Dental Impressions
Despite being a hugely important profession, dentistry does not seem like a particularly effective path to numismatic immortality; however, William W. Light—who spent the mid-1850s adding countermarks to the coins he encountered in Sacramento—was no ordinary dentist.
A childhood friend of future President Ulysses S. Grant, Light studied medicine before establishing himself as a dentist in Cincinnati in the 1840s. When news of the Gold Rush reached Ohio, Light was one of thousands of hopeful prospectors who headed west in the spring of 1849. Sometime after his arrival in California on August 30, 1849, Ormsby & Company hired Light to run its gold-smelting and coining operation. According to the San Jose Pioneer:
This establishment, which was located on K Street, just below the site of the Golden Eagle, did an extensive business, the miners bringing dust to be coined forming a line and awaiting their regular turn. The gold was melted here, and without alloy, as it came from the mine, cast into bars, rolled into strips, the rollers used for this purpose still being in the possession of Dr. Light, a leading dental-surgeon of Sacramento, who was chief operator of the establishment at a salary of $50 per diem.
Coins of the denomination of $5 and $10 were issued, stamped with the name of the proprietors, who received a royalty of $4 on every $20 coined. It is the opinion of the gentleman named as the chief operator of the concern [Dr. Light], who was the melter and aided by an assistant rolled out the bullion and struck the dies with a sledgehammer, that the crucibles used in melting the dust, and which have long been buried by the filling in of the street, contain a large amount of gold, so wasteful was the operation and so plentiful the precious metals, in those days which constituted the flush time in California.
Career Change
In early 1850, Light left the private coining business to try his luck as a prospector, but he returned to Sacramento within a year, establishing a dental practice with the assistance of former Ormsby & Company clerk H.H. Pierson. It is around this time that Light began to countermark various coins in his possession with a stamp that read W. W. LIGHT DENTIST, ostensibly to advertise his business. Colville’s Sacramento Directory Volume V (1855) shows that Light began listing his business as “Light & Pierson, dentists.” Today, a single 1852/1 Humbert $10 is known with H.H. Pierson’s name punched above Light’s countermark.
William W. Light never stopped dreaming of success as a prospector, and eventually he relocated to the town of San Lorenzo, in Durango, Mexico, with his brother and nephew. Unfortunately, the family’s mine was attacked by a band of what Light later identified as “Yaqui Indians.” The August 5, 1868, issue of the Los Angeles Star reported:
That night, June 25th, they suddenly surrounded the house when Dr. Light’s brother was bathing in the creek, and the rest of the party were sitting about the door; they seized the…men and commenced firing with muskets and arrows. Dr. Light was wounded in the thigh and his nephew instantly killed by a musket shot in the breast…Light killed the first Indian that showed his head at the hole…In the morning, the body, of Dr. Light’s brother was found at the creek, naked and pierced with arrows, the head being crushed with a rock.
Following the death of his brother and nephew, Light returned to Sacramento, practicing dentistry until his death in 1895. Today, fewer than 10 known coins bear his countermark, three of which are California pioneer gold coins.
A version of this article appears on the November 2024 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).