Henry Linderman

Henry Richard Linderman (December 26, 1825 – January 27, 1879) was an American financier and superintendent of the US Mint.

Henry Richard Linderman
ca. 1865–1880 (from the Brady-Handy Photograph Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
12th Director of the United States Mint
In office April 1867 – May 1869
President	Andrew Johnson Ulysses S. Grant
Preceded by	William Millward
Succeeded by	James Pollock
14th Director of the United States Mint
In office April 1873 – December 1878
President	Ulysses S. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes
Preceded by	James Pollock
Succeeded by	Horatio C. Burchard
Personal details
Born	26 December 1825 Lehman, Pennsylvania
Died	27 January 1879 (aged 53) Washington, D.C.
Resting place	Nisky Hill Cemetery, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Emily Holland Davis
Children	Henry Richard Linderman
Parents	Rachel Linderman née Brodhead John Jordan Linderman
Education	Doctor of Medicine, 1846
Alma mater	University of the City of New York

Biography

Ancestry

The Brodheads first arrived in America when Daniel Brodhead, a Captain of King Charles II's Grenadiers in the British Army, was dispatched as a part of Nicolls’s Expedition to take New Amsterdam in 1664. Brodhead commanded a company that occupied a post in Esopus, New York, where he died two years later. Henry’s great granduncle was Brevet Brigadier General Daniel Brodhead IV, who served as colonel of the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment in the American Revolution. Henry was the nephew of U.S. Senator Richard Brodhead (his mother's brother).[1]

The Linderman side of the family came to America in the eighteenth century. Jacob von Linderman was a younger son of a line physicians and lawyers from Saxony who occasionally served as counselors to the Electors of Saxony. He emigrated during the chaos of the War of the Austrian Succession and settled near Kingston, New York in 1750.[2]

Medical practice

Linderman was born in Lehman, Pennsylvania. He studied medicine, first under his father, then completing a Doctor of Medicine from University of the City of New York in 1846. While in New York his preceptor was Dr. Willard Parker.[1] Subsequently, he practiced medicine in Pike County, and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, until 1853 when he moved to Philadelphia where he also practiced medicine for a short time.

Early career with the mint

Henry Richard Linderman, ca. 1865–1880 (from the Brady-Handy Photograph Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

He was active in politics as a Democrat. From 1855 until 1864 he was chief clerk of the US Mint in Philadelphia. Linderman resigned this office during 1864, and entered business as a stockbroker.

He was director of the mint from 1866 to 1869. On account of his great experience and thorough knowledge of such subjects, he was appointed by the secretary of the treasury to examine the mint in San Francisco, and to adjust some intricate bullion questions. In 1871 he was sent by the U. S. government to London, Paris, and Berlin to collect information concerning the mints in those places, and in 1872 he made an elaborate report on the condition of the market for silver. In order to find an outlet for the great amount of silver in the United States, he proposed the trade dollar.

Superintendent of the mint

With Knox, he drew up the Coinage Act of 1873. On the enactment of this law in April 1873, he was appointed superintendent of the mint and organized the bureau, and from that time had the general supervision of all the mints and assay offices in the United States. During his administration he gathered a choice collection of specimen coins, which were to be sold by auction in New York in 1887, but the U. S. government claimed them. As superintendent of the Mint, he wrote annual reports, of which that of 1877, arguing for the gold standard, is best known and most important. He also published Money and Legal Tender in the United States (New York, 1877).

Henry Linderman died on January 27, 1879, in Washington, D.C.

Notes

1. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 1927, p. 92.
2. Evans 1893, p. 104.

References

• DeCanio, Samuel (April 2011). "Populism, Paranoia, and the Politics of Free Silver". Studies in American Political Development. Cambridge University Press. 25 (1): 1–26. doi:10.1017/S0898588X11000010.
• Evans, George Greenlief (1893). Illustrated History of the United States Mint, with Short Historical Sketches and Illustrations of the Branch Mints and Assay Offices, and a Complete Description of American Coinage. Philadelphia, Penn.: Dunlap Printing Co. pp. 104–107.
• "Death of Mint Director Linderman". Evening Star (8, 056). Washington, D.C. 28 January 1879. p. 1 – via Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress.
• "Notes and Queries". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 51 (1): 92–95. 1927. JSTOR 20086631.
• Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Linderman, Henry Richard" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead. Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

• Henry Linderman at Find a Grave
• Emily Holland Davis Linderman at Find a Grave