For the first Peale press the patterns and castings were 

 made at our works, the forgings made and finished 

 from drawings, and were delivered at the mint, and 

 they were mostly put together by Mr. Peale doing 

 much of the work himself. In confirmation of these 

 recollections, I still have the original drawings from 

 which the work was done. I was present when the 

 press was adjusted and the trials made on the copper 

 planchet with the one-cent dies of that period. [27] 



This test was only in the presence of Dr. R. M. 

 Patterson, the then director of the U.S. Mint, Adam 

 Eckfeldt, the old and first coiner of the U.S., Mr. 

 Gobrecht, the die sinker, Joseph Saxton and mvself. 



[28] 



When properly adjusted it [the press] was exhibited 

 coining a one-cent size copper medal, having on its 

 face, around the rim, united states mint, 1836, and 

 in the center and on the reverse a liberty cap sur- 

 rounded with rays. [29] 



Of those present at the select exhibition on the 23d 

 [of March, 1836], I recollect Matthias W. Baldwin, 

 Rufus Tyler, William Mason, S. V. Merrick, and 

 S. Morris, 104 as among the most prominent mechanics 

 of the time. [30] 



The press was then regularly put to work on the 

 copper cents of that period in the fall of the same 

 year, when the dollar press was put to work. A 

 total change was made on the face of the coins. 

 The female figure, with liberty shield, staff and cap, 

 was designed by Thomas Sully. I do not recollect 

 who made the model in relief from his design, but 

 that of the flying eagle on the reverse, surrounded 

 by United States of America — one dollar, with twenty- 

 six stars on the plain surface, was designed and 

 modeled by Titian R. Peale. From these relief 

 models, which were about 6 inches in diameter, 

 castings were made to be used as templates or tool 

 guiders in the die-sinking lathe. To get these cast- 

 ings satisfactory manv experiments were tried in 

 our foundry, finally settling on a kind of speculum 

 alloy not too hard for hand finishing. 105 



Although the die-sinking lathe was a labor-saving 



,< " Stephen P. Morris, founder of Pascal Iron Works, which 

 later became Morris, Tasker and Company (Scharf and 

 Westcott, cited in note 14 above, vol. 3, p. 2252.) 



105 T ne repetition is caused by insertion of a passage par- 

 ticularly describing the molding process. The discrepancies 

 I have been unable to resolve. 



tool in the rougher portions of die sinking, it did 

 not dispense with the final delicate hand finish, yet 

 Mr. Charles Gobrecht, who was then die sinker, 

 was much opposed to its use. When the first few 

 dollar coins were struck, it was found that Gobrecht 

 had taken the inexcusable liberty of placing his 

 name on the die, which became conspicuous on the 

 coin, and the coinage had to be stopped until it 

 could be obliterated. 



Mr. Peale's improvement in the draw-bench for 

 equalizing the thickness of the metallic strips, making 

 the return of the grippers to take hold of the strip 

 to be equalized automatic instead of being shoved 

 back by hand, was an important advance in the 

 coining department; it was followed by the rotary 

 milling machine for raising the edge of the planchet, 

 which did its work rapidly, only requiring attention 

 in keeping the feed tube supplied with planchets. 

 This was a beautiful machine from an artistic point 

 of view, as was all the machinery devised by 

 Mr. Peale, who brought to his work the refined eye 

 of an artist. Through a hollow column from a tripod 

 base the driving shaft unseen rotated the milling 

 wheel or die by a cam arrangement within the cir- 

 cular table: the planchets were fed from the screwing 

 tube, all the work being automatic, dispensing with 

 the labor of a skilled hand, and doing the work with 

 not less than ten times the rapidity. Those beautiful 

 scales for weighing gold and silver, so plain and simple 

 in appearance, and of such nice accuracy, were of 

 his design, and their final adjustment the work of 

 his own hands. 



The small steam engine, so architectural in design, 

 that for many years drove the steam coining presses 

 until their increase called for greater power, was, 

 from its high finish and silent movement, a most 

 attractive object to all visitors to the mint, was of 

 his design, and was constructed under his personal 

 supervision. In planning this little engine, the ca- 

 pacity of the planer I have referred to was a considera- 

 tion. The table or bed plate was an oblong, hollow 

 cast-iron box, supported on four fluted doric columns, 

 the entire table being finished and polished, as was 

 also the rim of the fly-wheel. These architectural 

 designs for machinery were before the plain, simple, 

 round-cornered and direct forms dictated by utility 

 of the present time, but in their chaste simplicity 

 were a step in the right direction. 



During the construction of the engines and machin- 

 ery of the branch mints, both Dr. Patterson and Mr. 

 Peale were frequent visitors to our works, and on 



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