Q.David Bowers
Gold Coinage of Oregon, Utah and Colorado
Oregon Territorial Gold Coins
During the 1840s there was a migration along the regon Trail to the territory of the same name. Earlier, few people lived there except representatives of the Hudson's Bay Co., the Northwest Co. and other fur traders plus, of course, the native Indians. Residents were not certain whether the area was controlled by Britain or by the United States.
Around 1820 the Northwest Co. had several forts or trading posts in the area which served as headquarters for transactions with the Umpqua Indians and others. Beaver skins were a medium of exchange. Often an 1820-dated token, holed at the top for suspension, and minted in Birmingham, England, by John Walker & Co., would be exchanged for a skin, such token being redeemable for merchandise at one of the company's forts. These tokens were highly prized by the native Indians who were sometimes buried with their earthly treasures. Thus, over a century later, in the 1960s on the banks of the Umpqua River, an Indian gravesite was found which contained a skull, 26 of the 1820 Northwest Co. tokens, and a copper kettle, the latter serving as the repository.
The provisional government of the Oregon Territory passed an act on December 10, 1845 which provided that:
Treasury drafts, approved orders on solvent merchants, and good merchantable wheat at market value, delivered at such places as is customary for merchants to receive wheat, shall be lawful tender for the payment of taxes and judgment rendered in the courts of Oregon Territory, where no special contracts have been made to the contrary.
When gold was discovered in California in 1848 news spread quickly to Oregon. By 1849 a sizable percentage of the white population had journeyed southward to seek gold. Many returned to the Oregon territory in the same year bringing with them quantities of gold dust. Earlier in 1849 there were a number of petitions to establish a mint in Oregon, one of which petitioned the Legislature of Oregon Territory as follows:
We the citizens of said Territory would humbly beg leave to urge upon your Honorable Body the necessity of establishing a mint in this Territory under the direction of the Government. Your Honorable Body is aware that vast quantities of gold dust were brought to this country in a manner that is useless and dead to the community. They must either sell it at a great discount or not sell it. Farmers find it very inconvenient to deal in these articles as but a few are provided with scales and if they have them they find it very difficult to trade it. Your petitioners would humbly beg your Honorable Body to take the necessary steps to grant the prayer of such petitioners ...
Oregon City, February 7, 1849.
Another petition, this one bearing the signature of 50 citizens, stated:
We the undersigned petitioners of Oregon Territory respectfully represent to your Honorable Body that in consequence of the failure or neglect of the government of the United States to extend jurisdiction and protection over this long-neglected Territory, the time has arrived when the people through their representatives should act with firmness and decision for the protection of their interest against the combined monopolies of the wheat and gold dust trade. We your petitioners are of the opinion that the only sure method of securing the disease is to remove the cause, the cause being the scarcity of coined money in the hands of the people, and to remove that cause, we your petitioners pray your Honorable Body to establish a mint in Oregon Territory for the coinage of gold to be equal in fineness to the gold coin of the United States, and to be lawful tender in the amount of debts and to place such safeguards and restrictions around said mint as you may in your wisdom think best and also to regulate the price of uncoined gold.
The Legislature, on February 15, 1849, passed by a vote of 16 to 2 an act which provided for the establishment of a territorial mint in Oregon City. It was provided that any profits arising from the coinage would be used to pay the debt of the Cayuse Indian War.
The Treasurer was authorized to purchase gold dust of virgin purity at $16.50 per ounce. The coin should be lawful tender throughout the Territory at $1 per pennyweight. Punishment was provided for anyone who traded gold of false weight or who stamped gold without legal permission. The mint was to be established in Oregon City, an important village 15 miles distant from Portland. The act provided that:
The dies for stamping shall represent on one side the Roman figure 5 for the pieces of five pennyweights and the Roman figure 10 for the pieces of ten pennyweights. The reverse side shall have the words "Oregon Territory" and the date of the year of stamping, around the face, with the arms of Oregon in the center.
Joseph Lane, the governor, declared the legislative act to be unconstitutional on March 3rd, for it seemed to be in conflict with United States government coinage laws. To remedy the situation a group of eight prominent merchants and citizens banded together to establish a private mint. The principals were W. K. Kilborne, Theophilus Magruder, James Taylor, George Abernathy, W. H. Willson, William H. Rector, J. G. Campbell, and Noyes Smith. The firm was designated as the Oregon Exchange Co.
Hamilton Campbell, a Methodist missionary, was employed to cut dies for a $5. Victor Wallace, machinist, engraved the dies for a coin of the $10 denomination. The coins produced were to be virgin gold without alloy.
The $5 gold dies bore on the obverse the initials K.M.T.A.W.R.G.S., representing the names of the company members. The G was an error and should have been C for Campbell. The obverse of the $5 piece pictured a beaver on a log, facing to the right, the same animal which, being a trademark of the Territory, was earlier used on the Northwest Co. tokens. Below was the designation T.O. for Territory of Oregon, and below that, the year 1849, with branches to the sides. On the reverse appeared the notation OREGON EXCHANGE COMPANY, 130 G. NATIVE GOLD 5 D. The pieces contained 130 grains of gold, or nearly 51/2 pennyweight.
The $10 design was similar to the $5 except that the error of the G initial was corrected and the letter C substituted. The initials of Abernathy and Willson were omitted, perhaps because they had left the firm by the later time that the $10 issues were made. The abbreviation of Oregon Territory was changed to O.T. rather than the earlier T.O. With the exception of the denomination and weight information, the design closely followed that of the earlier $5. The dies were engraved very lightly on the reverse, with the result that coins struck were characteristically very weak on that side.