No. 3B
The Old Provoost, New York
(Revised Edition)
No. 3 B, of the same type and make looking almost identical with, but differing in details from No. 3 A, must be considered as a “revised edition” of the latter. The obverse is identical with that of No. 3 A with only one deviation: No. 3 B has an entrance door instead of the empty space in the front wall of the building. The reverse shows more divergencies. The wording and arrangement of the main inscription are identical with that of No. 3 A. But the mistake in the word PRISON is here corrected, the B having been replaced by a P. In 3 B the surrounding open chain occupies only the upper half of the margin, while the title of the token series takes its place in the corresponding space in the lower half: “AUG. B. SAGE’S HISTORICAL TOKENS.” The half-circles of the chain in the upper part and of the series title in the lower part thus form a kind of wreath surrounding the main inscription of five lines. The numeral, No. 1, appears here in the lower part and is separated from the last line of the inscription, REVOLUTION, by a small asterisk between two brief exergual lines. Asterisk and lines are missing in No. 3 A.
Both types of the token, 3 A as well as 3 B, have on the obverse below the left corner of the fence, the initial L, representing the name of the engraver, George H. Lovett, who is listed in the New York City Directory of 1859 as die-sinker at 131 Fulton Street. He executed all the Sage tokens and several very pretty Washington medals.
The medallic picture of the “Old Provoost” is undoubtedly based on Alexander J. Davis’s (1803-1892) drawing that was engraved by Alexander Anderson (1775-1870) and reproduced in The New York Mirror of September 10, 1831, in John Pintard’s article, “The Old Jail.”
The site of this “modern bastille” was City Hall Park. It was built as the second jail, in succession, in the City of New York in 1757 and completed in 1759. In the revolutionary period it was memorable during the occupation of the City by the British forces, from 1776 to 1783, as a British military prison, known as “Provost” and later as “Martyr’s Prison”, still later as “Debtor’s Prison”. In 1830 it was reconstructed and fitted to receive public records, henceforth known as “Register’s Office” or “Hall of Records”. It was finally demolished in 1903 to make way for the Subway. Coins, buttons, and human bones were found in the excavation. A tablet, erected in 1907, on a granite monument in the Park still marks the site of the “Old Provost.”
This British military prison, under the superintendence of the ill-famed Captain Cunningham, Provost-Marshall—from whom it took its name—and his deputy, Sergeant Keefe, was the scene of great brutalities to American, or, in the language of the times, “rebel” prisoners during the Revolution. The Provost was destined, as John Pintard, the meritorious New York historian, tells us, for the more notorious rebels, civil, naval, and military. An admission into this prison was enough to appall the stoutest heart. On the second floor, called derisively “Congress Hall,” prisoners of note were confined, citizens of distinction and many American officers, among them the famous Colonel Ethan Allen and Judge Fell, of Bergen county, New Jersey. Could these dumb walls speak, John Pintard exclaims, what scenes of anguish, what tales of agonizing woe, might they disclose. In his aforementioned article he gave a vivid account of the “Old Jail’s” history well known to him from the personal reminiscences of many a distinguished prisoner still living in his day.
For naval “rebels” a similar function as that of the “Old Provost” for civil and military “rebels” was fulfilled by “prison-ships.” On board of such vessels seamen were subjected to every possible hardship, to compel them to enter into the British service. As is well known, prison-ships were old vessels-of-war which had been condemned as unseaworthy, and unfit for store or hospital ships, and converted to this, the last use to which they could be applied. One of them has gained medallic interest, the “Old Jersey Prison Ship,” which was included as No. 5 in A. B. Sage’s series of “Historical Tokens.” It is No. 4 in the present essay.
No. 4
The Old Jersey Prison Ship