THE ARCHAIC MONETARY TERMS OF THE UNITEDSTATESBy CHARLES A. WHITEAs was customary with all English colonies, those of NorthAmerica which became the thirteen original States of the Unionadopted and used the monetary system of the mother country untilit was superseded by our national decimal system ; therefore alltheir monetary transactions were expressed and recorded in termsof pounds, shillings, and pence. That custom existed until ourpresent national monetary system was established by Congress, in1 792-' 93, eight years after the close of the War of the Revolutionand three years after the final adoption of the Constitution of theUnited States, in 1789; that is, the people of the United Statesused the English monetary system not only during the whole oftheir colonial period, but during sixteen years, or fully one-eighthof their national existence up to the present time (1907), countingfrom the Declaration of Independence, in 1776. It is therefore notstrange that its terms, or modifications of them, should still lingerin colloquial speech. It is because some of those terms are nowpractically obsolete, and those which still survive are now only col-loquially and locally used, that I have decided to make a record ofthem in accordance with my personal recollections, which began inthe fourth decade of the last century, my personal observations inall the principal parts of the United States, and with availablehistorical data.The following table exhibits the monetary system of the UnitedStates as it was originally established and since modified by addingand eliminating certain coins ; that is, its list of coins includes thosewhich were originally designated by law, those which were after-ward authorized, and those the coinage of which has been discon-tinued. The table is introduced for comparison of its coins withthose of the other currencies which formerly have been used by ourpeople.From time to time other than the stated coins of the followingtable have been issued from the United States mints, such as the Tradedollar, souvenir gold and silver coins for the great expositions, etc.
;
but those coins bore special legends and, although officially recog-nized as money, they were not established portions of our coinage.93
94 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vol. 50Various coins also have been issued by private parties, especially bygold-mining firms and corporations, to meet local monetary needs ;but those coins, although of genuine intrinsic value and freely cur-rent in the regions of their origin, were not legally recognized asmoney and soon went entirely out of use as such.The Monetary System of the United States
Denominations.
The mill
.
The cent.
Divisions and multiples. Metals.
The dime.
.
The dollar.
rThe eagle. . . . -j
Constructive unit No coin.d o.d o.A.dA.d A. Half-cent.One cent (One cent (small)One centTwo cents . . . .d A. Three cents.d A. Three centsd A. Twenty cents . . .
Copper,arge) Copper.CopperNickel-copper.CopperNickelSilver
.Silverd o. Half-dime Silver .A. Half-dime Nickel.o. Dime Silver .
o. Quarter dollaro. Half-dollar. . . .o. Dollard A. Dollar SilverSilverSilverGold..Quarter eagle Gold.Half-eagle Gold.Eagle Gold.Double eagle Gold.
Values.$0,0010.0050.010.01O.OI0.020.030.03o 200.050.05o. 100.250.501.001.002.505.0010.0020.00
o. Originally designated by law.A. Added by law to the original list.d. Coinage now discontinued.Originally the idea seems to have prevailed that only copper,silver, and gold were suitable for coinage, but nickel was intro-duced into our system after its original establishment. For a timethat metal was used in varying proportions for coins of severalsmall values, but it is now used only for the half-dime, whichhas come to be called specifically the nickel. Originally alsothe idea seems to have prevailed that definite ratios of intrinsicvalue naturally existed between copper, silver, and gold. The dif-ference in size and palpable weight between the gold and silvercoins of equal value and between silver coins and the large coppercent were generally accepted by the people as object lessons on thesubject of those ratios. The assumed ratio between copper and
WHITE] ARCHAIC MONETARY TERMS OE THE UNITED STATES 95
silver, however, was summarily repudiated by the official suppressionof the coinage of the large copper cent and the issue in the place ofit of the smaller one of the same nominal value. The ratio of valuebetween silver and gold is still an open question, and at one time itbecame a violent political issue. In designating the metal of each ofthe coins of the foregoing table, only the principal metal of each ismentioned, no reference being made to the alloys.The denominations pertaining to our monetary system are. as the
Fig. 22.—Pine-tree shilling. Coined in Massachusetts in 1652.foregoing table shows, mills, cents, dimes, dollars, and eagles ; butonly two of them are used in practical monetary annotation, namely,dollars and cents. The dollar being officially designated as themonetary unit, the other three terms are merely nominal portionsof the formulated system, of which formula the mill is the con-structive unit. The English monetary system consisted of fourdenominations, namely, farthings, pence, shillings, and pounds, fourfarthings constituting a penny, twelve pence a shilling, and twenty
Fig. 23.—Lord Baltimore shilling. Coined in Maryland in 1659.
shillings a pound. The commercial exchange value of the pound isabout $4.85 ; of the shilling, 24 cents; and of the penny, 2 cents.Because Spain for more than one hundred years controlled the silversupply of the world and from her mints supplied the colonies, andafterward our newly formed States, with the greater part of theircurrent silver coins, reference to their denominations is also neces-sary. These were the peso, which was equal in value to our dollar,the half peso, the quarter peso, the real, and the medio, the value
96 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vol. 50
of the two latter coins being 12*/, and 6% cents respectively. Itwill be necessary further on to make frequent reference to theEnglish and Spanish systems, because it was in connection with thecoins of those two systems and with colonial bills of credit thatthere arose the now obsolescent terms which are about to be discussed.Those terms are the shilling, penny, levy, fip, bit, and picayune.The monetary conditions which prevailed in the colonies andcontinued until after the War of the Revolution were extremely
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Fig. 24.— Massachusetts bill of credit for 36 shillings.
complicated and of uncertain availability for their trade require-ments. Although the colonies had fully adopted the English mone-tary system, comparatively little English money seems to havefound its way into their channels of trade. Each colony thenclaimed, and a part of them somewhat freely exercised, the right tocoin money, and the few of those old colonial coins that have beensaved from destruction are among the treasures of numismatists.All of the colonies also claimed, and most, if not all, exercised, theright to issue bills of credit. This right continued to be claimed
WHITE] ARCHAIC MONETARY TERMS OF1 THE UNITED STATES 97by the States until it was prohibited by the Constitution of theUnited States as that instrument was finally ratified and adopted in1789. States, counties, and municipalities have of course continuedto issue bonds to meet legitimate indebtedness; but those bills ofcredit were not bonds of that kind. They were issued in terms ofpounds, shillings, and pence for use as a form of paper money, andthey actually were for a time a part of the common currency.Being a form of current money, it was necessary to recall themwhen the Constitution was adopted, and to provide for their paymentin money of the then newly established national currency.The long War of the Revolution and the consequent depressedcondition of trade made it impracticable for any of the States which
tenvx-potjnd slim i i iiwii i
fnzk pafs currentU POUNDSD'V* a Law of theColcwv ofNew-Tori, this Bill shalLjfor FIVE,New-York '
'•«3 the Second Day of April, One]Thoufand Seven Hundred and Fifty
[Numb. f// J/O
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[iooj.J 'Til Death to counterfeit this
FiG. 25.—New York bill of credit for five pounds.had issued bills of credit to pay them at their face value. By actsof their legislatures, Massachusetts and other New England Statesfixed the redemption value of their bills of credit at $3.33 to thepound sterling, making the shilling worth i6 2A cents. Virginia, bylegislative act, fixed the same value upon its bills of credit, andthat act affected the Kentuckian and other settlements westwardfrom Virginia, because that State then claimed jurisdiction overthem. New York, for its own State limits, and by its influenceover, and territorial claims within, the region westward, borderingthe Great Lakes, by a similar act fixed the value of its bills ofcredit at $2.50 to the pound and the shilling at 12 \4 cents. NorthCarolina fixed the same rate. Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland,and New Jersey adjusted their bills of credit upon the basis of $2.70to the pound and 13^ cents to the shilling. Georgia and South7
I
98 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vol. 50Carolina made the best showing of all of them, fixing the value ofthe pound at $4,284 and that of the shilling at 2 if cents. Let it beborne in mind that all of those legislative acts referred to Americanbills of credit and that none of them was aimed at English moneyas such, although they doubtless had an indirectly depressing effectupon the current value of that money which then remained in theUnited States.With the establishment of the United States mint, the coppercent became comparatively plentiful, but the issue of other coinswas for many years far less than the country needed. Besides this,the withdrawal of the bills of credit from circulation as money pro-duced a financial condition which at that time would have been
State of NEW-JERSEY.[No. //?&?/ J O"* Shilling and 6d.THIS Bill (hall pafs current for One Shilling and Six-pence, agreeably to an Act of the Legiflature of thisState, patted the ninth Day of Ja-nuary, One Thoufand Seven Hun-dred and Eighty one.
Fig. 26.—New Jersey bill of credit for one shilling and sixpence.disastrous had not large quantities of Spanish coins already beendistributed throughout the country and in common use as currency.The bulk of that Spanish coinage was in quarter pesos, reals, andmedios, the peso not having been very often seen in circulation;and the half peso was less common than were the smaller coins.Those Spanish silver coins remained in common use as currencynearly up to the beginning of the civil war.It is a curious fact that, although the Spanish supply then con-stituted the principal part of our current coins, Spanish names forthose coins were practically discarded by the people of the UnitedStates. The national term "dollar" was applied to the peso, andEnglish or special terms were colloquially applied to its subdivisions.
WHITE] ARCHAIC MONETARY TERMS OF THE UNITED STATES 99
FlG 27.—Peso= eight reals= piece of eight. Value, one dollar.
Fig. 28.—Half peso= four reals= four shillings in New York, four bits in theSouth and West, and three shillings in New England. Value, half a dollar.
Fig. 29.—Quarter peso= two reals= two shillings in New York= two bits inthe South and West= one shilling and sixpence in New England. Value,quarter of a dollar.
Fig. 30.—Real = one shilling in NewYork= ninepence in New England= levy in the eastern middle States= bit in the South and West. Value,12 V-, cents.
Fig. 31.—Medio = sixpence in NewYork= fo'pns hapny in New Eng-land =fip or fipnybit in the easternmiddle States= picayune in theSouth and West. Value, 6^ cents.
IOO SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vol. 50The value of the shilling as it was fixed for the New York billsof credit was exactly the same as that of the Spanish real, namely,i2}4 cents. That Spanish coin therefore received the Englishname of shilling wherever the authority or uncontrolled influence ofNew York extended. The Spanish medio, or 6% -cent piece, logi-cally became the sixpence for that State ; and even the Americancent became the penny, although its value was a trifle less than one-twelfth of the New York shilling. Thus the people of that greatcommercial State used Spanish silver coins almost exclusively, butgave them English names that pertained to an officially discardedcurrency. Those New York monetary terms are still so often em-ployed by the people of that State that few persons fail to under-stand them whenever they are used. Still the}7 are not now nearlyso commonly used as they formerly were, no doubt partly becausethe Spanish coins which they represented are no longer in circula-tion.The following table concisely shows the manner in which Englishnames were colloquially applied to Spanish coins in accordance withthe New York provision for the retirement of the bills of credit. Itshould be compared with the next table, representing the NewEngland provision.New York Archaic Monetary Terms
Current terms.
WHITE] ARCHAIC MONETARY TERMS OF THE UNITED STATES IOItomarily used in the plural form in the region where they originated,as were the terms ' ' shilling ' ' and " bit " in other regions. The useof those Pennsylvania and New Jersey terms did not extend north-ward, because the people of New York and New England adheredrigidly to their own local terms, but they extended to Delaware,Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia. The people ofthe latter State seem to have practically disregarded the Englishmonetary terms, which necessarily followed the act of their legisla-ture in retiring the bills of credit and which were the same as theNew England terms. Therefore, if one should now visit the ruraldistricts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and of the contiguousStates southward, or the market places of their cities, he wouldoccasionally hear at least the term "levy" still used. The term
"fip," or " fipny bit," seems, however, to have gone entirely outof use in the regions where it originated, and to exist only in thememory of the older people.The term "bit" as a partial designation of both the real andmedio was evidently first used in the cases just mentioned with itsordinary meaning, equivalent to the word piece ; but among theplanters of the Southern States and the pioneers of the great Mis-sissippi Valley it was the only term applied to the Spanish real.There also the terms "sixpence" and "fip" were not applied tothe Spanish medio, but the Creole term "picayune" was used in-stead. Those planters and pioneers affected to despise the cent asbeing a coin of too little value for consideration, and that sentimentis not entirely extinct in those regions where the term " bit " is stillused. The American five-cent piece and the Spanish medio werethe lowest coins they would consent to use, and they treated thetwo coins as of equal value, giving both of them the name ofoicayune. They gave the name bit also to the American ten-centpiece and for many years treated it as of equal value with theSpanish real.That supercilious disregard for small values was taken advantageof by sharp traders. As the volume of coins issued by the UnitedStates mint increased, dimes and half-dimes made their appearancemore frequently among the Spanish coins of the common currency.Those traders obtained supplies of dimes from the mint at the rateof ten to the dollar and paid them out at the rate of eight to thedollar, because they were accepted in common trade as bits of equalvalue with the Spanish real; but that enterprise soon came to anend by the necessary recognition of the respective coins at their truevalue, and the displacement of all Spanish coins from our national
102 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 5°currency gradually followed. With that displacement the term
"picayune" as a monetary designation went quickly out of use,but it has a curious survival in the name of the New OrleansPicayune newspaper, that name having been given to it to indicateits price per copy, which was then an unusually low one. Theterm "bit," however, continued in colloquial use, although nosingle coin remained in circulation to which -it could be applied.Its application, therefore, was only to multiples of the bit value,the quarter-dollar being designated as two bits, the half-dollar, fourbits, and three-quarters of a dollar, six bits.The region in which the term ' ' bit ' ' has prevailed as a specificname for the Spanish real and for one- half of the quarter dollarmay be designated as the States of the Great Mississippi drainagesystem and the contiguous States along the Gulf border. Theemigration which crossed the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountainsin the closing years of the fifth decade of the last century traversedthat region and carried with it the term "bit" in its monetarysense to the Pacific coast. The result has been that, in the multipleform just mentioned, that term is now even more prevalent therethan it is in any other part of our country.The most remarkable case of the adaptive use of monetary termsin the United States which have become archaic, if not obsolete, isthat which occurred in New England. It was there that thewidest application of the terms of the English monetary system wasmade to American and Spanish values, and there also that thoseterms became dialectic in character. In Bristol county, Massachu-setts, up to my thirteenth year, those terms were as familiar to meas household words, for my parents and all our neighbors habitually
.used them. My recollection of them is as distinct as is that of theterms "bit" and "picayune," which I also used in commonwith the people of the Mississippi valley for more than twenty yearsafterward.The following table shows the archaic terms which were used inNew England, and which resulted from the former use there of theEnglish monetary system and the reduction of values of the billsof credit. The terms cent, half-dime, and dime are of courseadded to the table from our national coinage, but the remainingterms are locally characteristic. The latter were all in common usethere during colonial time and also for nearly or quite fifty yearsafter the establishment of our national mint. Now, however, theyhave gone entirely out of practical use.
WHITE] ARCHAIC MONETARY TERMS OF THE UNITED STATES IO3New England Archaic Monetary Terms
Monetary terms. Current coins. Value.
Cent Large American copper coin .Half-dime ! American silver coinDime American silver coinFour pence and half-penny. . .
.
Spanish half-real or medio. . .Sixpence No coinNinepence Spanish realShilling No coinOne shilling and sixpence American or Spanish coin. . .Two shillings No coinTwo shillings and sixpence . . No coinThree shdlings American or Spanish coin. . . .Three shillings and sixpence.Four shillingsFour shillings and sixpence.Five shillingsFive shillings and sixpenceSix shillingsNine shillings American or Spanish coins.Ten shillings and sixpence . . . American or Spanish coins.
No coin.No coinAmerican or Spanish coins.No coinNo coin ....American or Spanish coins.
One cent.5 cents..10 cents.6% cents.8/^ cents.*\2% cents.16% cents.*25 cents.33 /j' cents.*4 1% cent.-*.*"50 cents.58^ cents.*66% cents.*75 cents.83J/3 cents.*91% cents.*$1.00$1-75The foregoing table illustrates the peculiar tendency of theoriginal New England people to adhere to old forms of speech andold names of familiar objects. After the first issue of our nationalcoins they necessarily called them, as coins, by the names whichour Congress had authoritatively given them, and they also usedthe official designations and values exclusively in keeping their ac-counts, just as we now do. In colloquial speech, however, theycontinued to use the English monetary terms of their ancestors forall values above five cents and up to a dollar and a half, whetherthe coins they had in hand were American or Spanish. For ex-ample, a merchant would tell his customer the prices of his.goods in shillings and pence, and when the sale was made he wouldaccept either American or Spanish coins in payment and turn to hiscash book and enter the transaction in terms of our national cur-rency only.The respective values assigned to the shilling and pound in theNew England bills of credit made it impracticable to recognize thecent as a single penny, because its value as one-twelfth of sixteenand two-thirds cents, became one and a third cents, but the pennywas freely recognized and expressed in multiples. For example, the
* There were not only no coins in existence to represent these several values,but they could not be accurately represented by combinations of any coins ofsmaller values.
104 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vol. 50Spanish real, neglecting the half cent, became ninepence and theSpanish medio became fourpence and half-penny. It is worthy ofspecial remark that for the terms penny, fourpence, sixpence, andshilling, which the New England people habitually used, therewere no respectively corresponding coins in existence.This persistence of the New England people in the use of theterms shillings and pence long after the establishment of our na-tional monetary system is all the more remarkable, because thatpeople had long before abandoned the use of all English coins, be-cause they used those terms whether the coins employed by themwere American or Spanish, and because an intense antipathy toEngland then prevailed among them. Their tendency to adhere toold customs, which has been referred to, made the English speechof my boyhood in Massachusetts decidedly dialectic. This ispartially illustrated by the following table, which shows thedialectic pronunciation of the now archaic monetary terms whichthe New England people habitually used. These terms and theirpronunciation pertained to the prevalent serious speech of the peo-ple and were in no way exceptional or frivolous. In view, how-ever, of the present sufficiency of our national coins in circulationbearing appropriate and established names, and of the prevalentcorrectness of English speech, the present monetary use of any ofthe archaic terms which have been discussed in the foregoing para-graphs partakes of the nature of slang.New England Dialectic Pronunciation of Archaic Monetary TermsMonetary terms. Dialectic pronun-ciation.Cent Cent.Half-dime Five cents.Dime Ten cents.Four pence and half-penny Fo'pnshapny.Sixpence Sixp'ns.Ninepence Ninep'ns.Shilling. . Shillin.One shilling and sixpence One'n'six.Two shillings Two shillins.Two shillings and sixpence. . . . Two'n'six.Three shillings Three shillins.Three shillings and sixpence ... Three'u'six.Four shillings Four shillins.Four shillings and sixpence ... ... Four'n'six.Five shillings Five shillins.Five shillings and sixpence .... Five'n'six.Six shillings Six shillins.Nine shillings Nine shillins.Ten shillings and sixpence i Ten'n'six.