in North Seventh Street, corner of Sugar Alley. 

 The second mint, completed in 1833 at tne 

 northwest corner of Chestnut and Juniper 

 Streets, was in a building designed by William 

 Strickland/ 6 In 1835, the Sellers brothers fur- 

 nished heavy iron castings for new equipment in 

 the melting department, which was overhauled 

 by Franklin Peale after his return from a two- 



year study of European mints and minting 

 procedures. 87 When the branch mints in North 

 Carolina and Georgia were established in 1836, 

 George Escol designed the steam engines to be 

 used in them. His designs overturned, by the 

 way, a dogged preference for vertical steam 

 engines to drive the coining presses and other 

 machinery. 



JN aturally, as the capital of the United States at 

 the time, the first mint was located in the city of 

 Philadelphia, and few realize now the humble begin- 

 ning from which the greater mints of the country have 

 sprung. The old U.S. Mint in Philadelphia was on 

 the east side of Seventh Street, on one of those areas 

 called in Philadelphia a city block, these blocks being 

 bounded on their four sides by the principal streets, 

 and perhaps subdivided into smaller blocks by alleys 

 or courts. The particular block in question was 

 between Sixth and Seventh Streets on the east and 

 west and Market and Arch on the south and north, 

 and in point of fact the building was about midway 

 of the block on the corner of a small street named 

 Sugar Alley, which ran from Sixth to Seventh Streets, 

 bisecting the block. 



The building used for the mint had very much the 

 appearance of an ordinary three-story brick dwelling 

 house of that period, the back building and yard 

 extending on the alley. In a rear room, facing on the 



Journal of Numismatics (1883), vol. 18, pp. 12-16. Jacob R. 

 Eckfeldt and William DuBois, A Manual of Gold and Silver 

 Coins of All Nations Struck within the Last Century (Philadelphia, 

 1842), describes the medal ruling machine, which wasdeveloped 

 by Franklin Peale from the earlier designs of Christian Gobrecht. 



86 A brief sketch of U.S. mints to 1880 is given in Scharf 

 and Westcott (cited in note 14 above), vol. 3, pp. 181 2-1 81 9. 



87 Franklin Peale was in Europe from 1833 to 1835 (Sister 

 St. John Nepomucene, "Franklin Peale's Visit to Europe in 

 the U.S. Mint Service," Journal of Chemical Education, March 

 1955, vol. 32, reprinted in Numismatist, December 1958, vol. 

 "1, pp. 1473-1479). The 272-page manuscript report of his 

 visit is amongst the extensive Philadelphia Mint papers in 

 Record Group 104, U.S. National Archives. The report 

 refers to numerous drawings, "intended as working drawings," 

 made to accompany the report, but the drawings have not as 

 yet been located. The report reveals that the large balance, 

 built by Joseph Saxton and now on display in the U.S. Mint 

 in Philadelphia (fig. 40), was constructed at Franklin Peale's 

 order in 1835, while Saxton was still in London. A biograph- 

 ical notice of Franklin Peale appears in Proceedings of the American 

 Philosophical Society (1870), vol. it, no. 85, pp. ^97-604. 



62 



alley, with a large, low down window opening into it, 

 a fly press stood, that is a screw-coining press mostly 

 used for striking the old copper cents. Through this 

 window the passersby in going up and down the alley 

 could readily see the bare-armed vigorous men 

 swinging the heavy end-weighted balanced lever that 

 drove the screw with sufficient force so that by the 

 momentum of the weighted ends this quick-threaded 

 screw had the power to impress the blank and thus 

 coin each piece. They could sec the rebound or 

 recoil of these end weights as they struck a heavy 

 wooden spring beam, driving the lever back to the 

 man that worked it; they could hear the clanking of 

 the chain that checked it at the right point to prevent 

 its striking the man, all framing a picture very likely 

 to leave a lasting impression, and there are no doubt 

 still living many in Philadelphia who can recollect 

 from this brief notice the first mint. 



The impression made upon me as a boy was the 

 more enduring as it was one of almost daily occur- 

 rence. The block on which the old mint stood, 

 besides being divided by Sugar Alley, had on Sixth 

 Street near Market the entrance to what was known 

 as Mulberry Court. This court extended nearly 

 half way to Seventh Street, and at the head of the 

 court was a dwelling house facing the entrance to 

 the court. This house separated Mulberry Court 

 from another alley or court that entered from Seventh 

 Street, known as St. James Street. The difference 

 between the terms alley and court in this case was 

 that the name alley was given to a narrow street 

 of uniform width, either entirely passing through 

 the block or entering it for a short distance, while 

 the term court was applied more particularlv to a 

 narrow entrance from the main street widening into 

 a broader area, around which area the more pre- 

 tentious houses were frequently erected. 



On the north side of Mulberry Court were three 

 dwelling houses, in one of which I first saw the light. 



