Since there has been money in America, there had been people trying to counterfeit it.
Indians Cheated the Colonists
Indian wampum, strings of shell beads, was no exception. Counterfeit wampum became such a problem that the General Court of Rhode Island ordered all of the counterfeit wampum confiscated.
Wampum in Rhode Island was made from white whelk shells and purple quahog shells. The quahog shells were worth twice as much as the whelk shells in the Indian economy.
With gold and silver coins in short supply, the colonist agreed to accept the wampum as legal tender.
“It wasn’t long before the Indians realized that here was an opportunity to take advantage of the newcomers. They hoarded the valuable quahog shells for themselves, dyed the cheaper white shells a dark purplish black, then passed them off as the real thing to undiscerning Europeans,” Thomas Craughwell wrote in Stealing Lincoln’s Body (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007: pg. 30-31).
Once the deception was uncovered, the colonists went back to gold and silver coins.
First American Mint
Massachussetts authorized the first mint in British North America in 1652. The mint created silver coins. Some were stamped with NE for “New England” or had images of trees.
These also became the first coins counterfeited in America. John duPlessis was convicted of counterfeiting these coins in 1674.
Problems With Counterfeiting
“In 1682, William Penn complained that he could not bring his ‘holy experiment’ in Pennsylvania to fruition when half the coinage in the colony was phony.” (Thomas Craughwell, Stealing Lincoln’s Body, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007: pg. 31).
Counterfeit coins from England made their way overseas to become part of the American economy. Fake British halfpence were found during the construction of Interstate 95 in Pennsylvania. These coins date back to 1699, according to the University of Notre Dame Department of Special Collections. They are believed to have been buried shortly after arriving in America and never made it into general circulation.
Counterfeiting was such a problem in Connecticut in 1721 that the government considered accepting them as legal tender and valuing them at 2 pence.
Importing Counterfeit Coins
It is also believed that by the mid-18th Century, Britain may have been shipping counterfeit coins to American. The coins had been confiscated as currency in Britain. The information came out in the September 22, 1753 Boston Weekly News-Letter as part of a letter J. Williard of London sent to the editor of the paper.
The information apparently proved correct. Later newspaper reports show a man was arrested with bags of counterfeit coins, which were up to a third lighter than the legal coins.
Not Trusting Your Money
The obvious outcome is that people became suspicious of their currency. The New York Gazette reported on December 3, 1753, “The Confusion in this City, occasioned by counterfeit Copper English Halfpence amongst us, is almost inconceivable; --- for notwithstanding the large Quantities of good Pence we have now long had, there is now hardly any Sum offered, but there are counterfeit Ones intermixed; and to such a Degree of Suspicion, is the common People raised, that many good Pence, which have passed current perhaps for about 20 Years past are now refused.”
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