Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Phillips, Henry M.

PHILLIPS, Henry M., lawyer, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 30 June, 1811; d. there, 3 Aug., 1884. His father was a lawyer in Philadelphia, and the son, after completing his course at the high-school of the Franklin institute, studied for the same profession and was admitted to the bar in 1831. In 1856 he was elected to congress from Pennsylvania, as a Democrat, and served one term. Mr. Phillips was chosen a trustee of Jefferson medical college in 1862, in 1867 appointed a member of the board of park commissioners, of which, in 1881, he became president, and in 1870 was made a member of the commission for the erection of municipal buildings for Philadelphia. He was chosen a director of the Philadelphia academy of music in 1870, and its president in 1872.—His nephew, Henry, author, b. in Philadelphia, 6 Sept., 1838; d. there, 6 June, 1895. He was educated at home and abroad, and admitted to the Philadelphia bar, but, owing to delicate health, was never able to follow his profession actively. His work had been mainly in archæology, philology, and numismatics. He ranks among the best authorities on these subjects in the United States, and was widely known in Europe, where two gold medals had been conferred on him for his writings. In 1862 he became treasurer, and in 1868 secretary, of the Numismatic and antiquarian society of Philadelphia, and after 1880 he had been secretary of the American philosophical society, and since 1885 its librarian. He was also a member of many learned societies at home and abroad, and in some cases is the only American that has been thus honored. His works on the paper currency of the American colonies and on American continental money were the first on those subjects, and the latter volume has been cited in the opinion of the U. S. supreme court in a decision on the legal-tender cases. Mr. Phillips had published, besides many papers, “History of American Colonial Paper Currency” (Albany, 1865); “History of American Continental Paper Money” (1866); “Pleasures of Numismatic Science” (Philadelphia, 1867); “Poems from the Spanish and German” (1878); “Faust” from the German of Chamisso (1881); and four volumes of translations from the Spanish, Hungarian, and German (1884-'7).