Joseph Lesher and his Unique Silver Scheme

This Christmas, I received a silver Lesher Dollar as a gift from my Dad. As he predicted, it launched me into a flurry of research to learn all I could about the souvenir and the reasons for its creation. I turned that research into this podcast.

Joseph Lesher was a believer in the Free Coinage of Silver movement. And when the movement looked like it would fail completely, he took matters into his own hands.

The first episode of the Photos From the Midland YouTube channel is about using old film cameras to take the thumbnail photo for this episode. You can find the video at https://youtu.be/KUtNH2lFlBA.

References:

Author unknown. (n.d.). Who was Joseph Lesher?. Lesher Dollars: One Man’s Vision. http://lesherdollars.com/.

The White House Historical Association (n.d.). Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States. The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/grover-cleveland/

Walker, F. A. (1893, March). The Free Coinage of Silver. The Journal of Political Economy. The University of Chicago Press.

Author unknown. (1900, November 13). RUNS A RIVAL MINT: A Victor Man Coins a New Dollar Known as the Referendum. The Herald Democrat. 1.

Author unknown. (1900, November 13). Referendum Dollars. The Daily Sentinel. 4.

Author unknown. (1903, March 3). REFERENDUM DOLLARS. The Herald Democrat. 8.

Leonard Jr, R., Hallenbeck, K. L., & Wilde Jr, A. G. (2017). Forgotten Colorado Silver: Joseph Lesher’s Defiant Coins. The History Press.

Gevinson, A. (2018). Silverites, Populists, and the Movement for Free Silver. Teachinghistory.org. https://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/25222

Dykstra, C. (2020). The William Henderson-Christopher Marchase #1 Collection of Lesher Referendum Dollars. Kagin’s February 2020 ANA National Money Show Auction. Kagin Auctions.