Bolen's Pynchon House die pair

Zoins

I was recently able to pick up dies for the Pynchon House medal made by John Adams Bolen. The Pynchon House was notable because it was the first brick house built in the Connecticut River Valley in 1660. It took a year to fire the 50,000 bricks in Northampton, England which were then shipped to the US to build the house. Because it was brick and not wood, it was the only building that wasn't burned down in Springfield in October, 1675 by Indians during King Philip's War after which it earned the nick name "The Old Fort". Colonists fled to and took shelter in the building. It was built by John Pynchon, son of William Pynchon, both of who came to America with the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John was a Major and then Colonel in the military and known as "The Worshipful Major" and then "The Worshipful Colonel". John and William, along with others, were known as "River Gods" of the Connecticut River Valley and the Indians called the settlers in the area "Pynchon's men".

Bolen struck just 150 medals from these dies, 10 in silver, 45 in brass and 95 in copper. From auction records, it seems the brass specimens may be as rare as it more rare than the silver ones. These dies were previously owned by Q. David Bowers. Unlike the dies donated to the ANS by Bolen's wife, these were retained by the family and eventually sold by his son in 1940.

Given the few pieces that were struck, I was amazed by the pedigree information available on some of these so I put together the following guide with some background on the Pynchons and a Condition Census:

Here's my draft guide:

• https://privatemintnews.com/books/privatemintnews-book-bolen-pynchon-house.pdf

Here are images of my dies and the one medal specimen I have so far:

Of note, the Pynchon House appears to be featured on the Springfield 250th Anniversary HK-609 So-Called Dollar and the Pynchon Bank's 2 Dollar Bill.

Springfield 250th Anniversary

HK-609 has what looks like the Pynchon house, minus some windows

• https://www.so-calleddollars.com/Events/Springfield_250th_Anniversary.html

Pynchon Bank 2 Dollar Bill

William Pynchon was the founder of Springfield and his son John was a magistrate of the town. They became very wealthy and the local bank was named after them. This 2 dollar bill from the Pynchon Bank showcases the Pynchon House. Eventually the bank became a National Bank as well.

• https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/lots/view/1-1G9O7/springfield-massachusetts-pynchon-bank-nd-18xx-2-choice-uncirculated-proof

CaptHenway

Well those are kewl!

I don't want to see any restrikes now!!!!!

DCW

Great set of dies, John. It is amazing that these have survived and were available. The medals are awesome, but what could be cooler than owning the dies that struck them?
Also, you've added a very thoughtful write up about the history of the Pynchon house. I commend you for a fine thread!

ricko

Thanks for the history and the pictures.... very interesting.... Cheers, RickO

Zoins

@CaptHenway said:
Well those are kewl!

I don't want to see any restrikes now!!!!!

Yeah, it's pretty amazing to hold these given how old they are. I'm just happy to have these right now and look for silver and brass specimens to add to the collection. No plans for any restrikes now, but a couple of gold medals are fun to think about!

thisistheshow

All I can say is Wow! And thanks for sharing!

Barndog

totally need to strike one in gold!

coinsarefun

I was watching this....very happy it went to someone here and who better than someone that absolutely loves to write about them!! So Manny, many excellent tokens and dies are now owned by PCGS members here.....makes me feel warm and all fuzzy inside

Zoins

@DCW said:
Great set of dies, John. It is amazing that these have survived and were available. The medals are awesome, but what could be cooler than owning the dies that struck them?
Also, you've added a very thoughtful write up about the history of the Pynchon house. I commend you for a fine thread!

Thanks Dennis! It's definitely great to own both the dies and one of the medals. The medal is a nice specimen and very reflective. The copper ones are much more common than silver and brass but many have a dull look to them. This is one of the livelier ones I've seen. The Edson specimen in copper is the other flashy one I’ve seen and it sold for a health sum!

It was a lot of fun reading about the Pynchon House. I had to put together the information above from several sources. It was definitely a famous house and what made it more special is that William Pynchon founded Springfield and moved the town from Connecticut to Massachusetts, the same town that Bolen moved to and did all his die sinking in.

An extra bonus is that a lot of the information is kept in websites maintained by descendents of the Pynchons so it's easy to trace the history of the family and in between there was book published on the family by a family member. Links to all of these as original sources are available in the PDF.

LanLord

Am I the only one that thought I was going to need to send my condolences to the family of Bolen Pynchon House?

Zoins

@LanLord said:
Am I the only one that thought I was going to need to send my condolences to the family of Bolen Pynchon House?

I'm not sure but I changed the title so it's a bit more obvious

Smudge

Could some of the bricks have been use as ballast?

Zoins

@coinsarefun said:
I was watching this....very happy it went to someone here and who better than someone that absolutely loves to write about them!! So Manny, many excellent tokens and dies are now owned by PCGS members here.....makes me feel warm and all fuzzy inside

Thanks Stef! I had a great time writing about these pieces. The history of the house, John Pynchon and Springfield was great to dive into. I'm equally impressed by the pedigree information that is available for many of these and am glad to have been able to assemble them.

I agree it's amazing how many great tokens and dies are owned by PCGS members now. Seeing your collection and that of others is a treat and inspiration. It's great that we all come together and share here

Zoins

This is an interesting bit of history I came across while researching John Pynchon. This is the contract for men representing John Pynchon to purchase and from the Pocumtuck Indians. You can see "John Pynchon" in the lower right of the document.

• http://www.memorialhall.mass.edu/collection/itempage.jsp?itemid=5716

This document is a deed for land that would become the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts. A group of men from Dedham, Massachusetts, delegated John Pynchon, a well-known and powerful Englishman in Springfield, Massachusetts, to represent them in this land transfer. A sachem called Chauk represented the Pocumtuck, the Native group whose homelands encompassed the land described in the deed. Whether or not the Pocumtuck Sachem, Chauk, could or intended to sell land to the English is debatable. To alienate land completely may have been beyond the authority of any one individual in Native American societies of the Northeast. The language of the deed suggests that Chauk viewed the agreement as a traditional transfer of land use. For example, he reserved for the Pocumtuck fishing, hunting and gathering rights on the very land he had just "sold." European notions of exclusive land ownership and Native beliefs of land stewardship and usage were ultimately incompatible. Disagreements immediately arose as settlers moved into Deerfield and elsewhere and asserted what they saw as their exclusive rights to the land they had purchased.

kbbpll

Interesting to think that my ancestors probably knew or crossed paths with Pynchon. They were all over Massachusetts and Connecticut from the late 1620s on. One founded Waranoak/Woronoco MA, part of Springfield, which became Westfield - Thomas Dewey Jr was granted land there in 1665. He owned at least three mills with his brothers (ca 1672), was appointed surveyor in 1677, and licensed a tavern in 1676. There is no mention in my grandmother's genealogy of the burning in 1675, but certainly he was there. He died in Westfield in 1690.

Edit: Wow, further digging - my ancestor had an account at Pynchon's store in Westfield in 1663. http://josfamilyhistory.com/htm/nickel/griffin/sheldon/noble/noble-dewey.htm. "The only store in this neighborhood at this early period was that belonging to John Pynchon of Springfield, where Thomas Dewey, like most others, had an account." Fascinating what you can find from almost 400 years ago on the internet.

Justacommeman

Love

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Zoins

@kbbpll said:
Interesting to think that my ancestors probably knew or crossed paths with Pynchon. They were all over Massachusetts and Connecticut from the late 1620s on. One founded Waranoak/Woronoco MA, part of Springfield, which became Westfield - Thomas Dewey Jr was granted land there in 1665. He owned at least three mills with his brothers (ca 1672), was appointed surveyor in 1677, and licensed a tavern in 1676. There is no mention in my grandmother's genealogy of the burning in 1675, but certainly he was there. He died in Westfield in 1690.

Edit: Wow, further digging - my ancestor had an account at Pynchon's store in Westfield in 1663. http://josfamilyhistory.com/htm/nickel/griffin/sheldon/noble/noble-dewey.htm. "The only store in this neighborhood at this early period was that belonging to John Pynchon of Springfield, where Thomas Dewey, like most others, had an account." Fascinating what you can find from almost 400 years ago on the internet.

It's amazing what you can, and did, find out about your family online! Thanks for sharing it. I think it's really neat to be able to trace your family that far back, to over a century before the founding of the country.

You might be interested in contacting the author of the website, Joann River, as this is her genealogy website for her family, the River-Hopkins, Saemann-Nickel and Related Families. Her email addressed is posted on the site: family-historian@post.com .

She has the following to say about the Dewey family in the link you copied which indicates you two may have had a common ancestor! She's also a descendent of the Pynchons so it could be interesting to see if you're related too.

A note about the numbers in parentheses: More of my ancestors are in the Dewey family, I believe, than any other family. This is my mother’s line; I have Deweys in my father’s line as well, and they crossed over in several generations. Same names were given in different generations making it very confusing. Therefore, I’ve included the numbers assigned by the Dewey genealogy against each person.

I think there's so much great general American History that it would be great to turn this website into a book.

kbbpll

@Zoins - Yes, we appear to at least be related through Thomas Dewey Sr's children. Mine goes through Thomas Jr and the website author's seems to go through his brother, Jedediah Dewey. (My grandmother calls him Jebediah, not Jedediah). I'm not sure why the author devoted such an extensive section to Thomas Jr since it wasn't her ancestor, but I'm glad she did, since that's where Pynchon comes in. Josiah Dewey, another brother, became the ancestor of Admiral George Dewey from the Spanish-American War, and the author's ancestor Jedediah became the ancestor of Gov. Thomas Dewey, defeated by Truman in that famous wrong newspaper headline. My grandmother was very proud of the fact that her father and Gov. Thomas Dewey shared the same family relationship with Admiral Dewey.

This stuff is such spaghetti though, going back so far. It makes my head hurt to look at it. Thomas Dewey Jr had 10 children, and two of his sons both married Sarah Root - one Sarah was the daughter of John Root, and the other Sarah was the daughter of Thomas Root, both brothers. The latter Sarah married Israel Dewey (my ancestors), their son was Aaron Dewey, then they had THREE sons named Aaron. The first two died (4 months old and 9 days old), and the custom was to name the next child the same as the one that died. The third Aaron was my ancestor. Then, of course, his first kid was also named Aaron. Aaron Dewey III. Then suddenly this whole Westfield MA clan is in New York, then Ohio, then Wisconsin, where Aaron III dies in 1849. On top of all that, you've got all these people naming their kids after their friends, who then marry the kids of their parents' friends who were named after their own parents, and it's like a Dostoevsky novel trying to keep all these characters straight.

And there must be thousands of people today who could trace their ancestry to the Deweys, or the Roots, or the Pynchons. Those people had 10-14 children each back then.

Back to the topic, searching for King Phillip's War led me to this: "The Indians next attacked Springfield, Massachusetts on October 5, 1675, the Connecticut River's largest settlement at the time. They burned to the ground nearly all of Springfield's buildings, including the town's grist mill. Most of the Springfielders who escaped unharmed took cover at the house of Miles Morgan, a resident who had constructed one of the settlement's few fortified blockhouses." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip's_War#Attack_on_Springfield)

Is it possible that the coin commemorates the wrong house? Or they mixed up Pynchon with Miles Morgan, or they both had fortified brick houses?

Zoins

@kbbpll said:
@Zoins - Yes, we appear to at least be related through Thomas Dewey Sr's children. Mine goes through Thomas Jr and the website author's seems to go through his brother, Jedediah Dewey. (My grandmother calls him Jebediah, not Jedediah). I'm not sure why the author devoted such an extensive section to Thomas Jr since it wasn't her ancestor, but I'm glad she did, since that's where Pynchon comes in. Josiah Dewey, another brother, became the ancestor of Admiral George Dewey from the Spanish-American War, and the author's ancestor Jedediah became the ancestor of Gov. Thomas Dewey, defeated by Truman in that famous wrong newspaper headline. My grandmother was very proud of the fact that her father and Gov. Thomas Dewey shared the same family relationship with Admiral Dewey.

This stuff is such spaghetti though, going back so far. It makes my head hurt to look at it. Thomas Dewey Jr had 10 children, and two of his sons both married Sarah Root - one Sarah was the daughter of John Root, and the other Sarah was the daughter of Thomas Root, both brothers. The latter Sarah married Israel Dewey (my ancestors), their son was Aaron Dewey, then they had THREE sons named Aaron. The first two died (4 months old and 9 days old), and the custom was to name the next child the same as the one that died. The third Aaron was my ancestor. Then, of course, his first kid was also named Aaron. Aaron Dewey III. Then suddenly this whole Westfield MA clan is in New York, then Ohio, then Wisconsin, where Aaron III dies in 1849. On top of all that, you've got all these people naming their kids after their friends, who then marry the kids of their parents' friends who were named after their own parents, and it's like a Dostoevsky novel trying to keep all these characters straight.

And there must be thousands of people today who could trace their ancestry to the Deweys, or the Roots, or the Pynchons. Those people had 10-14 children each back then.

Agreed that tracing this family can be very challenging. I think Joann River does a great job of documenting her ancestors which traces their origins back to the Deweys and Pynchons. I hope her writings can be turned into a book for posterity. I've seen too many websites created as a labor of love simply disappear after it's too difficult to maintain.

Back to the topic, searching for King Phillip's War led me to this: "The Indians next attacked Springfield, Massachusetts on October 5, 1675, the Connecticut River's largest settlement at the time. They burned to the ground nearly all of Springfield's buildings, including the town's grist mill. Most of the Springfielders who escaped unharmed took cover at the house of Miles Morgan, a resident who had constructed one of the settlement's few fortified blockhouses." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip's_War#Attack_on_Springfield)

Is it possible that the coin commemorates the wrong house? Or they mixed up Pynchon with Miles Morgan, or they both had fortified brick houses?

Joann River writes that John Pynchon's house was a fortified brick house that survived the town burning on October 16th, 1675. Seems like the the town may have been burned a few times?

• http://josfamilyhistory.com/htm/nickel/griffin/sheldon/whiting/whiting-pynchon-jn.htm

OUR PYNCHON FAMILY
MAJOR JOHN PYNCHON
Generation 6
[...]
HOME AND HOME LIFE
John made his first trip to England in 1656, by this time thirty years of age. He resided either in London or Wraysbury, Buckinghamshire, from the September 10, 1656, until November 3, 1657. Unfortunately, there are no letters from this period.

On January 12, 1659, he placed an order for 50,000 bricks to be burned at Northampton for his new mansion, the bricks to be completed by the 12th of December.

His new mansion would be the first brick home in the Connecticut Valley. The house was built to connect with the older wooden house of his father, which became a wing of the new brick one. The carpenters and masons were from Windsor. The building was 42 feet long, and 21 feet wide. The walls, thick and solid, rose about 22 feet from the ground to the eaves. The roof was very steep, and the ridge was about 22 feet in perpendicular height above the garret-floor.

The house was intended to be a fortified house and was known as the "Old Fort". During King Philip's War, John was in Hadley with his troops on October 16th, 1675, when the Indians attacked and burned the town. The Pynchon "fort" became a refuge during the attack and subsequent burning of the town.

kbbpll

@Zoins - much of the stuff about the Deweys on the Joann River website is almost word for word what my grandmother has in our genealogy. I think they both probably plagiarized it from the Dewey book listed in River's references. So there is already a book, or several, but tying them into one's own story weaves a different tale of course. Mine joins the Deweys with Aaron III's daughter from his first wife. Lamira Francis Dewey (b.1801) married George Logue (b.1789) in 1818, and from there a straight shot to grandma, who was also a Logue (b.1906). Of course, each Dewey had a wife with her own tree. Along one of those lines we go back to 1629 as a "first arrival". It's all very interesting.

I believe Springfield was attacked and burned twice in October 1675 - the 5th and the 16th. I can't find the reference where I saw both dates together. Probably the Miles Morgan house saved everybody on the 5th and the Pynchon house on the 16th or something. Apparently there is a statue of Morgan in a park in Springfield. Or was. What a nasty time to live in that area. My grandmother made many references to how many of our ancestors fought in the "Indian Wars" as she called them.

Pynchon's father became the first person to have a book banned (and burned) in this country. That was an interesting tidbit I picked up while looking around. His trial was on the same date as the first witch trial. He signed everything over to his son and moved back to England.

I read through your pdf. Great research!

Zoins

@kbbpll said:
I believe Springfield was attacked and burned twice in October 1675 - the 5th and the 16th. I can't find the reference where I saw both dates together. Probably the Miles Morgan house saved everybody on the 5th and the Pynchon house on the 16th or something. Apparently there is a statue of Morgan in a park in Springfield. Or was. What a nasty time to live in that area. My grandmother made many references to how many of our ancestors fought in the "Indian Wars" as she called them.

Both October 5 and 16, 1675 dates seem significant as Henry Morris delivered an address on the October 16, 1875, the 200th anniversary of the burning which has been turned into a 85 page book linked below. This followed a centennial sermon on October 16, 1775. On October 16, 1875 Morris mentions the “catastrophe of October 5, 1675.” Might be worth buying and reading. Here’s an excerpt:

I have in my possession a printed copy of a sermon, from the title-page of which it appears to have been delivered in the First Parish in Springfield on the 16th of October, 1775, just one hundred years from the burning of the town by the Indians. By Robert Breck, A. M., pastor of the church there.

Upon receiving the invitation printed on a previous page, it seemed to me that the precedent of 1775 might properly be followed in 1875, and so I consented to undertake the task.

I do not claim for this address the merit of being a full history of this town, during the period of time covered by it. Its main purpose is to narrate with as much particular ity as possible, the incidents of the Indian assault upon the town. The history of such antecedent events has been given as appeared suitable to introduce the narrative of the catastrophe of October 5, 1675.

The fact that people were building and living in fortified houses indicates how dangerous it was back then. Another interesting thing is the note from the Memorial Hall Museum on the "Deed of Pacomtuck land granted by Chauk to Dedham residents". It seems like the colonists and Indians had very different ideas of land use. Imagine what the Indians thought of the first brick houses built that wouldn’t burn.

One thing I read in another book on early America was that the Indians and colonists had different concepts in other areas in addition to land use, namely treatment of prisoners of warfare. In conflicts with Indians, the Indians would add women and children of the defeated side to their tribe, a concept that was alien to and did not sit will with colonists.

Here's the book by Henry Morris:

1636-1675, Early History of Springfield: An Address Delivered October 16, 1875, on the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Burning of the Town by the Indians

Here's a reprint, and a first edition below.

• https://www.amazon.com/1636-1675-Early-History-Springfield-Anniversary/dp/1332895875

First edition:

• https://www.abaa.org/book/942981632

Zoins

Just ran across the following engraving of the Pynchon House. Would be nice to buy it to get a better scan. I'd need to think about it because I'd prefer to have the full document rather than just the page.

• https://www.ebay.com/itm/CR13-Pynchon-House-Springfield-erected-1660-Massachusetts-1841-Engraving/372658102800

NumisOxide

Original dies like this from the 19th century fascinate me. Even better having a complete die pair! What year were these medals struck?

Zoins

Looks like the engraving was in the following book John Warner Barber:

Historical Collections ... relating to the history and antiquities of every town in Massachusetts, with geographical descriptions. [With illustrations.]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11224050053/in/photostream/

Zoins

@coinJP said:
Original dies like this from the 19th century fascinate me. Even better having a complete die pair! What year were these medals struck?

The info I have says the medals were struck in 1881, 50 years after the house was taken down from its original location in 1831. While the token says it was "taken down", other reports say the house was moved in location. It seems like the house still existed in 1883, 2 years after the medal was struck.

The mansion was used by the Pynchon family until it was moved in 1831, to make room for a more modern house. In 1831, it was removed to Cross Street, where it served as a house and laundry. It was again altered in 1883, at which time there were still marks of antiquity about it.

It would be great to learn whether Bolen struck these for himself or if someone commissioned him to strike them. Perhaps there's some info in his notes.

Pioneer1

@Zoins said:
Bolen struck just 150 medals from these dies, 10 in silver, 45 in brass and 95 in copper. From auction records, it seems the brass specimens may be as rare as it more rare than the silver ones.

This brass piece sold today to me in the Nov 2020 Stacks-Bowers Auction:

So happy to have gotten it for my small Bolen collection...

Zoins

@Pioneer1 said:

@Zoins said:
Bolen struck just 150 medals from these dies, 10 in silver, 45 in brass and 95 in copper. From auction records, it seems the brass specimens may be as rare as it more rare than the silver ones.

This brass piece sold today to me in the Nov 2020 Stacks-Bowers Auction:

So happy to have gotten it for my small Bolen collection...

Wow! That's awesome! I was watching that one and hoping someone here would get it! The fields look nice and deep on the obverse. With so few made, getting any is quite an accomplishment. Congrats

Here's my Henry South specimen which I picked up back in March, also from Stack's! I wish I had bid on the silver but missed out on it. Have to wait for another one!

Zoins

I should post my Pynchon House So-Called Dollars here too as they cover the same subject matter and show how important the house is to Springfield. These were created by brothers William H. and Charles K. Warner of Philadelphia.

1886 Springfield 250th Anniversary So-Called Dollar - Bronze - HK-608

This is simply a gorgeous specimen I was able to pick up raw. Have to get it slabbed some time.

1886 Springfield 250th Anniversary So-Called Dollar - White Metal - HK-609

This one is much whiter than appears here and quite reflective.