Item: i112961

Authentic Medal of:

United States of America
Bicentennial – Council of the Thirteen Original States – George Taylor
1975 Proof Silver Medal 38mm (31.56 grams) Sterling Silver
Reference: Franklin Mint
George Taylor facing right in government building.
GEORGE TAYLOR IRONMASTER PENNSYLVANIA, Feather pen and ink well, signature below.
Edge Lettering:
OFFICIAL MEDAL OF THE BICENTENNIAL COUNCIL OF THE 13 ORIGINAL STATES 75 P STERLING

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The Thirteen American Colonies formed the United States of America in July 1776. Their groupings were: New England (New Hampshire; Massachusetts; Rhode Island; Connecticut); Middle (New York; New Jersey; Pennsylvania; Delaware); Southern (Maryland; Virginia; North Carolina; South Carolina; and Georgia).

George Taylor (c. 1716 – February 23, 1781) was an American ironmaster and politician who was a Founding Father of the United States and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of Pennsylvania. Today, his former home, the George Taylor House in Catasauqua, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, is a National Historic Landmark.

Taylor emigrated from Ireland to the American colonies at age 20, landing in Philadelphia in 1736. According to early 18th century biographies of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, he is believed to have been the son of a Protestant clergyman. To pay for his passage, Taylor was indentured to Samuel Savage, Jr., who was ironmaster at the French Creek Iron Works in Coventry in Chester County northwest of Philadelphia. Taylor started as a laborer at the ironworks, but when it was discovered he had a certain degree of education, he was promoted by 1739 to a position in the offices as a clerk.

Meanwhile, in 1738, Savage, his brother-in-law, Samuel Nutt, Jr., and his mother Anna Savage Nutt built Warwick Furnace, at cold blast, charcoal furnace to the west which they named Warwick. Savage died in 1742 and the following year, Taylor married Savage’s widow, Ann, whose maiden name was also Taylor.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

The Taylors continued to live at Warwick Furnace until 1755 when Taylor formed a partnership to lease the Durham Furnace in Upper Bucks County north of Philadelphia. The ironworks, built in 1727, was started by a group of investors who were among Pennsylvania’s wealthiest and most influential men, including James Logan, proprietor of the Pennsylvania colony for the Penn family, and William Allen, later the colony’s chief justice and founder of Allentown (then Northampton Town).

Shortly after becoming ironmaster at Durham, Taylor entered public life for the first time, serving as a justice of the peace in Bucks County from 1757–63. When the lease for the Durham mill expired, the Taylors relocated to Easton, the county seat of Northampton County where they purchased a stone house near the center of town and built a stable nearby. Continuing his interest in public affairs, Taylor was commissioned as a justice of the peace in Northampton County, was elected to the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, and helped build a new county courthouse in Easton’s center square.

In 1767, Taylor purchased 331 acres (1.34 km²) near Allentown at Biery’s Port (now part of the borough of Catasauqua). The house was completed in 1768, but shortly after the Taylors moved in, Ann died. Taylor continued living there for the next several years and for a time leased half of the property for farming. In 1776, two years after moving back to Durham, he sold the estate. Two centuries later, on July 17, 1971, the George Taylor House was designated as a National Historical Landmark.

While still at Biery’s Port, Taylor arranged another lease to operate the Durham ironworks in 1774. The ironworks had just been acquired by Joseph Galloway, a Philadelphia attorney and speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly (1766–74). After failing to gain support in the First Continental Congress for his plan to avert a break with England, Galloway resigned as speaker and refused to attend the Second Continental Congress in 1775. Taylor, meanwhile, was re-elected to the Assembly in 1775 and attended the Provincial Convention on January 23. In July, as colonial forces prepared for war, he was commissioned as a colonel in the third battalion of the Pennsylvania militia.

Two weeks later, on August 2, Taylor secured a contract with Pennsylvania’s Committee of Safety for cannon shot. On August 25, with a shipment of 258 round balls weighing from 18 to 32 pounds each, Durham Furnace became the first ironworks in Pennsylvania to supply munitions to the Continental Army.

In 1776, the Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2 and adopted the Declaration of Independence two days later on July 4. Before the vote for independence, five of Pennsylvania’s delegates, all Loyalists, were forced to resign. On July 20, Taylor was among the replacements appointed by the Assembly. One of his first duties as a member of Congress was to affix his signature to the Declaration of Independence, which he did on August 2, along with most delegates. Of the 56 signers, he was one of only eight who were foreign born, the only one to have been indentured, and the only one to hold the position of ironmaster.

Taylor’s service in the Congress was brief, just under seven months. On February 17, 1777, when the Assembly appointed a new Pennsylvania delegation, Taylor was one of seven signers from Pennsylvania who were not among those re-nominated. Instead, in March, he was appointed to Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council, which was formed to govern the commonwealth under its new constitution. Taylor attended all of the council’s daily meetings from March 4 through April 5, but fell ill and was bedridden for more than a month. He subsequently retired from the council, calling an end to his public career.

Taylor continued to oversee production of cannon shot and shells at Durham Furnace for the Continental Army and Navy. Not long after independence was declared, however, Joseph Galloway fled Philadelphia, first seeking refuge with British General William Howe and later escaping to England. Galloway was subsequently convicted by the Assembly as a traitor, and his properties, including the Durham mill, were seized.

Taylor filed an appeal with the Supreme Executive Council that enabled him to finish out the first five years of his lease, but in 1779, the Commissioner of Forfeited Estates sold Durham Furnace to a new owner. Forming yet another partnership, Taylor leased the Greenwich Forge in what is now Warren County, New Jersey.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km²), the United States is the world’s third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe’s 3.9 million square miles (10.1 million km²). With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital’s federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries.

Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, and the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776. The war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, and gradually admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848.

During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery. By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, and its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the country’s status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The Rights Acts of 1964, 1965 and 1968 outlaws discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U.S. Moon landing. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world’s sole superpower.

The United States is the world’s oldest surviving federation. It is a federal republic and a representative democracy. The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States (OAS), and other international organizations. The United States is a highly developed country, with the world’s largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for approximately a quarter of global GDP. The U.S. economy is largely post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world’s largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U.S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country.

Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank very high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, and worker productivity. The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, and is a leading political, cultural, and scientific force internationally.