1776 BRITISH ARTICLE ON MASSACHUSETTS STATE COINAGE

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V21 2018 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 21, Number 3, January 21, 2018, Article 14

I recently started searching a site that archives British Newspapers. I was looking for information on the Continental Dollars. This article does piggyback on the Continental Dollar research as these activities seem to coincide with the reports of the 1776 creation of the "Mint at Philadelphia" that has been thought to be a possible source for the Continental Dollars.

Julia kindly provided a transcription along with an image of the article. Thanks! -Editor

Chester Chronicle - Friday 29 November 1776

1776 British Article on Massachsetts State Coinage

A gentleman who came home in the William, Capt. Moore, from Boston, says, that the people of America, being in want of change since the coining of the paper currency, used frequently to divide the dollar notes into halves, and again in quarters and eighths, to answer the purposes of smaller payments, which having been productive of frauds and inconveniences, the Congress, to remedy the same, have coined a great quantity of copper tokens in every province, which bear the arms of the colony where they are struck, and are to pass for half dollars, quarters, eighths and sixteenths, agreeably to the stamps upon them, a quantity of copper having been imported at Philadelphia in a Dutch ship for that purpose, which has been distributed to the other provinces, eighteen hundred weight having been sent to Boston, where they had already begun to stamp the several pieces allowed and approved of by the Congress, but they were miserably executed; their size corresponds with the piece in silver which they are intended to pass for. Before they got the copper they had it in idea to have made them of pewter, but on consideration, they remembered it would encourage the trade of the mother country, and it was therefore on that account set aside.

I think the more direct importance of this article is that it explains the Massachusetts state coinage of the Pine Tree, Native American and Janus Coppers and gives them a more "official" status.

Also, the line at the end regarding the rejection of pewter may be an interest to the Continental Dollars researchers. And the bit about them dividing up the notes is fascinating.

Interesting. The "allowed and approved of by the Congress" part could be corroborated with records on this side of the Atlantic, should they exist, but I've not heard of this action before. If "their size corresponds with the piece in silver which they are intended to pass for" then comparing diameters of the extant physical specimens might be illustrative.

One never quite knows what to believe in old newspaper accounts, which by necessity included a lot of hearsay - there was no ready means of communication for checking facts other than the weeks-long exchange of letters carried by ship. What do readers make of this? Does it square with other known facts? -Editor

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