The Vermont Sesquicentennial half dollar, sometimes called the Bennington–Vermont half dollar or the Battle of Bennington Sesquicentennial half dollar, is a commemorative fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1927. The coin was designed by Charles Keck, and on its obverse depicts early Vermont leader Ira Allen, brother of Ethan Allen.
On January 9, 1925, Vermont Senator Frank Greene introduced legislation for commemorative coins to mark the 150th anniversary of Vermont declaring itself fully independent in 1777 and of the American victory at the Battle of Bennington the same year. His bill passed the Senate without difficulty, but in the House of Representatives faced an array of problems. Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon sent a letter opposing the bill and dispatched three Treasury officials to testify against it, arguing that the public was being confused as special coin issues entered circulation. The committee's resolve to have no more commemorative coins—after this one—did not impress the full House, which added two more half dollars to the legislation to mark other anniversaries. The Senate agreed to the changes, and President Calvin Coolidge signed the authorizing act on February 24, 1925.
There was a lengthy battle over the design between the Commission of Fine Arts and the Vermont commission in charge of organizing the coin issue, as a result of which the original designer, Sherry Fry, left the project, replaced by Keck. Although the eventual reverse design of a catamount satisfied the Fine Arts Commission, it has been severely criticized by later writers. The coins did not sell out; over a fourth of the issue was returned for redemption and melting. The coins sell for at least in the hundreds of dollars today, depending on condition.
Background
In the days before the American Revolutionary War, the ownership of what is now the state of Vermont was uncertain. New Hampshire claimed it, deeming its own western boundary to be east of the Hudson River; the colony of New York believed it owned the territory north of Massachusetts east to the Connecticut River. British authorities awarded the land to New York in 1764, but settlers felt more affinity with New Hampshire, from which they had secured land grants. When New York issued grants for the same real estate, there was conflict between the two groups of settlers, and those deriving title from New Hampshire organized the Green Mountain Boys, a local militia. At first, the Boys concentrated on fending off unwanted settlers from New York, but after the war began in 1775, they turned their attention to the British.
Brothers Ira and Ethan Allen were born in Connecticut, and were leaders of the Green Mountain Boys. Ethan Allen led an ill-advised raid on Montreal in 1775, was captured, and spent the remainder of the Revolutionary War a prisoner of the British. Ira Allen, besides being a military leader, was a member of the convention that declared Vermont independent in January 1777. A key player in Vermont politics in the Revolutionary War years, Allen served as state treasurer, designed the great seal, and in the 1780s surveyed several towns, three of which are named for him: Ira, Irasburg and Alburg, Vermont, the last likely a shortened form of "Allenburgh". In 1791, the year Vermont was admitted to the Union, he was the principal founder of the University of Vermont, the first university in what is now the United States to have a religious nondiscrimination policy. Thereafter his fortunes declined: he went to France in 1796 to buy weapons for the state militia, but his ship and cargo were taken by the British. He returned to Vermont to find his land seized for taxes, and was put in jail in Burlington for debt. He fled to Philadelphia, where he hoped to reverse his fortunes but was unable to; he died there impoverished in 1814.
In 1777, the British general, John Burgoyne, advanced south from Canada, hoping to divide the colonies by capturing the Hudson Valley in what is called the Saratoga Campaign. Low on supplies, he heard of a poorly-guarded American depot at what is now Bennington, Vermont, and sent part of his force to secure it. Vermonters were joined by some 1,500 New Hampshire militiamen, and on August 16, 1777, the Battle of Bennington took place. About 200 of the British forces were killed and 700 taken prisoner; only 40 Americans were killed. Weakened by the losses and the failure to obtain supplies, Burgoyne was defeated at the Battle of Saratoga in New York state that October, an American victory that historian Edmund Morgan deemed "a great turning point of the war, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance [from France] which was the last element needed for victory".
Legislation
Legislation for a silver fifty-cent piece and a gold one-dollar piece in commemoration of the 150th anniversaries of the Battle of Bennington and of the independence of Vermont was introduced in the Senate by that state's Frank Greene on January 9, 1925. Greene had not always been a friend to commemorative coins: when the Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollar was debated in 1922, he commented, "the question is whether the United States Government is going to go on from year to year submitting its coinage to this—well—harlotry." His bill was referred to the Committee on Banking and Currency. Greene, a member of that committee, reported the bill back to the Senate on January 20, with an amendment and a recommendation that it pass. The amendment deleted the proposed one-dollar piece and increased the mintage of the half dollar from 20,000 to 40,000. On January 24, New Hampshire's George H. Moses, acting on Greene's behalf, moved that the Senate consider the bill, and it passed that body without opposition.
After the House received the Senate-passed bill, it was referred to the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, which held hearings on January 30, with the chairman, Indiana Representative Albert H. Vestal, presiding. He introduced into the record a letter from Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, opposing the measure. Mellon noted that many commemorative issues had failed to sell out, leaving coins in the Mint or returning them for melting. Mellon felt that the public was being confused as surplus commemoratives entered circulation. The Treasury had sent three officials, Mint Director Robert J. Grant, Assistant Director Mary M. O'Reilly and Garrard B. Winston, the assistant to the Undersecretary of the Treasury. O'Reilly, who had been with the Treasury longer than the other two, addressed the committee, warning that there were six coinage bills before Congress, and that the Mint had struck nine commemoratives in the past five years. She answered questions from the congressmen on the panel.
Vermont Representative Frederick G. Fleetwood addressed the committee. O'Reilly had indicated that coins were being requested for local celebrations, and Fleetwood stressed the importance in American history of the events that were being commemorated. Vestal and others supported a ban on the committee passing further commemorative coin bills, but wanted the Vermont bill to pass. For one thing, as Massachusetts' Robert M. Leach noted, President Calvin Coolidge was a Vermonter by birth. The Treasury officials were willing to support striking a medal rather than a coin, but as Illinois' Morton D. Hull pointed out, the sellers preferred a coin that could be spent if there was an unsold surplus, over a medal that could not. Leach's attitude toward approving more commemorative coins was typical: "I believe we have been going too fast, and I believe at some time we ought to quit it, but I dislike quitting on these gentlemen representing the State of Vermont this morning." Vestal issued a report the same day, stating that the committee was against more commemorative coin issues, but that the Bennington issue should pass because of the national importance of the events of 1777, and because the issue of 40,000 was relatively small.
The bill came to the floor of the House of Representatives on February 16. As soon as the bill was read, California Representative John E. Raker pressed an amendment to provide for a California Diamond Jubilee half dollar. He explained that Senator Samuel Shortridge had gotten a bill through the Senate that was nearly identical to his amendment, and "the Senator is exceptionally anxious that it go through." Vestal asked to be heard in opposition to the amendment, stating that his committee, after recommending the Bennington bill, had decided to promote no further coin bills. He added that because of this, Washington Representative Albert Johnson had agreed to withdraw his bill for a commemorative honoring the centennial of Fort Vancouver, in his state. The Minority Leader, Democratic Congressman Finis J. Garrett of Tennessee, asked why the committee had not set the rule before considering the Bennington bill, and Vestal admitted that was hard to answer. The House voted, and the California amendment was added. But Representative Johnson to applause from his colleagues moved a further amendment, to add "and Vancouver, Wash." (that is, the state of Washington) The amendment passed, as did the bill. Johnson realized that such a simple amendment might not result in a coin being issued, and returned to the House floor soon thereafter, asking that the bill be reconsidered, so he could couch his amendment in the same phrasing as for the other two coins. Once the bill was again being considered, Johnson added his amendment, but Vestal moved that the bill be returned to his committee. His motion failed, 24 ayes to 67 noes. Lengthy procedural wrangling followed over whether that vote could be objected to because there was no quorum present. Once this was resolved, the House passed the bill again. The bill was returned to the Senate the following day. Kansas' Charles Curtis moved on behalf of Greene that the Senate agree to the House amendments, and the bill, authorizing all three coins, was enacted by Coolidge's signature on February 24, 1925. Anthony Swiatek and Walter Breen, in their 1988 book on commemoratives, state that the bill would probably not have passed Congress if Coolidge had not been known to have an interest in the Bennington observances.
Preparation
After the approval of the legislation, the Vermont Sesquicentennial Commission moved quickly to secure designs to be used for the half dollar. Members decided to have the coin show Ira Allen on the obverse, and the Battle of Bennington Monument on the reverse. They commissioned Sherry Fry, who had created a statue of Allen for the University of Vermont, to design the coin. On July 1, 1925, Fry wrote to Charles Moore, chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts (charged by a 1921 executive order by President Warren G. Harding with rendering advisory opinions on public artworks, including coins), informing him that the models would be ready in about a week.