FEBRUARY 26
1923•Huguenot-Walloon Tercentenary Half Dollar
2026•250th Anniversary Silver Eagle Proof
Congress Authorizes the Huguenot-Walloon Tercentenary Half Dollar
On February 26, 1923, Congress authorized a commemorative silver half dollar marking the 300th anniversary of the 1624 settlement of Huguenot and Walloon families in New Netherland. Designed by longtime U.S. Mint engraver George T. Morgan, the resulting 1924 Huguenot-Walloon Tercentenary half dollar paired portraits of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny and William the Silent with the ship Nieuw Nederland. The coin became one of the most historically layered—and politically controversial—issues of America's classic commemorative era.
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The coin says 1924.
But its legal story begins on February 26, 1923.
That day, Congress approved legislation authorizing a commemorative half dollar for the approaching 300th anniversary of Huguenot and Walloon settlement in New Netherland.
The anniversary looked back to 1624.
The coin would be struck and distributed in 1924.
And the legislation created one of the more unusual commemoratives of the 1920s.
Who Were the Huguenots?
The Huguenots were French Protestants, most closely associated with the Reformed or Calvinist tradition.
Religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants tore through sixteenth-century France.
Huguenots faced periods of persecution, warfare and restricted rights.
Many eventually left France for other parts of Europe and the wider Atlantic world.
Their migration became part of the religious and political history that shaped early European settlement in North America.
The Walloons were French-speaking people from the southern Low Countries, a region corresponding broadly to parts of modern Belgium and neighboring areas.
Some Walloon Protestants also sought refuge from religious and political conflict.
Groups of Walloon families became important in the early settlement of the Dutch colony of New Netherland.
The commemorative therefore joined two related but distinct identities in its title.
New Netherland
New Netherland was the Dutch colonial territory in northeastern North America.
Its claims and settlements extended through parts of what are now New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware.
The Dutch West India Company organized and administered much of the colony.
New Amsterdam on Manhattan eventually became its best-known settlement.
But the 1624 colonists were dispersed among several locations.
In 1624, settlers sponsored by the Dutch West India Company arrived in New Netherland.
Historical accounts associate the ship Nieuw Nederland—often rendered in English as New Netherland—with the migration.
Among the settlers were Walloon families.
Groups were sent to different locations to strengthen Dutch claims and establish communities.
The 1924 tercentenary celebration treated this migration as a foundational episode in the region's European colonial history.
The anniversary is sometimes compressed into a simple “founding of New York” story.
The history is more complicated.
New Amsterdam developed over time.
The 1624 colonists were not all settled permanently on Manhattan.
Some went to areas along the Delaware, Connecticut and Hudson rivers.
The commemorative marked the broader New Netherland settlement movement rather than a single municipal founding moment.
As the 300th anniversary approached, organizations interested in Huguenot and Walloon heritage promoted commemorative events.
A federal coin offered a powerful way to publicize the tercentenary.
Classic commemorative coins were often used this way.
Congress authorized a special issue.
A sponsoring organization purchased the coins at face value.
The coins could then be sold to collectors and the public at a premium to help finance commemorative activities.
The law approved on February 26, 1923 authorized the coinage of up to 300,000 silver half dollars.
The legislation tied the issue to the 300th anniversary of the settlement of New Netherland by Walloons, French and Belgian Huguenots under the Dutch West India Company.
The Federal Government supplied the coinage authority.
The commemorative organization would handle distribution.
Why Authorize a 1924 Coin in 1923?
Commemorative programs required time.
Congress first had to pass legislation.
The president had to approve it.
Designs had to be prepared.
The Commission of Fine Arts and Treasury officials might review proposals.
Dies had to be made.
Coins had to be struck and distributed.
Authorizing the program in February 1923 allowed preparation for the 1924 tercentenary.
The Huguenot-Walloon half dollar was designed by George T. Morgan.
Morgan is one of the most famous engravers in United States numismatic history.
He joined the U.S. Mint in the nineteenth century and is best remembered for designing the silver dollar introduced in 1878 that now bears his name.
By the 1920s, Morgan had decades of Mint experience.
Morgan's 1878 silver dollar became one of America's most collected coins.
Its large Liberty portrait and eagle reverse are instantly recognizable.
Yet Morgan's career extended far beyond that single design.
He created patterns, medals and other coin designs.
In 1917, he succeeded Charles E. Barber as Chief Engraver of the United States Mint.
The Huguenot-Walloon half dollar came late in his career.
The obverse presents conjoined portraits of Gaspard de Coligny and William the Silent.
Neither man came to New Netherland in 1624.
Both died decades before the settlement being commemorated.
Their inclusion was symbolic.
They represented the broader sixteenth-century Protestant struggle and traditions of resistance to religious persecution.
Admiral Gaspard de Coligny was a prominent French Huguenot leader.
He became deeply involved in the French Wars of Religion.
Coligny also supported French colonial efforts in the Americas.
He was killed in Paris during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572.
For later Huguenot memory, he became a major historical and religious figure.
William I, Prince of Orange, commonly known as William the Silent, led the Dutch Revolt against Spanish Habsburg rule.
He became a central figure in the emergence of the Dutch Republic.
William was assassinated in 1584.
Like Coligny, he belonged to an earlier generation than the New Netherland colonists.
The coin linked the 1624 migration to the religious and political struggles that preceded it.
The Portraits Created Controversy
The choice of Coligny and William the Silent attracted criticism.
The United States Constitution prohibits granting titles of nobility, and some critics objected to federal coinage depicting foreign aristocratic figures.
Others questioned the direct connection between the two men and the specific 1624 settlement.
The controversy illustrates a recurring problem in commemorative coinage:
Who best represents a complicated historical event?
The reverse features the Nieuw Nederland.
The ship symbolized the Atlantic crossing and settlement associated with the tercentenary.
It provided a much more direct visual connection to the 1624 event than the obverse portraits.
The vessel sails across the reverse with the anniversary dates 1624–1924.
The design turns migration itself into the central image.
No precise contemporary visual record allowed Morgan simply to copy an exact photograph or technical drawing of the Nieuw Nederland.
As with many historical commemorative designs, the ship was reconstructed artistically from the general appearance of vessels of the period.
The image should therefore be understood as commemorative representation rather than documentary portraiture of every structural detail.
The half dollar includes the standard national inscriptions required for United States coinage.
It identifies the denomination and country.
The tercentenary dates connect the issue explicitly to 1624 and 1924.
The design is densely historical.
A collector holding the coin encounters people, a ship, a migration and a religious-political story within a diameter of roughly thirty millimeters.
The Huguenot-Walloon half dollars were struck at the Philadelphia Mint.
They carry no mintmark.
The coins were produced in 1924 for the tercentenary celebration.
Although Congress authorized as many as 300,000, actual production and final distribution were lower.
That pattern was common among classic commemoratives.
142,080 Struck
Numismatic references generally report a total production of 142,080 coins, including pieces reserved for assay.
Not all of those entered collector hands permanently.
Unsold coins were returned to the Mint and melted.
The net quantity distributed was approximately 55,000, with minor variations in references depending on whether assay pieces are counted.
The difference between authorization, production and distribution is substantial.
Congressional authorization did not create collector demand.
Sponsors frequently requested large maximum mintages to ensure enough coins would be available if sales were strong.
But buyers had many commemoratives competing for their attention.
If sales disappointed, excess pieces went back to the Mint.
The Huguenot-Walloon issue became another example of optimistic authorization meeting a smaller real market.
The half dollars were sold above their fifty-cent face value.
The premium supported tercentenary activities.
This was the basic economic model of classic commemorative coinage.
The government produced legal-tender coins.
The sponsor effectively monetized the difference between face value and the collector sales price.
The arrangement encouraged more organizations to seek their own commemorative legislation.
The Huguenot-Walloon coin appeared during a period of rapidly expanding commemorative activity.
Congress authorized issues for state anniversaries, local expositions, battles, trails, monuments and historical figures.
Many were legitimate celebrations of regional history.
But the growing number of programs also created collector fatigue and opportunities for questionable marketing.
The system eventually became controversial.
The Huguenot-Walloon issue is unusual because religious identity lies close to the heart of its subject.
The coin does not promote a denomination or doctrine.
Instead, it commemorates historical communities whose migrations were deeply connected to European religious conflict.
The result occupies an interesting place among U.S. commemoratives, where political, ethnic, religious and immigration history overlap.
The Native History Behind the Colonial Story
The 1924 celebration focused on European settlement.
But New Netherland was not empty land.
Indigenous nations had lived throughout the region for generations.
Dutch settlement developed through trade, diplomacy, land transactions, conflict and displacement involving Native peoples.
A modern account of the tercentenary should recognize that the commemorative tells a colonial anniversary story, not the beginning of human history in the region.
Dutch control did not last permanently.
In 1664, English forces seized New Netherland.
New Amsterdam became New York, named for the Duke of York.
Dutch cultural influence nevertheless survived in language, place names, families, architecture and regional traditions.
The Huguenot and Walloon communities became part of an increasingly diverse colonial population.
Huguenot refugees settled in several parts of British North America.
Communities developed in New York, South Carolina, Virginia and elsewhere.
Over generations, many families assimilated into English-speaking society while preserving elements of Huguenot identity and genealogy.
By the early twentieth century, heritage societies helped sustain interest in this history.
The tercentenary coin emerged from that culture of historical remembrance.
Because the coin is dated 1924, it is easy to assume that every important event connected with it happened that year.
But commemorative programs unfold over time.
The legal authorization occurred on February 26, 1923.
Design and production followed.
Distribution and anniversary activities occurred in 1924.
Separating those stages produces a more accurate coin history.
The coin also deserves attention as part of Morgan's final years at the Mint.
He had entered Mint service in 1876.
By the time Congress authorized the Huguenot-Walloon issue, his career spanned nearly half a century.
He died in 1925.
The commemorative therefore belongs among the final major coin designs of one of America's most famous engravers.
Collecting the Huguenot-Walloon Half Dollar
The coin remains obtainable for collectors of classic commemoratives.
Most surviving examples were saved rather than heavily circulated, as was typical for commemorative issues sold at premiums.
Collectors emphasize original surfaces, luster, strike and eye appeal.
Cleaned or mishandled examples are less desirable.
High-grade certified pieces can command substantial premiums.
The Huguenot-Walloon half dollar appeals to several kinds of collectors.
Classic commemorative specialists need it for the series.
Morgan enthusiasts can collect it as part of the engraver's broader body of work.
Collectors interested in New York and New Netherland history find regional significance.
Genealogists with Huguenot or Walloon ancestry may see it as a tangible connection to migration history.
The safest description is precise.
It commemorates the tercentenary of the 1624 settlement associated with Walloon and Huguenot families under the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland.
It should not be reduced to a claim that one ship or one group simply “founded New York City” on a single day.
The colonial settlement process was more complicated.
The coin itself reflects a twentieth-century interpretation of that history.
The February 26 authorization transformed a planned anniversary into a federal numismatic program.
Without the Act of Congress, there would have been no official United States Huguenot-Walloon half dollar.
The law gave the Mint authority to create up to 300,000 coins and gave the tercentenary organization a national fundraising object.
A year later, Morgan's design turned that authority into silver.
The historical path represented by the coin stretches across centuries.
Religious conflict displaced Protestant communities in Europe.
Some migrated through the Dutch world.
Families crossed the Atlantic to New Netherland.
Three hundred years later, their descendants and heritage organizations persuaded Congress to commemorate that migration on federal coinage.
On February 26, 1923, Congress authorized the Huguenot-Walloon Tercentenary half dollar, setting in motion George T. Morgan's 1924 commemorative honoring the 300th anniversary of Huguenot and Walloon settlement in New Netherland.
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