A Pocketful of History Read online

  In reality, Commonwealth is a three-ton statue of gilded bronze, thirteen and a half feet tall. Although designed by Joseph Miller Huston, the architect responsible for the capitol while it was being constructed from 1902 to 1906, Commonwealth was sculpted by Roland Hinton Perry. Educated in Paris, Perry earned acclaim for his bas-reliefs at the Library of Congress, followed by his sculpting of the library’s Fountain of Neptune.

  Working from Huston’s design, Perry sculpted the working model for Commonwealth in 1905. His later works can be found across the nation, ranging from the sentrylike lions on the Taft Bridge in Washington, D.C., to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Middleton, Ohio, to the Elk Statue in Portland, Oregon. What Commonwealth would be worth today is anyone’s guess—a mere figurative inkwell sculpted by Perry sold for $4,200 in 2006.

  Nearly a century after Perry created the original work, Commonwealth found a second home on Pennsylvania’s state quarter. The words “Virtue, Liberty, Independence” are inscribed on her left. A keystone, emblematic of Pennsylvania’s nickname, the Keystone State, is engraved on her right. And therein is a mystery. Why is Pennsylvania called the Keystone State?

  Theories abound. The simplest may be that Pennsylvania, given its central location, was the geographic keystone to the original thirteen colonies. A question posed to the Pennsylvania Archives, however, yielded a more sophisticated explanation.

  According to Louis Waddell, a historian with the state of Pennsylvania, the state’s nickname can be traced to editorials in the Aurora, an early Philadelphia newspaper. Edited by William Duane, the Aurora was an unabashed opponent of President John Adams and the Federalists at the turn of the eighteenth century. In fact, Duane was twice indicted—although never convicted—under the Alien and Sedition Acts. The partisan attacks of papers such as the Aurora helped to turn the presidential election of 1800 into what Adams biographer David McCullough described as “a contest of personal vilification surpassing any presidential election in American history.”

  That election pitted the incumbent Adams and his anointed vice presidential candidate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, against Vice President Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr. At the time, debate regarding the proper relationship of the federal government and the Republic’s individual states was more than merely academic, while a “quasi-war” with France enflamed the ongoing argument further. For the first time in American history, partisan party politics dominated the race, with Adams’s Federalists on one side and the Jeffersonian Republicans on the other.

  The race for the White House—a new residence into which Adams had just moved—climaxed with an unprecedented political crisis. Under the Constitution of the day, the states’ electors voted for two men. The one with the highest number of votes would become the president; the second-highest, the vice president. In short, to avoid a tie and to successfully put his slate into office in this new era of party politics, at least one of the electors had to take care not to cast his votes for the same two men for whom his fellow party members were voting.

  In 1800, however, the system broke down in dramatic fashion. Failing to properly coordinate their efforts, all of the Republican electors faithfully cast one vote for Jefferson and one vote for Burr. The final result produced totals of seventy-three electoral votes each for both Jefferson and Burr, sixty-five votes for Adams, sixty-four votes for Pinckney, and one token vote for Federalist John Jay. For their part, Pennsylvania’s electors narrowly sided with the Republicans by an 8–7 margin.

  In the end, because of the Republicans’ miscalculations, Jefferson and Burr were tied for the highest office in the land. According to the Constitution, the House of Representatives would have to vote to break the tie. However, the Federalists still held a majority there that would presumably prefer a political stalemate rather than an affirmative vote to elect Jefferson.

  Burr could have defused the issue by conceding to Jefferson; but, consumed by unrestrained presidential ambitions, he refused to do so. Accordingly, the contest shifted to the House. There, in February 1801, the Federalists cobbled together enough diehards to steadfastly vote for Burr through thirty-five ballots and thus preserve the impasse. With the scheduled inauguration day approaching, the House holding the election hostage, and Republican states warning ominously of a shattered Union, the nation slipped perilously close to political chaos.

  Eventually, however, calmer heads prevailed. On February 17, 1801, James A. Bayard, a Federalist from Delaware and the state’s sole member of the House of Representatives, cast a blank ballot rather than continuing to vote for Burr. His blank ballot enabled a majority vote for Jefferson. Delighted, the Aurora carped that God had cast Adams out of the White House like “polluted water out at the back door.” “May he return in safety to Braintree [his home in Massachusetts],” the paper added, “that Mrs. Adams may wash his befuddled brains clear.”

  The Aurora’s writers were still gleeful a year later, when they described a Pennsylvania gubernatorial victory dinner for the Republicans’ Thomas McKean on October 16, 1802, at the Hamburgh House on the Schuylkill River. Reporting on the event, the paper described a dinner in which a “mammoth turtle” was consumed, along with sixteen toasts of Madeira and claret. The ninth of those toasts, according to the Aurora, reflected on the previous year’s victory and prayed “may the Republicans of Pennsylvania never forget that their commonwealth is the keystone of the federal union.” Exaggeration or not, this toast, according to historian Waddell’s careful research, marked the first time Pennsylvania was referred to as a “keystone.”

  Waddell admits, however, that other theories continue to challenge the Aurora’s claim. One theory traces its roots to Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the French architect assigned to design Washington, D.C. In 1792, he spanned the city’s Rock Creek with a bridge of arch stones engraved with each of the original thirteen states’ names. In the middle of that arch, the stone labeled “Pennsylvania” forms the arch’s keystone. Pennsylvania is, therefore, literally the “keystone state.”

  Another legend has John Morton, one of Pennsylvania’s delegates to the Second Continental Congress, declaring Pennsylvania to be the “keystone state” when he voted for independence. At the time, Pennsylvania’s delegation of nine men was almost evenly divided on the issue of declaring independence from Great Britain. Morton’s vote within the delegation, therefore, was indeed key.

  Pennsylvania faced another key decision twenty-two decades later, when, in 1998, it came time to select a design for its state quarter. Recognizing that his state was making numismatic history, Governor Tom Ridge formed the diverse fourteen-member Commemorative Quarter Committee to determine what image would represent the Keystone State. Lucy Gnazzo, a senior member of his staff, served as the governor’s liaison to the committee.

  “It was a really exciting project,” said Gnazzo. “Governor Ridge wanted to open up the selection process to the public and invited the public to submit designs. He wanted a quarter that would educate, highlight the state’s history, and market Pennsylvania to the country.”

  Prospective designs—5,300 of them—poured into Harrisburg.

  “It was an amazing process,” said Gnazzo. “We’d open up those envelopes and things would pour out—photos, drawings, and even actual coin design mock-ups. The level of interest was just incredible.”

  Proposed designs included one that offered a more prominently displayed keystone and another that displayed the ruffed grouse, the official state bird. In the end, five final concepts were selected and forwarded to Washington, D.C., where four of them survived review by the Citizens Commemorative Coin Advisory Committee and the Fine Arts Commission and won approval by the secretary of the Treasury. Left with those four options, Governor Ridge chose the current design. The U.S. Mint issued the first Pennsylvania state quarter on March 8, 1999; in total, 707.332 million were eventually minted.

  “The final design was a fabulous way to commemorate our state,” Gnazzo said. “If you’v
e ever driven across the Susquehanna River into Harrisburg and seen Commonwealth reflecting the sun and peering through the city’s skyline, you know what I mean.”

  3

  NEW JERSEY

  The First Commute

  For its state quarter, New Jersey selected one of the most iconic images of American history—the scene depicted in Emanuel Leutze’s painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. Leutze’s masterpiece portrays a stalwart George Washington, standing steadily in a crowded boat of Continental soldiers, as he navigates the ice-choked Delaware River to attack Trenton. “Crossroads of the Revolution,” the quarter declares, referring to dozens of skirmishes and battles fought in New Jersey during the American Revolution. Of all of those battles, none is seared into America’s subconscious more deeply than Washington’s strike against Great Britain’s Hessian mercenaries on December 26, 1776. A year and a half earlier, Washington had taken command of a collection of state militiamen and new recruits that was grandly labeled the Continental Army. It was, in Washington’s words, “a mixed multitude of people . . . under little discipline, order or government.” Nevertheless, at its head, he managed to masterfully maneuver the British out of Boston.

  Washington’s decision to confront the enemy in New York, however, nearly proved fatal. British redcoats and their Hessian mercenaries sent the Continentals reeling southward in a strategic retreat. The withdrawal did not pause until the battered core of Washington’s soldiers managed to slip across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, their pursuers settled comfortably into their winter quarters.

  At that point in the Revolution, the mere fact that Washington’s army was still intact represented a significant moral victory. But the need for real victories grew ever more pressing. The enlistment contracts for many of Washington’s soldiers expired on December 31, 1776, and without a victory in the field to restore spirits, much of the Continental Army would likely melt away at the end of the year. Accordingly, as Christmas approached, Washington gathered his staff and regimental commanders and hatched a plan to deliver such a victory.

  On a map of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Washington drew out a bold scheme of maneuver. Dividing his army into three strike forces, he decided to lead one group of 2,400 across the Delaware River at McKonkey’s Ferry, Pennsylvania, ten miles upstream of Trenton, on Christmas night. Once on the New Jersey side of the river, he would divide his troops into two columns and march them south under the cover of darkness to Trenton. There, he would launch a dawn attack, hoping to surprise the brigade of 1,500 Hessian mercenaries garrisoning the town.

  In the meantime, a smaller force of 700 Pennsylvania militia under Brigadier General James Ewing would attack Trenton by crossing the river directly across from Trenton in order to block the Hessians’ escape route across Assunpink Creek. A third force, commanded by Colonel John Cadwalader and consisting of 1,000 Pennsylvania militia and 500 veteran Rhode Island troops, would row across the river and strike the enemy garrison at Bordentown, further south. The three forces would then consolidate and, capitalizing on their success, strike against British garrisons in Princeton and New Brunswick.

  To support his plan, Washington ordered Colonel John Glover, who commanded a regiment of fishermen-turned-soldiers from Marble-head, Massachusetts, to gather as many boats as he could. Fortune smiled on Glover’s efforts, and his men soon located two dozen so-called Durham boats—sixty-foot-long, flat-bottomed boats used locally for hauling pig iron along the river but also capable of carrying up to forty men at a time. In short, they seemed well-suited for ferrying a large number of troops in an amphibious assault.

  Washington unleashed his raid immediately after the Continental Army’s afternoon parade on Christmas Day. Carrying three days’ worth of rations and sixty rounds of ammunition each, the Continentals marched resolutely toward the river and into the teeth of a ferocious winter storm. Pursuant to Washington’s orders, “Victory or Death” was the agreed-upon password for the operation.

  Despite such a ringing sentiment, Ewing’s force did not even attempt to cross the icy Delaware River in the face of deteriorating weather conditions. Cadwalader’s infantry were more successful, but when he was unable to ferry his artillery pieces across, he withdrew his men to the Pennsylvania side of the river.

  Washington, however, was not so easily discouraged. Urging his men forward, and capitalizing on the experience of Glover’s seamen-soldiers, he managed to get his men to the east bank of the Delaware, albeit several hours behind schedule. Dividing his force into two columns, he began to advance on Trenton at approximately 3:00 AM, though he was slowed by snow, sleet, and frigid temperatures. At least two of the Continentals froze to death at some point that evening.

  “For God’s sake, keep with your officers,” Washington urged his men as they slogged silently through the swirling snow and bitter cold. When a messenger arrived from one of his commanders that warned the men’s muskets were too wet to fire, Washington responded simply: “Tell the General to use the bayonet,” he said.

  Advancing on Trenton, Washington’s columns rolled up surprised groups of Hessian pickets before slamming into the sleepy town at 8:00 AM. They found, in the words of historian David McCullough, a village that, in addition to a large two-story stone barracks dating back to the French and Indian Wars, consisted of “perhaps a hundred houses, an Episcopal church, a marketplace, and two or three mills and iron furnaces.” It was “a busy but plain little place of no particular consequence.”

  In Trenton, the German commander, Colonel Johann Rall, quickly regretted his decision not to construct a redoubt at the intersection of Trenton’s two main streets. The Continentals seized the critical juncture and occupied it with artillery pieces. Then, they capitalized on their fields of fire as the Hessians came boiling out of the town’s homes and their tents, preventing them from forming up for an effective defense. The retreating Hessians slipped out of town as best they could, where Rall formed his regiments for a counterattack.

  By then, the Continentals had occupied the town’s stone buildings. With withering volleys of musket fire, they broke the Hessians’ assault and mortally wounded Rall. The Germans withdrew into a nearby orchard where, once surrounded, they surrendered en masse. In all, the battle cost Britain’s German mercenaries over 100 casualties, with some 900 captured. For his part, Washington suffered only a handful of wounded. The small number of wounded, however, included a young officer named James Monroe, who was destined to survive his wound and become the fifth president of the United States. Future secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton also participated in the battle, as did future Supreme Court chief justice John Marshall.

  Washington’s strike against Trenton, followed by another successful raid on Princeton a week later, restored both his own prestige and his men’s confidence in themselves. It is not too much of an overstatement to say that, but for Trenton, the Continental Army might have melted away at the end of the year, taking with it any hope of an independent United States.

  It is no wonder, then, that when Emanuel Leutze began work on a piece of art that he hoped would capture the revolutionary fever sweeping Europe in 1848, he selected Washington crossing the Delaware as his inspiration. And even as Europe’s revolutions sputtered out, Leutze painted on, allowing his work to celebrate revolutionary struggle as much as revolutionary victory. Although a fire damaged the original painting, he completed a copy in 1851 and sent it to America for display, where it eventually found a home in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  Leutze’s painting provides careful detail. Immediately behind Washington, holding the Stars and Stripes, stands Lieutenant James Monroe. One of the boat’s occupants wears the red-trimmed blue coat of a soldier assigned to Haslet’s Delaware Regiment. Another, sheltering under an oiled hat and boat cloak, reveals enough of the uniform beneath to indicate he is with Smallwood’s aristocratic Maryland Regiment. Others, in blanket coats and broad-brimmed hats, seem to be simply militiamen from Penns
ylvania or New Jersey, as may be the case with the Scottish immigrant still wearing his Balmoral bonnet. One of their comrades, wearing the garb of a New England seaman, is an African American. Another might be female. Frontier riflemen man the bow and stern of the boat, clad in hunting shirts and deerskin leggings.

  That is not to say, however, that Washington Crossing the Delaware is not without its historical gaffes. The boat depicted is not a Durham boat, the Stars and Stripes carried by Lieutenant Monroe was not adopted until the following year, and the jagged icebergs in the painting bear little resemblance to the sheet ice that would have actually formed in the river. Furthermore, as the river crossing actually occurred in the dead of night, Leutze took considerable artistic license in illuminating his scene.

  Despite such historical incongruities, Leutze’s painting so indelibly stamped America’s folk memory that it is hard to fault New Jersey’s fifteen-member Commemorative Coin Design Committee for unanimously co-opting it for its state quarter. In response, the U.S. Mint issued the first of 662.228 million New Jersey state quarters on May 17, 1999.

  4

  GEORGIA

  Peachy Keen

  If you don’t recognize the large orb in the middle of Georgia’s state quarter, then take a summer drive along U.S. Highway 341. The branches in the orchards lining the highway will be heavy with succulent spheres by then, and if you are still confused, your arrival in Fort Valley should dispel any remaining uncertainty. There, each June the county seat of Peach County hosts the annual Georgia Peach Festival, bakes the world’s largest peach cobbler, and crowns Miss Georgia Peach.

  According to U.S. Census data from 2002, there are 304 peach farms in Georgia, with 13,242 acres of peach trees. That number was down from 446 farms reported five years earlier, 582 in 1992, and 688 in 1987. In fact, today California and South Carolina both produce more peaches than the Peach State. And as far as agricultural commodities are concerned, Georgia instead leads the nation in the production of broilers (young chickens), peanuts, and pecans.