THE

AMERICAN

NUMISMATICAL MANUAL

OF THE

CURRENCY OR MONEY OF THE ABORIGINES,

AND

COLONIAL, STATE, AND UNITED STATES COINS.

WITH

HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE

NOTICES OF EACH COIN OR SERIES.

BY

MONTROVILLE WILSON DICKESON, M. D.,

MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF SCIENCE, THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA, AND THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF NEW
YORK; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF COPENHAGEN, ETC. ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY NINETEEN PLATES OF FAC-SIMILES.

PHILADELPHIA:

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

DEDICATION.

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE AMERICAN UNION.

IN publishing this work, the basis of which is the Anglo-American Colonial coins, I have endeavored to rescue from the graves of modern antiquity those original, and, in many cases, rude representatives of value, which, to the early colonists and their successors for many years, possessed an importance in developing, conducting, and advancing their agricultural industry, trade, and commerce, equal in magnitude and purpose, relatively, with the more extended and perfect appliances of the present day.

Contrasting the coinage of our infant colonies with that of the present time; their struggles against kingly prerogative for its existence, with the undisturbed authority of the people over the same subject now, is an instructive commentary relative to their triumphs and our progress as freemen since, which is calculated to excite our wonder and induce our gratitude.

It shows that our fathers were so constituted, that though they might be worn out, they could not be crushed in their contests for ultimate freedom. In their weakness, full of diplomacy without compromising principle, principle was their bulwark in all their contests for self-government. Learning from dear-bought experience, that local security and national prosperity could neither be attained nor maintained by a legislation of foreign dictation, and that a fair but just independence of any authority

but their own could not be achieved but by making themselves sovereigns instead of remaining subjects, they early planted the seeds of liberty in every practicable form; among the earliest acts of which was the establishment of the Mint at Boston, whose fruits, meeting the popular taste, so excited the colonial appetite for more, that it laid the foundation for wants, which the open declaration of independence in 1776, and its acknowledgment in 1783, could only appease.

The full fruition of early purposes and struggles having been long since confirmed, may our country still further exemplify its progressive character; and through the patriotism and vigilance of its sovereigns, occupy, to the remotest period of time, its present exalted position among the nations of the earth; and may the people fail not to refresh their love of country by frequently contemplating the feeble sources of their origin seeing that the neglect of the lessons of the past leaves no certain guide for the future.

THE AUTHOR.