Pin and Tiara worn by Mrs. Susan (Man) McCulloch, circa 1871.
Brick Store Museum Collection, 1936.3251.1-2. Gift of Mrs. Hugh McCulloch Marshall, 1961.

Hugh McCulloch (1808-1895) was the son of shipbuilder Hugh McCulloch and Abiel (Perkins) McCulloch of Kennebunk Landing, Maine. He was a Bowdoin College alumnus and eventually moved to Indiana to practice law. He left this to enter banking, in which he was very successful, becoming manager of the State Bank of Indiana in 1863. At the request of then Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Portland Chase, McCulloch became the country's first Comptroller of the Currency under Chase's new National Banking System. In 1865, McCulloch himself went on to serve as President Abraham Lincoln's third Secretary of the Treasury and then continued his tenure during the administration of President Andrew Johnson. In 1870, McCulloch joined the New York banking firm of Jay Cooke, McCulloch & Company. While McCulloch headed up the firm's London office, he and his family lived in Queen's Gate Gardens, Kensington. It was during this period that McCulloch and his wife Susan were formally presented to Queen Victoria; family accounts recall the year as being either 1871 or 1872. The accessories shown above were worn by Susan McCulloch on that occasion. The pin and tiara, along with her presentation dress and bonnet, were later given to the Brick Store Museum by McCulloch family members.

McCulloch returned to the United States in 1876 and in 1884 was appointed Secretary of the Treasury for the final months (1884-1885) of President Chester Arthur's administration. McCulloch retired after this and went on to publish his memoirs, Men and Measures of Half a Century, in 1888. McCulloch died in 1895 at his home in Maryland and is buried in Washington, D.C.'s Rock Creek Cemetery; he was the last surviving member of the Lincoln cabinet.

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