A good friend and I were watching television on Sunday and a little fun fact popped up on the screen: The Spanish milled dollar was the unofficial currency of the U.S. for much of the 17th and 18th centuries. This fact -- for it is a fact -- caught my seasoned historian friend by surprise. For much of the nations early history, day to day hard money (specie) for most Americans consisted of the Spanish milled dollar (milled because the edges were ridged to make tampering obvious) whole and as chopped change, the Spanish reale and half reale (worth 25 cents and 12 1/2 cents), and the large red copper cent. These coins are mentioned again and again in books about travel and road culture in the early days of the republic and well into the 19th century. So, if you were at an inn for a night, how would you pay your bill?
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 16:21:35 +0000
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