The Chihuahua mint

Joaquín Campa was a lawyer who was born and died in Chihuahua. He became politicised at a very young age and joined the liberal ranks. He took up various posts in the judiciary until he reached the rank of Magistrate of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice in Chihuahua. 

He fought against the French Intervention of Mexico and in August 1862 was president of the junta patriótica established in Chihuahua^{El Siglo Diez y Nueve, Tomo IV, Núm. 594, 31 August 1862}. However, in October 1865 as president of the Tribunal Superior he was one of the former enemies who signed the act of adhesion to the Empire^{La Sociedad, Tomo V, Núm. 871, 11 November 1865}.

He died in 1871.

Edward Francisco Potts was by 1860 “a distinguished English gentlemen of wealth and influence, a twenty years’ resident of Chihuahua and assayer at the mint”^{letter S. Hart, El Paso, to President James Buchanan, 21 January 1860 in report to Congress on the difficulties on Southwestern Frontier(footnote}. On 19 January 1860 he wrote from Chihuahua to Mr. Hart in El Paso, requesting the assistance of U. S. troops against rebels from Durangoibid..
In 1858 the faction then in power in Chihuahua gave Potts and the American Francisco Macmanus, representing the Compañía Americana del ferrocarril inter-océanico, a concession in Chihuahua to build a the railway within the stateLa Coalición, Chihuahua, núm. 12, 1 May 1858, but the concession was challenged La Sociedad, tomo II, núm. 333, 13 August 1858 and ultimately failed.}

On 29 May 1865 Potts was named by the Maximilian regime as a member of the Junta auxiliar de colonización in Chihuahua ^{El Diario del Imperio, Tomo I, Núm. 125, 1 June 1865}. These local juntas were made up of five hacendados or businessmen, two Mexican and three foreigners, who were tasked with developing the resources of their Departamento^{El Diario del Imperio, Tomo I, Núm. 90, 20 April 1865}.

José María Gómez del Campo

Gómez del Campo went on to be listed as ensayador in San Luis Potosí in 1873.

Jacobo Mucharraz Losa, the son of José Antonio Mucharraz, was born in Chihuahua around 1837.

For three years during the war of Intervention he distinguished himself by the services to the state of Chihuahua. Then he was an assayer in the Guanajuato mint before, in 1870, being nominated assayer of the Mexico City mint (El Ferro-Carril, Tomo III, Núm. 187, 11 August 1870)

Mucharraz was appointed assayer of the Chihuahua mint by the governor José Eligio Muñoz, so this was between 19 February and 13 June 1877. On 4 August 1877 he was suspended from his post by the subsequent governor, General Pedro Hinojosa, supposedly for being wayward and hindering the work of the mint (díscolo del empleado y entorpeciiento en las labores ó trabajos de la casa). Mucharraz took the case to court, questioning Hinojosa’s right to fire him: on 13 August the mint director, E. Avila, reported the Mucharraz’s conduct was scandalous and insubordinate (escandalosa é insubordinada) and local businesses, in a report of 9 August, called Mucharraz  intolerable in every business in which he was involved (hombre intolerable de todo negocio en que tiene intervencion). However, the Ministerio Público declared that Mucharraz’s rights had been violated and on 8 September the judge, Juan de Dios Búrgos, ruled that, irrespective of the reasons for the firing, it had been unconstitutional^{El Foro, Tomo II, Año V, Núm. 123, 27 December 1877}.

So Mucharraz’s initials only appear on an 1877 eight reales.

Mucharraz appears as a third official in the Chihuahuan state government in November 1890^{El Estado de Chihuahua, Año XIII, Núm. 153, 22 November 1890}. He died in Chihuahua on 20 June 1900.

Incidentally, his son, Jacobo Mucharraz Calderon, had been a founder of the Partido Antirreeleccionista in Chihuahua in 1909 and was on the town council in 1912 and 1913, but on 13 December 1913, a few days after Francisco Villa captured the town, was executed on Villa’s orders.

Guadalupe Rocha

Guadalupe Rocha was listed as the ensayador in 1873.

Antonio Valero

In July 1879 a newspaper reported that through either ignorance or malice Valero was causing immense harm to Chihuahua businessmen and miners. Since his appointment the young Antonio Valero had upset all the owners of silver who had to deal with him. The difference between the assays made by M. Merino and A. Barbachano and those made by Valero could be up to forty milésimos^{La Libertad, Año II, Núm. 170, 24 July 1879}.