Page 



35 Window opposite Case 24 



Pro\incial money of Pennsylvania, printed by 

 Benjamin Franklin. 



Continental money. 



An ens;raving showing the clemency of 

 Napoleon. 



Page 



38 



Case 27 



Muskrat — common American kind. Formerly 

 they constituted a large item in the northwestern 

 fiir trade, and have been sold by traders to 

 manufacturers for 37}i cents a-piece. In some 

 parts of the Middle States they are raised or 

 propagated for market. The pelts of the early 

 spring rats are the best. 



Appendix V 

 Numismatic Collections in U.S. Public Libraries, 1850 



The findings given in Charles Coffin Jewett's 207- 

 page report entitled ".'\ppendix to the Report of 

 the Board of Regents of the .Smithsonian Institution, 

 Containing a Report on the Public Libraries of the 

 United States of America, January 1, 1850" was 

 published separately in 1851 as an appendix to the 

 Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the 

 Smithsonian Institution . . . During the I'ear I S49 (Wash- 

 ington, 1850). In spite of an unavoidable lack of 

 completeness this report is of great value to us. 



More than 900 circulars had been sent out plus 

 hundreds of additional letters requesting detailed 

 information from the various libraries about their 

 organization and their holdings including coins and 

 medals. Many circulars remained imanswered, "others 

 were filled out hastily, and ga\e but a meagre ac- 

 covmt of the collections; others, again, simply referred 

 to some source from which authentic details might be 



gathered."'" Jewett was forced, therefore, to seek 

 additional information wherever available. 



Over 40 libraries in 14 different States had collec- 

 tions of coins and medals: Massachusetts led with ten 

 collections, followed b\' Pennsylvania with six, and 

 New York with five collections. Some holdings were 

 small, limited in scope, and hardly merit being 

 designated as collections, while others contained up 

 to 2,000 pieces. It is remarkable that St. Joseph's 

 College in Bardstown, Kentucky, had a collection of 

 400 medals of each century from the 15th through 

 the 18th. The collection of 8,000 "sulphurets" of 

 ancient Roman and other coins in the "Libraries of 

 the College of New Jersey" at Princeton seems to 

 indicate a serious interest in numismatic research. 



The following are items of numismatic interest ex- 

 cerpted from the Jewett report. Page references are 

 to Jewett's .Appendix and not the Report. 



LIBRARY 



FO UNDED 



REPLY 



The New Hampshire Historical Mar. 13, 1823 "ancient coins" (mentioned as being in their 



Society collection already in 1838), (p. 11). 



Concord, X.H. 



Athenaeum Library 

 Portsmouth, N.H. 



State Library' 



Montpelier, Vt. 



1817 



"246 coins" (p. 14). 

 "thirty medals" (p. 17). 



The Boston .Vthcnacum Library organized 1806 "the most valuable collection of coins in 



Boston, Mass. incorporated 1807 that part of the country" (p. 21). 



'"Charles C. Jewett, ".Appendix to the Report of the .Xmerica, January 1. 1850," in Fourth Annual Rfport oj the 



Board of Regents of the Sniithsonian Institution, Containing Board oj Regents oj Itu Smilksoman Institution . . . Wa-shington, 



a Report on the PubUc Libraries of the United States of 1850, p. 3. 



82 



BULLETIN 229: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



