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History of the Treasury
Secretaries of the Treasury
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Walter Forward
(1841 - 1843)
Walter Forward (1786-1852), a judge from Pittsburgh,
was an active supporter of President William Henry Harrison and Vice President
Tyler in the Presidential campaign of 1840 and was rewarded by Harrison
with the appointment as Comptroller of Currency in the Treasury Department.
Upon Secretary Thomas Ewing's
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Sec. Walter Forward
Freeman Thorp
Oil on canvas
1881
65 ¼ x 55 ½ x 3 ¾”
P.1883.1
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resignation in 1841, Forward was appointed
Secretary of the Treasury in President Tyler's reorganized Cabinet.
That year, former Secretary Levi Woodbury's Independent
Treasury System of 1840 was repealed and the Government's funds were deposited
once more with commercial banks. Soon after Forward took office, he was
asked by Millard Fillmore, then chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee,
to devise a plan to increase the tariff, in response to the serious decrease
in revenue caused by the Panic of 1837. He was also asked to develop plans
for a Board of Exchequer to receive and disburse Customs revenue, since
the Independent Treasury System was no longer in effect. In August 1842
a strongly protective tariff was passed and Secretary Forward resigned that year
to practice law.
About the Artist
Originally from Geneva, Ohio, the self-taught portrait
artist Freeman Thorp (1844–1922) came to Washington, D.C. in 1861 to paint official
portraits of Washington notables. Through his studio, at one time in the
attic of the Senate wing of the Capitol, passed Presidents Lincoln, Grant,
Garfield, McKinley, and Cleveland in addition to Chief Justice Salmon
Chase, Horace Greely, and Charles Sumner. At the age of thirty-three,
Thorp was elected a member of the Ohio legislature and placed in charge
of the senatorial campaign of his friend James A. Garfield. Thorp's portrait
of Walter Forward, painted in 1881, is copied from an unknown source.
Office of the Curator
All rights reserved. 2001
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