Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/463

 LINDERMAN

LINDSAY

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aud of Capt. Samuel Drake of the Pennsylvania militia, iu active service during the Revolution, He was also a nephew of U.S. Senator Richard Brodhead, who was his mother's brother. He studied medicine with his father, was graduated

at the University of the Cit}' of New York, M.D., in 1846, and practised in Pike and Carbon counties, Pa. He was chief clerk of the U.S. mint at Philad*>lpliia, 1855-64, and director of the U.S. mint at Phila- delphia and in charge of all the branch mints and assay of- fices in the United States, 1866-69. In July, 1869, he was appointed treasury commissioner to examine the western mints and adjust some intricate bullion questions. In 1870 he was sent to Europe bj- President Grant to visit the mints at London, Paris, Brussels and Berne to report on their coinage metliods and on the relative values of gold and silver as currency metals, and his report on his return in 1871 favored a single gold standard. In 1873 he was appointed a commissioner with Prof. Robert E. Rogers of the Universitj- of Pennsylvania, to examine the subject of wastage iu ojierating on gold and silver bullion, and was als') the government commissioner for fitting up the new mint and assaj' office at San Francisco. In 1873 he made an elaborate report on the con- dition of the market for silver, and predicted the decline in its relative value to gold which after- ward took place. With a view of obtaining an advantageous market for the large and increas- ing production of that metal in the United States he projected the coinage of the trade dollar which was subsequently authorized by law and successfully introduced into Oriental markets with marked advantage to American commerce. In the same report he called attention to the dis- advantages arising from the computation and quotation of exchange with Great Britain on the old and complicated colonial basis and from the under-valuation of foreign coins in computing the value of invoices and in levj-ing and collecting duties on foreign merchandise at the U.S. custom houses. He was the author of the act of j\Iarch 3. 1873. which corrected these defects. Dr. Liiid- erman was the first to recommend the adoi)tion of a system of redemption for the inferior coins used as change money for the purpose of keeping their purchasing power on an equality with the

money of unlimited legal tender. He was the author of the coinage act of 1873. In 1869 he had assisted John Jay Knox, then deputy comp- troller of the currencj', in framing the first act for the codification of the mint legislation, which was not acted upon. Upon his return from Eu- rope, in 1871-73, Dr. Linderman entirely rewrote this act, adding and including the provisions demonetizing silver and putting the country on a gold standard, making the director of the mint an officer reporting to the secretary of the treas- ury instead of the President, and authorizing the coinage of the trade dollar for Oriental com- merce. He secured its passage after two years' work before congress in 1873, and was the first director of the U.S. mints under the new law, 1873-79. He declined to serve the Japanese government at a very large salary in organizing a new mint system for the empire. With Henry Dodge and Fi'ederic F. Low of San Francisco, named by him as colleagues, as the U.S. treasury commission, he investigated the San Francisco mint, custom house and other Federal dej>artments on the Pacific coast in 1877, without additional compensation, and the over- work brought on the illness which resulted in liis death. Besides his rejjorts to the President and treasury department, he is author of: Ar- gument for the Gold Standard (1877); Money and Legal Tender (1877). See " Pennsylvania Cyclo- paedia of Biography " (1874). He died in Wash- ington. D.C., Jan. 38, 1879.

LINDSAY, John Summerfield, clergyman, was born in Williamsljurg. Va., March 19, 1843; son of Thomas and Caroline (Martin) Lindsaj*, and of Scotch ancestry. He entered the College of William and Mary in 1859. and spent one or two sessions at the University of Virginia after the civil war. He became a clergyman in the ^Meth- odist Episcopal church, south, and after preach- ing a short time was received in the communion of the Protestant Episcopal church and was made a deacon in 1869 and ordained a priest in 1870. He was assistant at Trinity, Portsmouth. Va., 1869-71; rector of St. James's. Warrenton, Va., 1871-79; of St. John's, Georgetown, D.C., 1879- 87; chaplain of the U.S. house of representatives. 1883-85; rector of St. John's, Bridgeport. Conn., 1887-89, and of St. Paul's, Boston. Mass., from 1889. He declined the bishopric of Easton, Md., in 1887, and upon the elevation of the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks to the episcopate he was selected to fill his place on the standing committee of the diocese of Massachusetts and later was elected president of the committee. He also served the diocese as a member of the Hou.se of Deputies in the General Conventions of 1893, 1895, 1898 and 1901, and was a member of several imjwrtant committees in that bodv. He declined the office