1841
After only a month in office, William Henry Harrison dies. John Tyler became the first vice president to succeed to the presidency. A new genre, detective story, was introduced by Edgar Allen Poe with his "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." In September, Tyler's entire cabinet, with the exception of Secretary of State Daniel Webster, because of Tyler's veto of a national bank act. The Deerslayer, James Fenimore Cooper's last frontier novel, was published this year, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published "Ballads and Other Poems," and a federal bankruptcy law was passed, as a response to the Panic of 1837.
This year, New Zealand became a British colony, an earthquake in Shinano, Japan killed 12,000 people, and the British seized Hong Kong. Schumann composed his "No. 1 in B Flat Major" and "Symphony No. 4 in D Minor," and Sir Joseph Whitworth devised the standard screw thread. Whitworth thread screws were used on most British cars until the 1970's.
This year, a total of 1,597,367 large cents were delivered. Seven different varieties (N 1 – N 7) are known for this date. One variety (N 1) is known only in proof. Half cents dated 1841 were struck only as proofs. There is no record of how many were struck. Restrikes of these coins were made in the late 1850’s and early 1860’s. Restrikes come with either large or small berries on the reverse.
The nicest coin from this year in the national numismatic collection include C 1 and N 1.
Half Cent
Large Cents