Fiscal Documents: Massachusetts
  • Table of Contents
  • Fiscal Documents Index

    Colonial Fiscal Documents

    Massachusetts

    Treasury Certificates - December 1, 1777
    obv

    MA Treasury Certificate         6 % interest        due March 1, 1781

    Anderson   MA-10         Certificate No. 771           Dated December 1, 1777

    Amount £159 1s                   To: Alexander Hill


    Dimensions: 200 x 194mm (border dimensions: 179 x 188mm, horizontal dimension measured from inner right edge of the left border in the indented portion of the note to the right outside border).


    Indented treasury certificate authorized by the General Court on October 13, 1777. Blank certificates were signed by a committee of John Scollay, Ezekiel Price (in red ink) and Peter Boyer. When completed certificates were signed by the Treasurer of the Commonwealth, Henry Gardner. Upon redemption the treasurer's signature was cancelled with an XX and the certificate was embossed with a seal showing a handshake with a partly legible motto "Dat vires...". The back is blank.

    Comments: Engraved by Nathaniel Hurd in Boston with the vignette of a soldier with a sword in his right hand and a scroll with "Independence" in his left. Around this is the state legend "Ense petit placidum sub libertate quietem." (By the sword one seeks peace under tranquil liberty). The entire symbol is encircled by a rattlesnake.

    Provenance: EANA mail bid auction 04/20/96 lot 475. Purchased through the Robert H. Gore, Jr. Numismatic Endowment.