Q.David Bowers
On September 10, 1786, the company leased the apparatus to Mark Leavenworth, Isaac Baldwin, and William Leavenworth for a period of six weeks.
Additional transfers of interest took place, so that in June 1787 the ownership stood as follows: James Jarvis, 9/16th part; James Hillhouse, 1/8th part; Mark Leavenworth, 1/8th part; Abel Buel, 1/8th part; and John Goodrich, 1/16th part. Around that time the business ended.
Inspectors from the legislature found out that 28,944 pounds weight of coppers were produced, with one twentieth part, or 1,477 pounds and three ounces of copper, being transmitted to Connecticut as a royalty. At the time the coppers passed in circulation at 18 pieces to a shilling.
The committee further learned that Major Eli Leavenworth, apparently a relative of the other two Leavenworths, earlier associated with the venture, made blank coppers in autumn 1788 and had them stamped in New York with various impressions. Some of these apparently had inscriptions relating to Connecticut, but others were of different designs.
It was further found that Abel Buel had gone to Europe. Before leaving he gave his son Benjamin the right to produce coppers. As of the committee meeting in 1789, Benjamin Buel had just begun to issue pieces of undetermined design.
James Jarvis, majority shareholder in the Connecticut enterprise at the close of business, was also the contractor for the 1787 Fugio copper coinage, to which we refer. On June 20, 1789; the right to coin coppers was suspended. Thus concluded the official Connecticut production.
Charles I. Bushnell, who in the late 1850s did extensive research in the field of early American coins, medals, and tokens, entered the following in his manuscript notes:
Hon. Henry Meigs, late of this city (New York); deceased, informed me in September 1854 that Connecticut coins were made in a building situated under the Southern Bluff, near the center of the north shore of the harbor in New Haven, west of the Broome and Platt houses. Mr. Meigs lived at the time between the latter residences, at a short distance from the mint house. He visited it frequently and saw the press in operation. The building was a small frame house, and he thinks was painted red. Messrs. Broome and Platt, who had formerly been merchants in the city of New York, and who were men of fortune, he thinks must have had a subcontract for the manufacture of the State coinage, as Mr. Broome superintended the mint, and gave orders to the men, not more than three of whom were seen at work at one time. Both members of the firm would sometimes distribute some of the coins among the boys, among whom was my informant. Mr. Meigs said he saw the mint in operation in 1788, and that it had been in operation some considerable time before that. The coins were struck by means of a powerful iron screw. Mr. F. Kingsbury thinks that the house described by Mr. Meigs was probably at a place at Morris Cove, now so called, which is on the right hand side of the harbor going up, and about two miles above the lighthouse. The firm of Broome and Platt was composed of Samuel Broome and Jeremiah Platt.
I have understood from another source that a building at Westville, at the foot of West Rock, about two miles inland from New Haven, was likewise used for the coinage of-Connecticut coppers. At the time the old building was. last seen, it contained an old coining press, and the remnants of copper castings.
The dies for the Connecticut coins were made by Abel Buel and James Atlee, as evidenced by comparing the letter punches with other of their known works. While most of the 1785 coins were probably struck in the New Haven area, a number of the later issues, particularly those which were quite light in weight, were undoubtedly struck at Machin's Mills near Newburgh, New York. Bearing dates from 1785 through 1788 inclusive, Connecticut coppers were issued in over 300 die varieties, the largest number of any state copper coinage.
Connecticut coppers, which circulated widely,were considered to be "fair game" for other coiners. It is probable that in addition to unofficial coinage at Machin's Mills, other pieces were struck in Morristown, New Jersey, by the makers of New Jersey coppers.
As Connecticut coppers circulated at a higher value than certain of their contemporaries, many Irish half-pennies, counterfeit British halfpennies, and other pieces were overstruck with Connecticut designs, probably at Machin's Mills. In the same location, Vermont coins, particularly of the 1787-1788 years, were similarly produced by over striking pieces of lesser value.
New Jersey Copper Coinage 1786-1788
On June 1, 1786, the Council and General Assembly of New Jersey granted the coining privilege to a group composed of Walter Mould, Thomas Goadsby, and Albion Cox. Walter Mould, an Englishman, earlier had engaged in minting in his native country. It was specified that the pieces produced would be of pure copper of the weight of six pennyweight and six grains each.
On November 17, 1786, Goadsby and Cox petitioned the General Assembly to give them separately a 2/3 interest of the business, with Walter Mould to in-dependently conduct the remaining 1/3. This bill was passed on November 22nd. Goadsby and Cox obtained the right to coin 6,666 pounds, 13 shillings, and 4 pence worth of coppers. Mould was given the separate right to coin 1/3 of the total amount, or 3,333 pounds, 6 shillings, and 8 pence value.
Walter Mould's mint was located in Morristown, New Jersey. The structure was described in a letter dated August 8, 1855, from W. C. Baker to Charles I. Bushnell:
There were two mint-houses in this State. One located in Morristown, and the other in Elizabethtown. The minthouse of the former place, which is still standing, was the residence of John Cleve Symmes, Chief Justice of the State of New Jersey, uncle to John Cleve Symmes, author of The Hole at the North Pole and father-in-law of Gen. William H. Harrison, President of the United States. The residence was called "Solitude." It was at one time occupied by Mr. Holloway, and is known by some as the "Holloway House." The mint here was carried on by Walter Mould, an Englishman, who previous to his coming to America, had been employed in a similar way in Birmingham. [Birmingham, England, was a manufacturing center at the time, and several private mints were located there.] In the coinage of the New Jersey coppers, a screw with a long lever was employed. This information is vouched for by Mr. Lewis Condict, of Morristown, who saw the mint in operation.
The building in Elizabethtown, used as a mint-house, is near to the house formerly occupied by Col. Francis Barber, of the Revolutionary Army, and is known as the "Old Armstrong House." It is still standing and is situated in Water Street, and the coins were made in a shed back of the main building. The coining here was carried on by a man named Gilbert Rindle, probably for the account of Messrs. Goadsby and Cox. I have this from Mrs. [name not given, a blank was substituted here], of Elizabethtown, who remembers the circumstance.