The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-08-29
Currency of the
Colonial Settlers
Wampnm. Foods and Live Stock
We're Used in Days When
Corn Was Scarce.
CBoston Globe.)

First New England jewellers had a
currency problem OF their own. 1t
was a much more serious matter of
finance than is the Aldrich plan of to-
day. The first settlers brought ready
money With them from England. But
they found no NEAR of putting it in
TO circulation. Consequently mean
of regulating the circulation, Which. is
n of the grave economic problems
of today, was entirely beyond their
dreams.
After the colonists got settled and
realized that they were in New Eng
land to stay they became aware of
their need of a convenient circulating
medium. They tried the clam shell
currency of the Indians. called wan
pun. 1t served some settlers who had
no gold. silver or copper coins. They
also used musket bullets in place of
brass fa%rthings. But the substitutes
for real money were inadequate to the
needs of the %colonists and they found
it absolutely necessary to barter goods.
or exchange article for another.
The Indians, with whom the colon-
lists carried en- a considerable trade,
We're glad to accept merchandise in
place of money for their skins and
other commodities. They didn't know
a shilling from a shallop. But they
die know muskets, ammunition. hunt
ing knives, glass beads n fire water,
and to get them they exchanged valu-
able skins.
Various other substitutes for ready
money were commonly used in colonial
times. For Il fat hoe. fat Wether, or
forty shilllnGS every year., the general
court of Massachusetts bay colony
leased Noodles island to Samuel Nav
erick. Imagine a taxpayer of today
driving a fat hog and a fat wether up
Beacon hill and turning them over to
the state treasurer in payment of his
rent. Meat and drink were sometimes
given in part payment of wages.
In 1880 the general court ordered
that no master carpenter, joiner or
bricklayer shall take above sixteen
pence a day for their work if they
have meat and drink"
Until a recent period, which some
old men of today remember, apprent-
ices We're paid in board, lodging,
clothing, n schooling. New Eng
land schoolmaSters boarded about, get
ting food and shelter in exchange for
the tuition of the children. Clergy
men and physicians were commonly
paid in provisions and fuel. A CO.
lonial tailor was paid in beaver skins
for mending a blanket. Farmers COM
monty traded corn for xes and other
tools, and their wives traded eggs, but
ter and cheese for shoes, dresses or
bonnets.
The first demand that people pay
cash for goods was met with protests.
In 1916 the general court heard the
petition of people who were aggriev-
ed because the p%roprietors of the
Saugus Iron works demanded cash for
their metal products, and it voted:
w acknowledge you hat such a
staple commodity as iron is a great
means to enrich the place where it is
both by furnishing this place with tina
commodity at reasonable rates and by
bringing in other necessary commodi-
ties in exchange of iron exported, but
as we used to say. if a man lives where
an AK is worth but IL pence yet it is
never the cheaper to him who cannot
get II pence to buy one. So, If your
iron may not be had here without
ready money. what advantage will that
be to us if we have no money to pur-
chase it. 1t is true some men here
nave Spanish money sometimes, but
little comes to our smiths hands, es-
pecially those of inland towns. What
moneys our smiths can get you may
be sure to have it before any other il
we must want iron so often as our
money fails. you may easily judge il it
We're not better for us to procure 1t
from other places by our corn and
pipe slaves. etc, than to depend on
the coming in of money which is new
er SO plentiful as to supply for the
OCCASION"
About 1850. when the Massachu-
sets bay colony was Furnishing, a
strong popular demand for a plentiful
supply of money was heard. Business
interests wanted currency and labor
ing men desired cash instead of wan.
pun. beaver skins and meat and drink
in payment of their wages. The gen.
eral court Of 1852 decided that the
to supply additional currency
was to make 1t. and without lengthy
discussion of principles Of finance or
Investigation Of the monetary systems
OF foreign countries, the court voted
to establish a mint house In Boston.
Captain John Hull was appointed mint
master.
OF Captain Hull. Hawthorne tells an
interesting story. The captain sum-
moned his daughter and his son-in-