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Lot 16
Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin Signs Receipt for Loan of 1800
Description:

Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin Signs Receipt for Loan of 1800

On October 22, 1804, Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin confirmed to the Trustees of Trenton Academy the purchase of $100 in 8 percent stock on the Loan of 1800, authorized by Congress in the spring of 1800.

The Trenton School Company was formed in 1781 to educate the youth of Trenton, New Jersey, and built a schoolhouse later that year. It became the Trenton Academy in 1785 and admitted girls to a parallel school in 1787. Seven years later, the academy began a lottery to raise money. The Trenton Academy continued to operate through most of the nineteenth century until finally closing in 1884.

Among the trustees of the school in 1790 had been Charles Tompkins, who served as a clerk in the register's office of the Treasury Department from 1790 to 1802. He was in charge of the issue of the 8 percent loan of 1798 and fraudulently took ten certificates for $100 each and sold them to Clement Biddle of Philadelphia, receiving a $1,000 profit. Although Register Joseph Nourse wanted him arrested, he was not. In 1811, Tompkins' son James Tompkins and an accomplice sold forged certificates for U.S. stock in London. When the fraud was discovered, both Tompkinses and the accomplice were arrested and tried in 1812. Although the father was acquitted, James Hopkins was convicted but pardoned within a few months.

ALBERT GALLATIN, Partially Printed Document Signed, to Trustees of Trenton Academy, October 22, 1804, Treasury Department, Washington, D.C. 1 p., 7" x 6.5". Expected folds; .75ʺ circular hole punched through the middle of Gallatin's signature (probably on redemption) with paper on verso covering the hole and missing letters replaced; likely part of a larger original document. Also includes a lithographic image of Gallatin published in 1862.

Complete Transcript
Given under my Hand and the Seal of the Treasury this 22d Day of October in the year of our Lord one Thousand eight Hundred and four and of the Independence the twenty ninth.
Albert Gallatin
Secretary of the Treasury
Countersigned For the Comptroller.
David Rawn / Pr. Clk.

Dollars 100
Funded EIGHT per Cent. Stock.
Loan of 1800.
First October 1804.
Entered in the Register's Office, this twenty third Day of October 1804.
Joseph Nourse Register.

Historical Background
On February 28, 1800, the Committee of Ways and Means in the U.S. House of Representatives reported that expenditures for the coming year were likely to exceed revenue by approximately $3.5 million. The deficit was caused by extensive preparations for war with France in 1798 and 1799. A bill to authorize President John Adams to borrow up to $3.5 million passed both houses of Congress and was approved on May 7, 1800. The loan was reimbursable after fifteen years, and the legislation did not fix an interest rate. Under this act, stock bearing 8 percent interest was issued in the amount of $1,481,700.

Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) was born in Geneva, Switzerland, and immigrated to the United States in 1780. By 1782, he was teaching French at Harvard College. he purchased land in western Pennsylvania and moved there in 1784. In 1789, he was a member of the Pennsylvania state constitutional convention and served in the Pennsylvania General Assembly from 1790 to 1793, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. However, the Federalist majority of the Senate refused him a seat because he had not been a citizen for the minimum nine years required. After he counseled moderation during the Whiskey Rebellion, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from 1795 to 1801. He opposed the entire program of Alexander Hamilton in the 1790s, but when he served as Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison from 1801 to 1814, he kept all the main parts of Hamilton's program and even supported the Bank of the United States, which other Jeffersonians opposed. Gallatin helped plan the Lewis and Clark Expedition into the new Louisiana Purchase and later resigned his position to head the United States delegation in negotiations that ended the War of 1812 through the Treaty of Ghent. From 1816 to1 823, he served as U.S. Minister to France. In 1825, John Quincy Adams offered him the position of Secretary of the Treasury, but he declined. After serving as U.S. Minister to Great Britain from 1826 to 1827, he settled in New York City, where he helped found New York University in 1831.

David Rawn (d. bef. 1819) served as the principal clerk for the Comptroller of the Treasury John Steele (1764-1815), who served from 1796 to 1802. After Steele resigned, Rawn served as acting comptroller.

Joseph Nourse (1754-1841) was born in London, England, and served in the American Revolutionary War as military secretary to General Charles Lee. He settled in Philadelphia in 1779 and served as assistant auditor general for the Board of Treasury. He was elected the first United States Register of the Treasury in 1781 and was finally forced from office when Andrew Jackson became president in 1829. He kept the financial records and accounts of the new government and authenticated each piece of Continental currency by personally signing it. A Congressional investigation claimed that Nourse owed the government nearly $12,000 because of misappropriation of funds, while Nourse claimed the government owed him for uncompensated services. A federal court awarded Nourse approximately $23,500, but his heirs did not collect the funds until seven years after his death.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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