FRANCIS XAVIER LE PERE (1822-1906)

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V20 2017 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 20, Number 22, May 28, 2017, Article 19

John Lupia submitted the following information from the online draft of his Encyclopedic Dictionary of Numismatic Biographies for this week's installment of his series. Thanks! As always, this is an excerpt with the full article and bibliography available online. This week's subject is collector Francis Le Pere. -Editor

Francis Xavier Le Pere (1822-1906), also commonly spelled Lepère, was born the eldest of six children on September 7, 1822, son of Martin Le Père (1794-), an immigrant from Belgium, and a Grocer, and Elizabeth (1801-1884), a native of Kentucky.

Lepère owned a wholesale and retail grocery store in St. Louis, Missouri, and his clerk was James Edwin Love. He is also noted among glass collectors for glass bottles with Francis Leper molded in the glass, or Lepère & Richards, most probably manufactured by the Ellenville Glass Company. He was very successful and wealthy and had four domestic servants at his home.

He married Catherine M. Dyer (1828-), a native of Massachusetts, on 17 October 1848 in St. Louis, Missouri. They had at least nine children.

During the Civil War, March 1862, he wrote a letter of inquiry to Joseph Jacob Mickley of Philadelphia to investigate the market value of numismatic items in his collection. Mickley replied on March 19, 1862 with a letter discovered by Eric P. Newman who first published it in Coin World, October 29, 1969.

In the Lupia Numismatic Library there is another letter written postmarked March 26, 1862, sent by Charles Kimball of New York to his friend George Russell of Boston telling him he attended the Ed Cogan coin auction sale on Wednesday, March 26, 1862, at Bangs, Merwin & Company, New York City. He included newspaper clippings that discussed the contemporary situation of the Civil War affecting the coin market with the headline "Depreciation in the Prices of Coins, Medals, Etc., etc."

In December 1868, J. N. T. Levick remarked that Lepère and E. Richards, Jr., were among the noted American collectors of St. Louis, who collected Store Cards.

From July 17-18, 1876 he sold part of his coin collection at Thomas Birch & Sons, Philadelphia, catalogued by Captain John White Haseltine, as Centennial IV.

In 1893, he composed a libretto to the opera Jacinta written by Alfred G. Robyn.

From February 15-16, 1904, S. H. & H. Chapman sold part of his coin collection at Davis & Harvey, Philadelphia, together with M. L. Coleman, Rev. Jeremiah Zimmerman, Dr. W. E. Booker, and Charles S. Wilcox.

He died on January 8, 1906 at St. Louis, Missouri. He is buried at Calvary Cemetery and Mausoleum, Saint Louis, Missouri.

To read the complete article, see:
LE PÈRE, FRANCIS XAVIER (https://sites.google.com/a/numismaticmall.com/www/numismaticmall-com/lepere-francis)