Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Linderman, Henry Richard

LINDERMAN, Henry Richard, director of the mint, b. in Lehman, Pa., 26 Dec., 1825; d. in Washington, D. C., 27 Jan., 1879. He studied medicine under his father, but completed his course in New York city. Subsequently he followed his profession in Pike county, and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, until 1853. He then settled in Philadelphia, where he was active in politics as a Democrat, and was chief clerk of the U. S. mint in that city in 1855-'64. Dr. Linderman resigned this office during 1864, and entered business as a stockbroker. In 1867 he was appointed director of the mint, and held that place for two years. 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, and he was associated with John J. Knox in the preparation of the coinage act of 1873, which was a codification of all the mint and coinage laws of the United States, with important amendments, and established the mint and assay offices as a bureau of the treasury department in Washington. 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. His annual reports while he was superintendent were valuable, and that for 1877 contains an elaborate argument in favor of the gold standard. He also published “Money and Legal Tender in the United States” (New York, 1877).