Morgan Neville (1783–1839), attorney and author, was born in Pittsburgh and educated at the Pittsburgh Academy. When the school became the Western University of Pennsylvania (later the University of Pittsburgh), he was one of its first trustees. With other young men Neville ventured to Blennerhassett Island in 1806 to join Aaron Burr’s expedition, but they were captured and detained by a Virginia militia unit. He was admitted in 1808 to the bar in Pittsburgh, where he was cashier of the Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank in 1818, editor and part owner of the Pittsburgh Gazette, 1818–21, and sheriff of Allegheny County, 1819–22. Neville relocated to Cincinnati in 1824 and became the secretary of an insurance company and the founder and editor of the short-lived Cincinnati Commercial Register, the first daily paper published west of Philadelphia. His literary career began in Pittsburgh, initially with poetry published in the Pittsburgh Gazette. Neville’s sketches of frontier life gained him renown, particularly “The Last of the Boatmen,” a description of the legendary boatman Mike Fink. He died in Cincinnati (William Henry Venable, Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley: Historical and Biographical Sketches [1891], 373–5; John T. Flanagan, “Morgan Neville: Early Western Chronicler,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 21 [1938]: 255–66; Agnes Lynch Starrett, Through One Hundred and Fifty Years: The University of Pittsburgh [1937], esp. 62–3, 552; Brigham, American Newspapers description begins Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690–1820, 1947, 2 vols. description ends , 2:965; Neville, “The Last of the Boatmen,” in James Hall, ed., The Western Souvenir, A Christmas and New Year’s Gift for 1829 [(1828)], 107–22; Columbus Ohio State Journal and Register, 12 Mar. 1839).

The Farmers’ and Mechanics’ bank of Pittsburgh was robbed on 6 Apr. 1818. Joseph L. Pluymart and Herman Emmons, the perpetrators, were apprehended, and after Pluymart escaped he was eventually recaptured. However, the medal presented to Daniel Morgan was never recovered (Erasmus Wilson, ed., Standard History of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [1898], 334, 337). On 2 July 1836 Congress voted to have a replacement medal struck. The original dies having been lost, a new set was created based on a surviving silver specimen. By the time the new gold medal was ready Neville had died, and it was presented to his eldest son (U.S. Statutes at Large description begins Richard Peters, ed., The Public Statutes at Large of the United States … 1789 to March 3, 1845, 1845–67, 8 vols. description ends , 5:66; James Graham, The Life of General Daniel Morgan [1856], 414; R. W. Julian, Medals of the United States Mint: The First Century, 1792–1892, ed. N. Neil Harris [1977], 120).

cateau: Nicolas Marie Gatteaux.