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MidLifeCrisis

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MidLifeCrisis

Excerpts from the PCGS Coin Guide: Among the most interesting of all early American issues are the copper tokens struck circa 1737-1739 by Dr. Samuel Higley, of Granby, Connecticut. Higley, a medical doctor with a degree from Yale College, also practiced blacksmithing and made many experiments in metallurgy. In 1727 he devised a practical method of producing steel.





In 1728, Higley purchased property on a hill near Granby which furnished the site for many copper mines, the most famous being the extensive mine corridors and shafts which were later used as the Newgate Prison. Mines on the hill were worked extensively during the early and middle 18th century.
In October 1773, the Connecticut General Assembly passed an act which pertained to the various subterranean caverns and external buildings of the copper mines in Simsbury and converted them for use as a public jail and workhouse. Phelps, in his History of the Copper Mines in Newgate Priso at Granby, Connecticut, notes that:
"The prisoners were to be employed in mining. The crimes, by which the acts subjected offenders to confinement and labor in the prison, were burglary, horse stealing, and counterfeiting the public bills or coins, or making instruments and dies therefore."

By the time Newgate Prison was abandoned in 1827, the buildings had been destroyed by fire three times. The cruel, dark, damp conditions precipitated numerous revolts and violent incidents. Escapes were frequent.





Following his 1728 purchase, Dr. Samuel Higley operated a small but thriving mining business, which extracted exceptionally rich copper. Much if not most of the metal was exported to England. Sometime around the year 1737, Higley produced a copper token. The obverse depicted a standing deer with the legend THE VALUE OF THREEPENCE. The reverse showed three crowned hammers with the surrounding legend, CONNECTICUT, and the date 1737.
Legend tells us that drinks in the local tavern sold at the time for three pence each, and Higley was in the habit of paying his bar bill with his own coinage. There was a cry against this for the Higley copper threepence was of a diameter no larger than the contemporary British halfpennies which circulated in the area; coins which had a value of just 1/6th of that stated on the Higley coin. Thus, to state that this "halfpenny" was worth threepence was a bold affront. Accordingly, Higley redesigned his coinage so that the obverse legend was changed to read VALUE ME AS YOU PLEASE. The pieces still bore an indication of value, somewhat subtle, the Roman numeral III below the standing deer. Two new reverses were designed, one of which pictured three hammers with the inscription I AM GOOD COPPER. The other reverse, picturing a broad axe, had the legend I CUT MY WAY THROUGH. The third obverse design, of which only a single specimen is known, depicted a wagon wheel with the legend THE WHEELE GOES ROUND.

While on a voyage to England in May 1737, on a ship loaded with copper from his own mine, Samuel Higley died. His oldest son, John, together with Rev. Timothy Woodbridge and William Cradock probably engraved and struck the issues of 1739.





Excerpts from the University of Notre Dame, Department of Special Collections website: Samuel Higley (1687-1737) of Simsbury (now East Granby), Connecticut was a Yale graduate who had studied medicine with Samuel Mather and Thomas Hooker. Apparently he also learned metallurgical and mining skills because in 1728 the Connecticut General Court granted Higley exclusive rights for the making of steel in the colony for a period of ten years. That same year Higley purchased 143 acres located about a mile and a half south of an area called Copper Hill, which had been a copper mining center since 1712. Higley discovered copper on his land and soon began mining ore. Apparently little else is known for certain about Higley's association with coining.

Although no documentary evidence exists directly linking Higley to the minting of coins, since colonial times he has been associated with the Connecticut copper tokens first produced in 1737 . Also, it appears Higley had the skill to make steel dies necessary for minting. Apparently, as Samuel Higley's exclusive privilege for making steel was about to expire he decided to get into the business of minting copper coins.

The scarcity of Higley coppers has been attributed to a quote from a goldsmith at the start of the Nineteenth century who mentioned Higley coppers were a reliable source of the pure copper which was required in making gold alloys but that it was very difficult to find them anymore. Daniel Freidus has done a metallurgical analysis of the copper in Higley tokens and found them to be quite pure but no better than other coppers of the period, which he states were mostly 98-99% pure copper. Thus, he concluded, "If Higleys were perceived as purer, it may have been a eighteenth-century myth that led to their selective use by goldsmiths, not an eighteenth-century fact." Possibly the legend I AM GOOD COPPER not only helped insure the acceptance of this token but may have also played a role in its destruction.





Excerpts From "The Early Coins of America" by Sylvester S. Crosby: The Granby or Higley Tokens are supposed to have been struck by John Higley of Granby, from metal obtained from the mines at 'Copper Hill' in that town, then part of Simsbury, in the State of Connecticut. The authorities appear to have taken no notice of his issues of coin, which seem to have continued for about three years, -- from 1737 to 1739 inclusive, -- specimens being extant bearing these dates, though we know of none dated 1738....

It has been said that these were the work of Dr. Samuel Higley, a physician and blacksmith: as he was not living in 1737, this must be an error.

These coppers, owing to the fine quality of the metal of which they were composed, were much in favor as an alloy for gold, and it is probably due in part to this cause that they are now so extremely rare. We are informed of an old goldsmith, aged about seventy-five years, that during his apprenticeship, his master excused himself for not having finished a string of gold beads at the time appointed, as he was unable to find a Higley copper with which to alloy the gold; thus indicating that they were not easily obtained sixty years ago.

We have heard it related of Higley, that being a frequent visitant at the public house, where at that time liquors were a common and unprohibited article of traffic, he was accustomed to pay his 'scot' in his own coin, and the coffers of the dram-seller soon became overburdened with this kind of cash, (an experience not at all likely to cause trouble to collectors of the present day,) of the type which proclaims its own value to be equal to what was then the price of a 'potation,' -- three pence. When complaint was made to Higley, upon his next application for entertainment, which was after a somewhat longer absence than was usual with him, he presented coppers bearing the words, 'Value me as you please' 'I am good copper'. Whether this 'change of base' facilitated the financial designs of the ancient coiner, or not, we have never been informed: sure we are however, that should he be aware of the immense appreciation in the value of his coppers, since that day, it would amply reward him for the insulting conduct of the publican. We cannot vouch for the truth of this 'legend,' but we believe those first issued bore the words, 'The value of three pence," and, whatever the cause, subsequent issues more modestly requested the public to value them according to their own ideas of propriety, although they did not refrain from afterwards proclaiming their own merits.

We extract the following information relating to the place where the metal for these coppers was obtained, from Phelp's History of the Copper Mines and Newgate Prison at Granby, Conn: -- 'After 1721, when a division of the mining lands took place among the lessees, each company worked at separate mines, all situated upon copper-hill, and (excepting Higley's) within the compass of less than one mile...At Higley's mine, which lies about a mile and a half south of this, extensive old workings exist, though commenced at a later period than the other. Mr. Edmund Quincy, of Boston, had a company of miners working at this place at the breaking out of the war of the revolution; soon after which the works were abandoned.'








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Sources:
PCGS Coin Guide (http://www.pcgscoinguide.com/display_guidesubcat.chtml?guidecategoryid=47&end=here&category_description=Colonials&subcat_description=Higley Copper Coinage&universeid=313&guidesubcategoryid=983 )

PCGS CoinFacts ( http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/Hierarchy.aspx?c=810 )
University of Notre Dame, Department of Special Collections website (http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinIntros/Higley.intro.html )

“The Higley Copper and Copper Mining in Connecticut”, by John Carter (http://geology.com/articles/higley-copper-mining.shtml )

East Granby - From the Memorial History of Hartford County, CT, Edited by: J Hammond Trumbull LL.D., Published by Edward L. Osgood, 1886, transcribed by CHARLES HORACE CLARKE (http://history.rays-place.com/ct/east-granby.htm )