The History of United States Coinage As Illustrated by the Garrett Collection
Q.David Bowers
Maryland Coinage
On June 20, 1632, Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, received from King Charles I of England a grant for a new province named for the queen, Mary, and designated as "Terra Maria," or Maryland. The king's royalty was to consist of one fifth of the gold and silver which might be found there plus a yearly tribute of two Indian arrows. On November 22, 1633, the Ark and the Dove left the Isle of Wight, near the coast of England, and set sail for the new territory. On February 24, 1634, the adventurers arrived in the colony of Virginia. After spending time there they left on May 8th for their new land. Much of what is known today concerning early Maryland coinage is drawn from S. S. Streeter's "Sketch of the Early Currency in Maryland and Virginia," a paper read before the historical society of Maryland and published in The Historical Magazine, Volume II, page 42. Streeter related that the principal commodity in Maryland in the early days was tobacco, as it was also in Virginia. For a time it saw service as a circulating medium. Rents for certain land were payable in tobacco at a stated value. Corn, furs, powder and shot, and other articles of trade and commerce also served as currency from time to time. Circulating metallic coinage was rare.
Governor William Stone, acting on the suggestion of some of the Maryland colonists, investigated having a coinage prepared in England for use in Maryland. Dies were prepared accordingly and specimens were struck. On October 16, 1659, Cecil Calvert sent letters to the governor and council and also to his brother. To the Council went the following communication:
After my hardy commendations, having of great pains and charges procurred necessaries for a particular coin to be current in Maryland, a sample whereof, a piece of a shilling, a sixpence, and a groat [a silver coin of the value of four pence], I herewith send you, I recommend it to you to promote, all you can, to dispersing it, and by proclamation to make current within Maryland, for all payments upon contracts or causes happening or arising after a day to be by you limited in the said proclamation; and to procure an act of Assembly for the punishing of such as shall counterfeit the said coin or otherwise offend in that behalf, according to the form of an act recommended by me last year to my governor and secretary; or as near it as you can procure from the assembly, and to give me your advice next year touching upon what you think best to be further done in that matter touching coin; for its encouragement be given by the good success of it this year, there will be abundance of adventurers in it the next year.
At the same time the following letter went to his brother Philip, who was then serving as secretary of state:
To my most affectionate, loving brother, Philip Calvert, Esq., at St. Mary's, in Maryland. I sent a sample of the Maryland money, with directions for the procuring it to pass, because I understood by letters this year from the governor and you and others that there was no doubt but the people there would accept of it, which if we find they do, there will be means found to supply you all there with money enough; but though it would be a very great advantage of the Colony that it should pass current there, and an utter discouragement for the future supply of any more, if there be not a certain establishment this year, and assurance of its being vented and current there, yet it must not be imposed upon the people but by a law there made by their consent in a General Assembly, which I pray fail not to signify to the governor and Council there together from me, by showing them this letter from your most affectionate brother, C. Baltimore.
Philip Calvert received a commission to act as governor. In November 1660 he set about complying with the wishes of his brother Cecil. In April 1661 an Assembly met in St. John's, and an act was drawn up and passed "for setting up a mint within the Province of Maryland." On May 1,1661, an act was passed which provided that a mint be established to coin pieces of silver "as good silver as the current coin of English sterling money ... " Suitable punishment was specified for those who counterfeited the proposed issues. An act to promulgate the circulation of Maryland issues was passed on April 12, 1662. This legislation specified that every householder and freeman in the province should take ten shillings per poll in the new coinage for every taxable under their charge and custody, and that the same should be paid for in casks of tobacco valued at two pence per pound, to be paid for each family for a period of three years.