Q.David Bowers
There are two companies of regulars, mounted riflemen, stationed here for the protection of the encampments. I stopped at the store and found it full, there being two or three trains encamped close by. Among them is one of thirty wagons from Alton, Illinois. Almost every article can be had at an advance from 200 to 400 percent over prices in the United States. The sale of liquor was yesterday prohibited by an order from the officer at the fort. One man told me that he bought, previous to the order being given, fifteen gallons at thirty cents, and had since been offered $8 per gallon. The houses, consisting of about a dozen, are built of turf or sod cut from the prairies, having a frame of wood inside, wood being very scarce + the nearest on this side of the Platte being thirty miles.
We have been all forenoon picking up what wood we cooked our dinner with, finding it stick and chip at a time, from old encampments.
We first came in sight of the Platte yesterday, and struck it at the head of the "Grande Island," as it is called, being an island 90 miles long. Near us are encamped a wagon and six men, Mormons, just from California. I saw a specimen of the "dust;" it is in scales, about the size of a large pin's head hammered out. According to their account, there is enough for all who go; but, like some other places, it takes hard work to procure it. The specimen I saw weighed just ten dollars, pure gold-this was all they had convenient. I asked them how much they had made. They said they had dug until they were satisfied, and had all they wanted, which must be a large amount, if they are as greedy as some of us. One of them told me the most he ever made in the shortest time was $750 in half a day; he said they averaged $150 per day apiece.
More Gold Issues Appear
The firm of Moffat & Co. became a leading factor in selling and assaying gold. Beginning in the summer of 1849 the enterprise produced rectangular ingots or bars stamped with various values, with the $16 denomination, equal to one ounce of gold, being the most popular. Toward the end of July or early in August a $10 coin was issued by Moffat.
By the end of 1849 many different issues were to be seen. Some coins closely resembled United States Mint issues and had on the obverse a representation of the head of Liberty, but with the company name instead of LIBERTY on the head band; and on the reverse, an American eagle. Others were of original and distinctive designs. Adding to the flood of locally-made issues, gold coins produced by the Mormons at Great Salt Lake and pieces from the north in Oregon were occasionally seen.
Coiners who were particularly conscientious and honest endeavored to impart nearly full intrinsic gold value to their coins. Others issued debased pieces. Among the latter was the firm of Wright & Co., which on August 7, 1849, requested permission to issue gold coins of the $5 and $10 denominations. They stated that they were willing to post performance bonds and that their coins would be equal to the intrinsic value of the pieces produced by the United States Mint. The proposal was rejected.
Wright & Co.,exchange brokers, was located at the corner of Washington and Kearny streets, Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, early in September 1849. During the following November they organized as a banking firm. Composing the company were Stephen A. Wright, John Thompson, Samuel W. Haight, and J. C. L. Wadsworth. Known as the Miners' Bank, the institution was housed in a wooden frame structure for which $75,000 rent per year was paid. It is believed that coins of the denomination of $10 were produced by the firm in the autumn, apparently before the November 1849 partnership was completed, for William P. Hoit, assayer of the New Orleans Mint, reported on December 13, 1849, that he had assayed a Miners' Bank $10 nearly two months earlier:
On the 16th of October I assayed one ten-dollar piece, coined at San Francisco, nearly a facsimile of the United States gold eagle (Moffat & Co.); weight 258 grains; title 888 milliemes of gold, 60 do. of silver, and the balance of copper; value $9.78. This is the only coin in which art has been resorted to in making an alloy that I have seen. Also on the same day one ten-dollar piece of the Miners' Bank of San Francisco; stamp very different from that of the U.S.; weight 259 grains, title 866 milliemes of gold, 105 do. of silver, value $9.65.
As the intrinsic value of the Miners' Bank pieces wassignificantly below the face value, the issues were notreadily accepted. On December 14, 1850, the companydissolved. The issue of Alta California dated April 11, 1850, reported that:
The issue of the Miners' Bank is a drug on the market. Brokers refuse to touch it at less than 20 percent discount. Moffat's issue will probably soon be no better; he already refuses to redeem it in American gold. Those who have it would do well to get five-franc pieces to the dollar, which is really 7 percent discount for it, at Moffat's counter now, as it is not impossible that they may refuse to pay even that for it soon.
Assays proved that $10 pieces issued by Ormsby were worth $9.37, and the Pacific Company's $5 and $10 pieces were worth just $4.48 and $7.86 respectively, a low for the period. $10 coins issued by Moffat were intrinsically worth about $9.78.
These and other issues soon came into disrepute.
Coins of the Mormons were refused by all, once their especially low intrinsic value was known. One by one the various private coiners ceased business, as there was no longer a market for their pieces, except at a discount below their stamped value. In 1850 Moffat & Co. was the only surviving firm which did business earlier in 1849.
Merchants and the public alike complained about the losses sustained. As a result Mr. Woodworth, a member of the state legislature, introduced a bill which was subsequently recorded in the Alta California on January 26, 1850. It noted that various persons were making coins but were refusing to redeem the same in legal money of the United States, thereby inflicting an economic hardship on the population and deceiving the people. It was stated that:
The making and circulating of pieces of metal representing the coin of the United States is in direct violation of an Act of Congress, and subjects the maker or passer of such coin to the penalty imposed upon coiners and counterfeiters, and whereas great loss has been sustained by holders of this spurious coin, therefore be it resolved ... that all such persons as have made or caused to be made and circulated such representations of money be compelled by this Act to redeem all such pieces of coin or money as they may have issued or caused to be issued, within 30 days after the passage of this Act. And all such persons refusing to redeem the same within the time prescribed by the law in good and lawful money of the United States, and all persons who hereafter shall make or cause to be made, or issue or cause to be issued, "tokens," coins, or pieces of metal or other substance representing money, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to such penalties as are imposed by the laws of the United States upon counterfeiters and coiners.