U.S. Coast Survey re-established under the Treasury Department

Background. The Survey of the Coast had been removed from the Treasury when Congress, frustrated by slow progress and unwilling to fund scientific work, enacted legislation on April 14, 1818, repealing most of the 1807 statute. On July 10, 1832, Congress renewed the 1807 law and returned coastal surveying to the Treasury. President Jackson then transferred the agency to the Navy on March 11, 1834, but survey results under Navy authority again were unsatisfactory, prompting the 1836 re-establishment.

Administrative Shift. On March 26, 1836, President Andrew Jackson ordered the Treasury Department to resume administration of the Survey. This decision reversed the 1834 transfer to the Navy, which had produced unsatisfactory results. The agency was subsequently renamed the United States Coast Survey, reflecting its renewed status as a civilian scientific agency under Treasury control.

Weights and Measures. In 1836, the Office of Weights and Measures was placed under the control of the Coast Survey. Ferdinand Hassler had become the first Superintendent of Weights and Measures beginning in November 1830. This integration expanded the agency's responsibilities beyond coastal mapping to include the standardization of weights and measures throughout the United States, a duty it maintained until 1901.