OK, you guys brought up that Salmon Portland Chase was a Supreme Court Justice (he was actually nominated and replaced his predecessor as Chief Justice, as I recall). That’s most likely not the reason he was shoved onto some of our money (not that anybody asked, but anyway). He was Secretary of Treasury during the Lincoln administration, oversaw the financing of the North’s Civil War effort, and was the guy who authorized the placement of “In God We Trust” on a couple cents (the President and Congress approved it, sure). Those are much better reasons.
Jame Madison wrote an essay while the Articles of Confederation still “governed” the freed Colonies, entitled “Money,” rejecting the idea that the value of moolah should depend on how much of it is printed (or struck, as the case may be). http://research.mpls.frb.fed.us/research/qr/qr2142.html
He also is called the “Father of the Constitution” (general knowledge, granted) so that puts him up there with Washington and Jefferson (Secretary of the Treasury #1, President #3, drafter of the DoI), making it cool to put him on a bill.
Not quite sure why McKinley’s on there, as it was his successor, Teddy Roosevelt who commissioned the redesign of our coinage. Cleveland was the only President to serve two nonconsecutive terms, but I haven’t looked into why he’d wind up on the $1K bill.
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Well, this thread is as good as any to post a bit of overkill about $1000 bills and who appears on them. Being a coin dealer as a profession has its perks.
We hopefully know by now that Grover Cleveland is pictured on the $1000 Federal Reserve Notes dated 1928 and 1934. Why he was chosen may have to wait for a historian rather than a coin dealer. But now “the rest of the story”
The good ol’ US has been printing banknotes since 1861. We’ve printed many different types. For you youngsters, all of our banknotes prior to 1928 were quite a bit larger than what we use today. And in the bad old days, we had notes backed by gold, silver, treasury bonds, and other weird notes called “interest bearing certificates.”
Now here’s where you can win a fortune on betting on who is on a $1000 bill. The following is a list of $1000 notes the US has issued since 1861. Many of these notes are excessively rare and in some cases, not known to exist except in the Treasury Dept’s collection. After all, who had a $1000 in the 1800’s to just put back in a drawer?
[List=1]
[li]1862-63 “Legal Tender or US Note” portrait=Robert Morris[/li][li]1878/1880 Legal Tender, DeWitt Clinton[/li][li]1861, Interest Bearing Note, Salmon Chase (Gee! If Rich Barr is still around, he’ll be please to hear this.[/li][li]1878/80 Siver Certificate, William L. Marcy[/li][li]1890, Treasury (Coin Note), Gen Geo. Gordon Meade[/li][li] 1865-78, National Bank Notes, Gen Winfield Scott[/li][li] 1918, Federal Reserve Note, Alexander Hamilton[/li][li] 1882/1907/1922, Gold Certificate, Alexander Hamilton[/li][/list=1]
Bit of trivial information, but still perhaps of interest to those so inclined: Ebay frequently auctions old currency, and you can find great pics of antique bills over there. Afraid they haven’t devalued much, though. Current search on “$1000 bill”.
