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Daniel Webster on U.S. Stamps

Daniel Webster’s dour expression on the first stamp in the 2002 Masters of American Photography pane of 20 issued June 13 belies his significance to U.S. stamp collectors.

The top-left stamp in the pane (showing the oldest image) is — depending on how you make the count — the 32nd catalog-numbered stamp or stamped imprint picturing Webster issued by the United States. Except for U.S. presidents, only Benjamin Franklin has had more appearances.

Granted, many of the Webster stamps represent varieties of the Large and Small Bank Notes issues. Still, it is an impressible number of appearances for Webster — even though he has not been on any U.S. stamp for the past 33 years.

Webster (1782-1852) was an outstanding American orator, statesman and lawyer. In an era when orators were superstars, Webster lit up the sky.

A public speaker as a teenager, he graduated from Dartmouth at 19, studied law and began a legal practice in New Hampshire in 1805.

Active in New England politics, he was elected to Congress several times. He pursued the presidency for years but was nominated only once, losing to Martin Van Buren. He served several administrations as secretary of state.

All the while he delivered orations that sometimes inspired and sometimes shocked. Although his was a household name in the 19th century, ironically, he may be most famous to Americans of the 20th century and beyond for an event that never occurred.

That event was his fictional court case against Satan in The Devil and Daniel Webster, a 1937 novella by Stephen Vincent Benét that later became an opera (1939) and a movie (1941 with Walter Huston and Edward Arnold, with a remake by Alec Baldwin, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as Webster).

Webster’s image — described as “indomitable” on the back of the American Photographers stamp — is one of the most familiar on U.S. stamps. Since 1870, Webster has appeared on 12 regular issues and three commemoratives, as well as nine 1873-79 15¢ Official stamps, stamps overprinted for use in U.S. territories and 1870-71 15¢ stamped envelopes.

Other than Benjamin Franklin, only Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Jackson, Harding and Garfield have appeared more often on U.S. stamps.

Perhaps Webster is simply more deserving than most. As a congressman in 1840, when Britain introduced the Penny Black, Webster was among the first to try to bring stamps to the United States.

Discounting back-of-the-book items, Webster appeared on six Large Bank Note issues, five Small Bank Note issues, a Second Bureau issue and three commemoratives (the latter two of which are shown here).

The 1932 3¢ stamp on the left marked Webster’s 150th birthday. The 1969 6¢ stamp at right recalls the sesquicentennial of the successful argument in the Dartmouth College case by Webster (class of 1801) before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Turning to the earlier issues, the Large Bank Notes were issued during the period 1870-80 by the American Bank Note Co., National Bank Note Co. and Continental Bank Note Co. in shades of orange, including the 15¢ yellow orange printed in 1873 by CBNC.

All these 15¢ stamps feature a bust of Webster facing left. Even experts note the impossibility of definitively classifying many of these stamps, which had three printers, various papers, a so-called secret marking and two special printings. For the record, these stamps are cataloged as Minkus 104 / Scott 141, 115/152, 128/163, SP41/174, 140/189 and SP54/199.

The same vignette was used on eight 15¢ Official stamps of 1873 (printed on thin, hard paper by CNBC), including the Department of Justice stamp in the middle of Figure 3, and a single 15¢ Official in 1879 (printed on soft, porous paper by ABNC), a 15¢ Department of the Interior stamp. The portrait also was the basis of the 1870-71 Reay stamped envelopes.

The 10¢ Small Bank Notes, printed from 1890-99, featured a portrait of a stern Webster facing slightly left. The first of them — printed in green, with no triangles in the upper corners (164/226) — was printed by ABNC. Subsequent versions, with triangles, were printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in shades of both green (164/226, 180/258, 201/273) and later brown (202/282C) and yellow brown (203/283).

About 10 1899 overprints and surcharges were added to the 10¢ stamp in territories occupied after the Spanish-American War. These included Cuba (231, 231v/226, 226A), Guam (9-10/8-9), Philippines (269-70, 294/217-17A, 233) and Puerto Rico (197/214).

A 1903 10¢ red brown second Bureau Issue Webster definitive of 1903 (218/307) showed the statesman looking slightly to the right but with the now-familiar sour countenance.

The brooding image for the 1933 commemorative (CM115/725) was taken from a bust by sculptor Daniel Chester French for the Congregational Church in Franklin, N.H., Webster’s birthplace.

The Krause-Minkus Standard Catalog of U.S. Stamps notes this stamp was issued 150 years after he was born and 80 years after he died, adding that he “was elected four times to the Senate and twice appointed secretary of state. In 1840 he submitted a Senate resolution advocating reduced postal rates and the use of postage stamps in America.”

The 1969 10¢ commemorative (CM626/ 1380) shows a Napoleonic Webster poised professorially in front of Dartmouth Hall. The portrait on the recent Masters of American Photography commemorative was taken about 1850, two years before Webster’s death, in the Boston studio of Albert Southworth and Josiah Hawes, among the finest daguerreotypists of their day. They would have eagerly sought a client of Webster’s stature.

For his part, Webster the politician would have wanted to look his very best, even if his portrait has no hint of a smile. Webster also had his portrait taken at the New York studio of Mathew Brady, the famous Civil War photographer, whose work is not represented among the Masters of American Photography.