21 May 1874 • Elmira, N.Y (MS: DLC, UCCL 01092)
I lately copyrighted, as proprietor, an Engraved Design for Cover of “Mark Twain’s Sketches,”1explanatory note & am informed from your office, that I can have evidence of said copyright Ⓐemendation in the form of a certificate by paying 50 cents more. I would like to have the certificate, & so enclose the 50 cents in this letter.
A. R. Spofford, Esq.
See 7 May 74 to Spoffordclick to open link, librarian of Congress.
Fractional currency was first issued during the Civil War, when
the total disappearance of specie caused trouble in providing small change. The people had resorted to a variety of substitutes, including postage stamps, which suggested the authorization by the act of July 17, 1862, of an issue of stamps, and later of currency, for fractional parts of a dollar, at first in the from of postal stamps engraved on the notes, subsequently in other forms. (Hepburn, 191–92)
Before its use ceased in 1876, fractional currency was issued in denominations of three, five, ten, fifteen, twenty-five, and fifty cents. The note that Clemens enclosed was from the first series of the fifth general issue (February 1874 to February 1876), bearing a likeness of Samuel Dexter (1761–1816), Massachusetts congressman and senator and secretary of war and the treasury in the cabinet of John Adams (Hepburn, 222–23; Raymond et al., 173–76).
References
- United States Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 6: 1874–1875. Edited by Michael B. Frank and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 2002
- Hepburn, Alonzo Barton. A History of Currency in the United States. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan Company. Citations are to the 1967 reprint edition, Reprints of Economic Classics, New York: Augustus M. Kelley. 1924
- Raymond, Wayte, F. C. C. Boyd, J. G. MacAllister, and Leonard Kusterer, eds. The Standard Catalogue of United States Coins and Currency from 1652 to Present Day. New York: Wayte Raymond. 1937
MS, Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection, Library of Congress (DLC). A fifty-cent fractional currency note survives with the letter and is photographically reproduced.
L6 , 150–151.
acquired by DLC in 1960.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.