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Sylvia Gailey Head 1903-2007 - Dahlonega Mint Historian
FatMan
Posts: 8,977 ✭
I received the following email today from Al Adams. 
I am sure he will not mind me sharing this with the forum. Her book, "The Neighborhood Mint" is a great read for anyone with interest in Southern Gold and the Dahlonega Mint.
<< <i>Sylvia Santefee Gailey Head passed away on Sunday, April 1st. She just passed her 104th birthday on March 27th.
It was a great pleasure knowing Sylvia and working with her on articles written for GoldRushGallery.com and on the reprint of The Neighborhood Mint: Dahlonega in the Age of Jackson which she co-authored with Elizabeth Etheridge. Sylvia did more than anyone to preserve and promote the history of the Dahlonega Mint.
She was a wonderful, wise person with a dry but sharp sense of humor. It was a great joy to hear her talk about her personal experiences as well as read about them in her four volume series of books about her life in the North Georgia Mountains.
She was a true inspiration and a dear friend.
-Al
http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/stories/20070403/obituaries/165229.shtml >>
I am sure he will not mind me sharing this with the forum. Her book, "The Neighborhood Mint" is a great read for anyone with interest in Southern Gold and the Dahlonega Mint.<< <i>Sylvia Santefee Gailey Head passed away on Sunday, April 1st. She just passed her 104th birthday on March 27th.
It was a great pleasure knowing Sylvia and working with her on articles written for GoldRushGallery.com and on the reprint of The Neighborhood Mint: Dahlonega in the Age of Jackson which she co-authored with Elizabeth Etheridge. Sylvia did more than anyone to preserve and promote the history of the Dahlonega Mint.
She was a wonderful, wise person with a dry but sharp sense of humor. It was a great joy to hear her talk about her personal experiences as well as read about them in her four volume series of books about her life in the North Georgia Mountains.
She was a true inspiration and a dear friend.
-Al
http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/stories/20070403/obituaries/165229.shtml >>
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Fatman
I read with interest your post and went to the web site for background history. Although I do not collect gold I have studied Andrew Jackson a great deal. This is a short piece I wrote for my web site. It ties the Dahlonega Mint with Andrew Jackson in a political sort of way.
And my condolences for a lost friend.
BB
ANDREW JACKSON AND THE SOUTHERN MINTS
Andrew Jackson gained national prominence in the 1815 battle of New Orleans and his subsequent development of "Jackson Democracy" forever changed the political landscape. But many collectors of early U.S. coinage are not aware of his influence in obtaining the increased production of silver and gold coinage into our monetary system.
It was Jackson's goal that all mechanics, farmers, laborers and those who worked by the sweat of their brow be paid in silver and gold. Jackson abhorred paper money as the tool of the rich and elite to defraud the hard workers who were the backbone of the emerging Democracy. He termed paper bank notes as "Ragg" money.
Jackson's dedicated and hotly contested political wrangling over this issue finally started to pay off when in the late 1830's many people saw $5 gold pieces for the first time in their lives. 1834 marks a milestone in the increased production of gold coinage at Philadelphia and also marks the height of power for the Jackson administration.
Jackson also made sure new mints were created in the southern states to increase production of U.S. coinage which also served a dual purpose of providing an economic benefit for the less industrialized south. Hence, in 1834 Congress enacted legislation to establish mints in Charlotte, North Carolina; Dahlonega, Georgia; and New Orleans, Louisiana.
The southern mints started operation in 1838. The Charlotte and Dahlonega mints only produced gold coinage whereas the Orleans mint produced both gold and silver coinage. However all three of the southern mints closed at the start of the Civil War. The Orleans mint was the only southern mint to restart production U.S coinage after the war.
<< <i>I never met Ms. Gailey, but we were linked by a coin that she owned and that I owned for a short time. Of course, it was a Dahlonega coin. >>
1840-D Half Eagle w/Rotated Reverse