Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony

by George Francis Dow

Numerous coins were later made in the colonies, either intended for regular circulation or as tokens privately issued, among which are the Granby coppers—rude half-pennies—made in 1737 by one John Higley, the blacksmith, at Granby, Conn. They were made of soft copper which was dug at Granby and are never found in very good condition.

The word dollar is the English form of the German word thaler, and the origin of the thaler is as follows: In the year 1519, Count Schlick of Bohemia issued silver coins weighing one ounce each and worth 113 cents. They were coined at Joachimsthal, that is, James's Valley or dale, hence they became known as "Joachimsthalers," soon shortened to thalers. Through trade with the Dutch these coins came into England in the sixteenth century and are referred to sometimes as "dalers."

But the dollar came to the American continent not through the Dutch or English but through the Spanish. This was due to the extent of the Spanish Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and also to the great quantities of silver which Spain drew from her mines in Mexico and South America. The Spanish coin was, strictly speaking, a peso, better known as a piece of eight, because it was equal to eight reals (royals). As it was of the same value, the name dollar was given to the piece of eight about the year 1690.

The most famous Spanish dollar was known as the pillar dollar, because it had on one side two pillars, representing the pillars of Hercules, the classical name for the Straits of Gibralter, and this Spanish dollar was common in America at the time of the War of Independence.

In 1690 the treasury of the colony was so nearly exhausted that the Great and General Court decided to issue promises to pay, the first paper money minted by any Colony. The values were ten shillings, one pound and five pounds. The occasion for this issue was primarily the expenses of Governor Phips's expedition against Quebec, which was thriftily expected to more than pay costs. The French and Indians, however, were too strong for Sir William, and the colonial treasury was faced with costs to the amount of £50,000, instead of the anticipated loot. These "Colony" or "Charter bills" obtained a wide circulation and were called in annually and redeemed and reissued as need arose, but after a few years, confidence in them decreased and before long they passed at a discount as great as 30 per cent.

In 1722, Massachusetts tried to relieve the scarcity of small change by issuing five hundred pounds worth of tokens of the value of one, two and three pence. They were printed on parchment to make them more durable but apparently were not a success as there were no more printed.

As the years went by, monetary conditions became more and more unstable, and in 1740 an attempt was made to establish a bank in the hope of placing the currency on a firmer basis. The fight lay between a silver bank with bullion behind its notes and a land bank issuing notes guaranteed by mortgages and manufactured articles. These notes were to come due in twenty years and at that time the holders instead of receiving coin might be forced to take their pay in cast iron, bayberry wax, leather, cordwood, or other articles of trade that might be difficult to dispose of. One of these notes preserved in the cabinets of the Massachusetts Historical Society has written on its back, in old-time handwriting, "A Land Bank bill reserved as a specimen of ye mad humour among many of ye people of ye Province, 1740."

Money matters now went from bad to worse. The value of silver was called tenor. In 1740 silver was worth six shillings, eight pence per ounce and in 1746 seven shillings, sixpence, and the buying value of bills varied from year to year.

"Imagine having to keep in mind the relative values of bills of old tenor, with silver at 6/8, or middle tenor; or new tenor firsts at 6/8, but passing current at 7/8; or new tenor seconds, all of which were laboring under fluctuating but constantly increasing rates of depreciation, while there were also to be remembered Connecticut bills of new tenor at 8/. and Rhode Island bills at 6/9 an ounce, and also £110,000 worth of private bills of the issue of 1733, which were worth a third more than the Colony bills, and also £120,000 in notes issued in 1740, "on a silver basis," to stifle the land bank and equivalent to cash, and in addition "public bills of the four promises at 29/. an ounce," whatever that means, and you will not wonder that there was confusion worse confounded."[66]