or from the United States.11 In the 1860s with the Federal Government beginning to make its own currency, signing bank notes became part of the register’s duties. It then would make sense for his image to appear on coupons, and possibly even in a counterfeit detector as he, too, would have concerns with the counterfeiting of securities. In addition, in the HRC collection, there were other coupons that included the same portraits as on Heath’s frontispiece of Grant, Sherman, McCulloch, and Johnson. These coupons were also signed by Colby. A visit to the Still Picture Branch of the National Archives, College Park paid off in the records of the War Department, Office of the Chief Signal Officer.12 In this collection, which contains numerous images of persons photographed in the Mathew Brady Studio, four images of Colby were located. Upon comparison the match was very close. In addition, the date of the publication of the counterfeit detector matched Colby’s dates as register (1864 to 1867).

During the course of Edmunds’ investigation, Heath answered more questions, including why Clark had this engraving. Heath’s response:

“I do not recollect. I think I heard him say something about them [the frontispiece] being for members to give around, or something. I did not pay much attention to what he said. I know he said it was something he had gotten up himself.”13

Whether or not Heath was being honest, Newman points out that the frontispiece “was a masterpiece of flattery for the U.S. Treasury officials whose cooperation was needed to prepare Heath’s publication,”14 and as a prominent member of the Treasury Department it makes perfect sense that Colby’s portrait would be included in the round of individuals depicted.

Historically, images engraved for use on a bank note are often reused on another note or product. In addition, some engravings are done in advance of a future need and thus considered stock.

Portraits and vignettes frequently appear multiple times and in multiple formats. While researching the portraits on Heath’s frontispiece, I noticed that the Consol of 1867 used several of these same portraits on the bond coupons.15 This gave rise to the question of when these portraits were engraved and for what purpose. Were they originally engraved for stock, for the Consol or for the frontispiece?

In the HRC is a volume titled “Record of Dies” in which lists of dies that were held in the Treasury Department are written. The layout consists of a column with dates, descriptions of the dies, and engraver’s names. These lists are written in black ink, and the dates cover the period from February 1863 to May 1869. In red ink are notations which possibly were added when the First Currency Bureau was preparing for the House of Representatives “Report to the Committee on Retrenchment on the Condition of the Engraving and Printing Bureau of the Treasury.”16 In the section that describes the miscellaneous stock, there are numbers written in black and in red. Those written in red correspond to the die numbers included in the House report. Pieces that make up the Consol appear in the listing for miscellaneous stock, and date from January to April of 1866. At least 10 identifiable dies used on the Consol are recorded and are enumerated below (including the die number in the House report, date, and a description of the die):

180, October 9, 1864, Vignette Eagle and shield.
237, January 15, 1866, Head of Prest. Johnson with Legend of $1,000 Coupon Funding Bond.
247, January 24, 1866, Head of Gen. Grant with Legend of the $500 Coupon F. Bond.
261, February 20, 1866, Head of Reg. of the Treasury, S. B. Colby and Legend of $50 F.B. coupon.
268, February 20, 1866, Imprint Eng & Printed at the Trea. Dpt.
276, March 13(?), 1866, Head of McCulloch, Sec of the Trea. & Legend of $100 F.B. coupon.
282, March 22, 1866, Vignette Soldier, drawn by Darley.
283, March 22, 1866, Vignette Treasury Building.
291, April 6, 1866, Head of Gen. Sherman F.B. coupon.
294, April 9, 1866, Vignette Sailor, drawn by Darley.17

Given these dates are in winter/early spring and the descriptions include legends for the coupons, the dies most likely were first created for the Consol. In Heath’s testimony to Sen. Edmunds, Heath states that he first saw the frontispiece in the fall of 1866:

“Q. [Edmunds] Which of you suggested that idea? – A. [Heath] I think it was Mr. Clark. I think he said ‘that would be just the size for your book,’ and I said ‘Yea, just the thing.’ He said it would be a good frontispiece.

Q. At what time was that? – A. About the time he sanctioned it.

Q. Can you fix the date? – A. I cannot. I came here in the first place in the spring. I think this was in the fall.

Q. What year? – A. Two years ago last fall – 1866.”18

The portraits that appear in the sample coupons beneath the bond illustrated in The American Bond Detector19 show interest to be paid to the bearer every six months—$30 for the purchase of a $1,000 bond, $15 for a $500 bond, $3 for a $100 bond, and $1.50 for a $50 bond. Illustrated from left to right are President Andrew Johnson, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, and Gen. William T. Sherman. As has been noted, the HRC collections include another coupon for the $50 bond with Colby’s portrait. Of the five individuals selected, Register Colby is the one who at the time might have had the least public recognition. Colby was appointed to the position of register in 1864, but died while in office in September 1867. Johnson and McCulloch were in office from 1865 to 1869. Grant received Lee’s surrender in April 1865, and Sherman was well known for his campaign through the South in late 1864/early 1865. The coupon with Gen. Sherman’s portrait on it is also for the $50 Consol. The substitution of Sherman could very well be the celebration of a war hero.

In designing the frontispiece, a model with proofs arranged and pasted together most likely would have been made first. Then, rolls would be used to transfer the individual images from the dies to a plate, creating one image on the plate. With the text at the bottom stating that the print was “Engraved and Printed at the Treasury Department,” I decided to try and identify those individuals who did the individual engravings. During this period much of the work for the First Currency Bureau was done by private bank note companies, and therefore, it was easy to speculate that the individual dies were engraved elsewhere.

I checked the die cards relating to these engravings and maintained by the BEP. The numbers on all of the Bureau cards are the same numbers used in the House report, so identification was easily accomplished. For the most part, these cards had an 1869 date written on them and the engravers were variously identified as Charles Skinner, Hatch, and Charles Burt. The only exception to the die numbers matching was number 261 (head of S.B. Colby) which now is listed as a lathe work counter for a tobacco stamp. In addition, the head of Colby does not appear in any of the books used by the bureau designers and engravers as reference material. It is possible that this particular die was disposed of early and its number reused. In the same House report, there is a miscellaneous plate listed as “44. Vignette, treasury [sic] and eagle and heads.”20 The description could very well apply to Heath’s frontispiece, but there is no corresponding plate card in the BEP.

The name of the engraver Charles K. Burt appears on most of the die cards for the portraits. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, he came to the United States in 1842, and worked for several engraving companies including A.L. Dick; Rawdon, Wright, Hatch and Edson; and the American Bank Note Co. For the bureau, Burt worked on a contract basis as a picture engraver. His name is written on bureau die cards until about 1876. He died in 1892 in Brooklyn, N.Y.21 Charles Skinner is credited with engraving the vignette of the eagle. He began working for the Continental Bank Note Co. before moving to American Bank Note Co. in 1878 when the two companies consolidated.22 There is no record that he worked directly for or contracted with the BEP. The name Hatch was written on the die card for the depiction of the Treasury building. It posed a puzzle. If it was George W. Hatch, by the time of this engraving, he was president of American Bank Note Co.,23 and would have been more concerned with managing that company than with engraving. It is doubtful that he was the engraver.

The Treasury Department “Record of Dies” assisted in pointing to another engraver for the depiction of the Treasury building: William H. Dougal. He was a picture engraver and had established a studio in Washington, D.C. by 1845. Dougal did do work for the BEP, and is known to have made engravings for the Lt. Charles Wilkes Expedition to explore the South Seas and the Randolph Marcy Expedition to explore the mouth of the Red River.24 It is very possible that he was the engraver.

Using engravings originally created for the Consol of 1867, Clark composed—for political reasons—an image that became a fitting introduction to Heath’s book. The portraits and vignettes that were used on both the Consol and on the frontispiece were in Spencer Clark’s possession by the spring of 1866. Heath’s testimony to Sen. Edmunds confirmed Register Colby’s depiction and, by inference, Clark’s political desire to promote the First Currency Bureau with an engraving celebrating military heroes, the Father of the Country, and Treasury officials. By placing Colby’s portrait on the frontispiece, Clark and Heath ensured that as many people would see Colby’s portrait as would see William Tecumseh Sherman. Colby has the last laugh, and this was all discovered by finding the identity of a portrait.



Note

This paper was produced in the Historical Resource Center, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Washington, D.C., while the author was under contract to Noll Historical Consulting, LLC. The views, conclusions, and opinions stated in this paper are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Historical Resource Center or the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The author also bears all responsibility for the accuracy of all dates, numbers, calculations, citations, names, and other salient facts. The author would like to thank Mark Tomasko for his kind input and insight into parts of this article.



End Notes

1 Laban Heath, Heath’s Greatly Improved and Enlarged Infallible Government Counterfeit Detector at Sight (Boston: Laban Heath, 1867).
2 Report of the Senate Joint Select Committee on Retrenchment, Report No. 273, 40th Congress, 3rd Session, 3 March 1869, 431.
3 William H. Dillistin, Bank Note Reporters and Counterfeit Detectors, 1826-1866 (New York: The American Numismatic Society, 1949), 41.
4 Ibid, 41. Arthur A. Smith, “Bank Note Detecting in the Era of State Banks,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 29, 3 (December 1942): 372-373.
5 See also Eric P. Newman, “Heath’s Counterfeit Detectors: An Extraordinary Successful Comedy of Errors,” The American Numismatic Association Centennial Anthology (Colorado Springs: ANA, 1991). 6 Ibid, 247.
7 Gene Hessler, An Illustrated History of U.S. Loans 1775-1898 (Dover: Dover Litho Printing Co., 1988), 291.
8 Heath, 4.
9 Russell Bastedo, “Descriptions of Portraits at New Hampshire State Library,” New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources, 2008, URL http://www.nh.gov/nhdhr/publications/portsnhsl/chandler.html.
10 David R. Johnson, Illegal Tender (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995), illustrations between pp 108-109.
11 An Act to Establish the Treasury Department, September 2, 1789, ch. 12, 1 Stat. 65.
12 Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860-1982, Record Group 111, Still Picture Branch, National Archives and Records Administration College Park.
13 Report of the Senate Joint Select Committee on Retrenchment, Report No. 273, 40th Congress, 3rd Session, 3 March 1869, 431.
14 Newman, 247.
15 See The American Bond Detector; and Complete History of the United States Government Securities; Issued under the Sanction of the United States Treasury Department… (Washington, DC: American Bond and Currency Detector Company, 1869), n.p., for an image of the Consol of 1867. It was also another publication with Laban Heath involvement.
16 Report to the Committee on Retrenchment on the condition of the engraving and printing bureau of the treasury, House of Representatives Report No. 45, 40th Congress, 3rd Session, 14 January 1869.
17 “Record of Dies,” manuscript in the collections of the Historical Resource Center, Bureau of Engraving and Printing
18 Report of the Senate Joint Select Committee on Retrenchment, Report No. 273, 40th Congress, 3rd Session, 3 March 1869, 431.
19 The American Bond Detector, n.p.
20 Ibid, 21.
21 Gene Hessler, The Engraver’s Line: An Encyclopedia of Paper Money and Postage Stamp Art (Port Clinton: BNR Press, 1993), 71. Les Schriber, Sr., Encyclopedia of Designs, Designers, Engravers, Artists of United States Postage Stamps, 1847-1900 (The American Philatelist, n.d.), 25-26.
22 Sol Altman and Clarence W. Brazer, U.S. Designers and Engravers of Bank Notes and Stamps (Smithsonian Institution: s.n., ca. 1961), 240-241.
23 William H. Griffiths, The Story of American Bank Note Company (New York: American Bank Note Company, 1959), 87.
24 Peggy and Harold Samuels, The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc, 1976), 142



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