| Show FIRST Us S COIN SHILLING OF 1652 melted candlesticks used to make silver piece on may 26 1632 1652 john hull bull minted the first piece of silver for use nse in the american colonies feeling the need of a satisfying medium bedlum of exchange the boston colonists induced the legislature to enact a statute permitting the coinage of money in the colony john hull bull a boston householder offered to erect a building at his expense on his own land to be used as a mint ills his proposition was accepted and he was made master of the mint As compensation he was wag to receive one shilling for every twenty that he minted for the colony so out near the barn on his property he built a one room shack 10 feet wide and 10 16 feet long iong and here in this unpainted building was minted the first shilling in the colonies the event was hawked by an absolute absence of ceremony ue he went about the task in the same matter of fact way that he would have approached the task of in candles 11 using sing an english shilling as a model this first minting of a few silver pieces was a days job hull and a friend melted up some silver candlesticks in an oven built of field stones it required a long time to get the oven hot enough with the wood they were using as fuel however late in the afternoon the two men were ready to pour the molten silver into flat moulds at this point mrs bull appeared on the scene to persua persuade dp them to eat supper which they did unwillingly after supper they returned to work by candle light first they removed the silver that had bad cooled in flat slabs and pounded it down to the right thinness then with a heavy hammer and a punch they cut out the discs on one side of which they stamped H N M B standing for new england and on the other XII denoting 12 pence finally they weighed each disc separately ara tely it the dise disc weighed more than 72 grains they cut off a piece which Is why most of them are of such irregular shape thus with crude tools and methods did the first colonial shilling come unceremoniously into being |
