William Harris Crawford(February 24, 1772- September 15, 1834)

Mr. Crawford's handsome likeness decorates the last of the fifty-cent fractionals on the
the final, fifth, issue. Like several other Secretaries of the Treasury, he also served as
Secretary of War. He was an all-around politician, and also served as judge.

Ten years of farming, then teaching school, eventually led him to practice law in Lexington, Georgia, in 1799. Elected to the Georgia state legislature in 1803, the legislature elected him to fill a vacated Senate seat in 1807.

His abilities as imposing as his portrait, he was appointed president pro tempore of the Senate in 1811, and when vice president George Clinton died in office he served in that post until 1813. President James Madison liked his style, respected his abilities, and appointed him as American minister to the First French Empire in 1812. Serving as middle man between our tenuous French connection during the War of 1812, he finished up there and came home in 1815.

Upon his return Madison appointed him Secretary of War. He turned down the offer to run for President in 1816 on the then Democratic-Republican ticket, and instead chose to move over a seat or two in the cabinet and take the post of Secretary of the Treasury. He served admirably in that capacity for the next nine years, exiting it in 1825 at the end of President James Monroe's term.

Again the front runner for presidential nomination for the Democratic-Republican campaign of 1824, he suffered a stroke in 1923 that took him out of the race, sort of. The Democratic-Repulican party split the same year and Crawford, health greatly improved if not entirely restored, was nominated by one of the splinter groups and was supported by no less that former Presidents Madison, and the man himself, Thomas Jefferson. He was ultimately edged by John Quincy Adams, but bear in mind this was the second time he had been invited to run, and in 1816 he could have well been chosen.

He retired to Georgia, accepting an appointment as a state superior court judge. He served in that postion for a decade, until his death in 1834. Crawford was in every sense a true forefather of this country. Self-made, ultimately extraordinarly devoted to the public good; again, an uncommon man dedicated to the dream that was the United States.

His uncanny resemblance to modern American iconic comedian Bob Hope, has resulted in his fifty-cent fractional to be commonly refferred to as the Bob Hope note.

 

 

 

 

Samuel Dexter was an early American statesman who served both in Congress and the Cabinet. There are a few Samuel Dexters scattered among the early years of American History. This one was fifteen or sixteen years old when the Revolutionary War Started. His father, a minister and Samuel senior, was a leader in calling for American independence and urging a war for freedom.