agement of the finances of the Government. John J. Cisco acquitted himself so nobly in the discharge of the duties of Assistant Treasurer that in spite of his politics he was chosen to a third term under President Lincoln in 1861. Thus he held the onerous and responsible position during the dark years of the Civil War, and through one of the most formidable riots the city ever experienced, and with great acceptance to the Government. Meanwhile the quarters occupied by the Sub-treasury in the Assay building had grown too small for its volume of business, and Mr. Cisco conceived the happy idea of converting the Custom House into a repository of the golden treasures of the Government. The marble edifice seemed admirably suited to the purpose, and it is possible that a touch of sentiment was blended with the wish to make this point the permanent financial center of the country—as it had long since been made historically famous through the blended acuteness and argumentation of thinkers, philosophers, orators, financiers, jurists, and statesmen. Mr. Cisco instituted investigations, and learned that the Merchants' Exchange could be rented for a Custom House, with the privilege of purchase by the Government for $1,000,000 (property worth fully $4,000,000 at the present time), and persisted in his endeavor until an act was quietly passed (in 1863) through which the Custom House was removed, and the Sub-treasury took possession of its new home within a few weeks.
John A. Stewart succeeded to the assistant treasurership, but resigned upon being elected president of the United States Trust Company, and Henry H. Van Dyck received the appointment. He had been superintendent of Public Instruction from 1857 to 1861, and superintendent of the Banking Department of the State of New York from 1861 to 1865. His successor in the Sub-treasury was Major-General Daniel Butterfield; who was followed in 1869 by Charles J. Folger, the present Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. He was a senator when he received this appointment from President Grant, and resigned his senatorship to accept it. But in 1870 he was elected associate judge of the Court of Appeals, which he had helped to frame, and Thomas Hillhouse was appointed to the Sub-treasury in his stead. Here was also a man who had seen public service, had been comptroller, and State senator, and stood very high in the confidence of the people. He resigned in the spring of 1882 to accept the presidency of the Metropolitan Trust Company, and Thomas C. Acton, who had distinguished himself as a police commissioner, particularly in the draft riot, and for twelve years been superintendent of the Assay Office, received the appointment.
The business of the Sub-treasury has been constantly on the increase
