Flowing Hair dollar: an American coin with a Spanish starting point
The Flowing Hair dollar emerged from the Philadelphia Mint in 1794 with a new national portrait and an explicitly foreign monetary reference. Congress had defined the dollar by the value of the Spanish milled dollar already current in commerce. Liberty and an eagle gave the federal coin its own appearance, but its unit of value had an established international counterpart. The first delivery followed on October 15, 1794. The American stamp was new; the monetary starting point was familiar.
Thomas Jefferson explained the attraction of that familiarity before the federal dollar existed. His Notes on the Establishment of a Money Unit set out three requirements: convenient size, simple relationships between subdivisions, and a close connection with coins people already knew. He identified the Spanish dollar as satisfying them. In his description, the dollar was already familiar from South to North and already served public calculations. Adopting it would build on habits that existed, rather than require the population to learn a completely unfamiliar measure of value.
Jefferson's proposed arithmetic was equally deliberate. He favoured decimal subdivisions because calculations with tens were easier than carrying farthings, pence and shillings through several different ratios. His proposed coins included a gold piece worth ten dollars, a silver dollar, a silver tenth and a copper hundredth. This was a proposal for organising an American currency around a known coin. The Flowing Hair dollar eventually belonged to a larger decimal structure, but Jefferson's earlier paper remains evidence of the reasoning behind the choice of unit, rather than a description of the finished dies.
The 1792 Coinage Act made the foreign reference express. Section 9 defined dollars or units as equal in value to the Spanish milled dollar then current. Each federal dollar was to contain 371.25 grains of pure silver within a total weight of 416 grains of standard silver. Section 13 specified 1,485 parts fine silver to 179 parts alloy, with copper supplying that alloy. The statute therefore distinguished the precious metal from the whole coin's weight. A federal denomination could carry an American design while its founding legal definition pointed directly to an existing Spanish denomination.
Design requirements occupied their own provision. Section 10 required an image emblematic of liberty, the word Liberty and the year on one side. Gold and silver coins needed an eagle and the national name on the other. Congress specified those subjects without supplying the finished Flowing Hair dollar portrait, the position of each star or the exact treatment of the eagle. Its national imagery and its foreign monetary reference were compatible parts of the same law. The act also defined half dollars and quarter dollars as fractional values and weights of the dollar unit.
The path from statute to finished dollar required another legislative adjustment. The act of March 3, 1794 assigned receipt of deposited metals to the Mint treasurer, who was to provide samples for assay and pass metal to the chief coiner as directed. It set the assayer's bond at $1,000 and the chief coiner's at $5,000. Those were conditions for performing the work, separate from the prescribed silver standard. The new law altered the administration of precious-metal production while leaving the dollar's definition in place.
Frank H. Stewart's Ye Olde Mint preserves summaries of reports from the first years of production. It records Director David Rittenhouse's statement of October 28, 1794 that precious-metal coinage had begun, nearly 120,000 ounces of bullion had been deposited, and blank dollars awaited a stronger press. Stewart also describes a congressional examination reported by Boudinot in February 1795. Difficulties obtaining skilled workers, suitable materials and strong machinery, together with frequent die breakage, interrupted the work. The Flowing Hair dollar's production depended on the capacity of a small manufacturing establishment, as well as on a definition in law.
Another document summarised by Stewart reveals a gap between the legal standard and Mint practice. In an October 27, 1795 letter to Washington, departing director Henry William DeSaussure noted that the silver standard being used differed from the one enacted. He favoured either changing the law or following it. The mixture used for the Flowing Hair dollar therefore diverged from its statutory benchmark. Stewart’s summary records an official objection to a production standard that Congress had not adopted.
In their later reconstruction, CoinWeek's Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker identify the practical change as .900 silver in place of the legal .89243, without reducing total weight. They also distinguish an estimated 2,000 pieces struck in 1794 from the 1,758 delivered to Rittenhouse. Their discussion attributes weakness in the striking to a press intended for coins no larger than a half dollar. The Flowing Hair dollar thus combined inherited monetary conventions, legislated American symbols and imperfect workshop execution at its first appearance.
- United States Congress — Coinage Act of April 2, 1792, sections 9, 10 and 13; Statutes at Large transcription — en.wikisource.org
- Thomas Jefferson — Notes on the Establishment of a Money Unit, Writings, volume 1, Note F; Project Gutenberg edition — www.gutenberg.org
- United States Congress — Act of March 3, 1794, Mint receipts, assay and officers’ bonds; Statutes at Large transcription — en.wikisource.org
- Frank H. Stewart — Ye Olde Mint, summaries of the Rittenhouse, Boudinot and DeSaussure reports of 1794–1795 — www.gutenberg.org
- Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker, CoinWeek — 1794 Flowing Hair Dollar: A Collector’s Guide — coinweek.com
- Wikipedia — Flowing Hair dollar: 1794–1795 issue and its Spanish-dollar and Bohemian-tolar background — en.wikipedia.org
- George G. Evans — Illustrated History of the United States Mint (1888), silver-dollar catalogue: 1794 Flowing Hair and 1795 types — www.gutenberg.org