CHAPTER VI.

A manufactory of base coin in the Province of Quebec--A clever penman--Incident at a trial--The gang of forgers broken up--“Stump-tail money”--Calves or land?--Ashbridge’s hotel, Toronto--Attempted robbery by Indians--The shooting of an Indian dog and the consequences.

I referred in the last chapter to the Spanish milled dollars in which military services were paid for. Mexican dollars were also in vogue, and a few years previous to the American War of 1812, some enterprising New England counterfeiters, fancying the densely-wooded portion of Lower Canada, near the state lines, would afford a secure base for their operations, emigrated to our lower province. These Mexican silver dollars were used as a currency for small moneys almost to the exclusion of British coins. The reason for this was because these Mexican unmilled dollars were of pure silver, almost without alloy, and were worth, intrinsically, rather more than their face value. In these forests the counterfeiters set up their presses and dies, and succeeded in making Mexican dollars so very nearly like the genuine ones that they passed unquestioned. Indeed, there was no limit to the amount these fellows could produce, or as to the amount of wealth they could accumulate thereby; that is to say, so far as wealth could be accumulated in those early days among forest fastnesses. However, this band had good houses constructed, and as well furnished as they could be at that early day. One of the traditions about them is that they were in the habit of throwing a dollar into the spittoon when they wanted it cleaned, which perhaps shows they had all the hired help that money could in those days give them. They appear to have lived a free-booting sort of life and to have enjoyed such luxuries as money could command. So expert had they become at the business that paymasters in the American army actually crossed over the lines by stealth, through the woods, and bought these Mexican dollars from the counterfeiters to pay the American troops with. This is a fact, anomalous as it may seem, and no doubt these paymasters reaped rich harvests by these transactions. As an illustration of the cleverness of these counterfeiters I will note that at one time they actually passed four thousand of their coins on one of the banks in Montreal.

We may, therefore, assume that as counterfeiters they had arrived at considerable perfection. The flooding of the Province of Quebec with these Mexican dollars somewhat disarranged the even flow of trade transactions.

On the close of the American war, however, these Mexican dollars were gradually taken out of circulation. The genuine ones were mostly taken to England to be recoined into British shillings and sixpences. This altered state of affairs caused these counterfeiters to pause in their career, and they ceased to produce the Mexican dollars for fear they might be traced out. Counterfeiting bank-notes was what they next turned their hands to. In those days the “greenback” had not been invented, the engravings on the bills were not very elaborate, and they found some one among them who could cut the die plate of a bill. Thus far they had got on well, but the signatures to the bills presented an almost insuperable obstacle. That oft-repeated remark, that “the old fellow always helps his own,” was true in their case at least. One of their number was found so clever with the pen that he could imitate the signatures to perfection. It is asserted that this signer claimed as his share for affixing the signatures a full share in all the band’s proceeds, and he was to do nothing else at all. The other members were to do all the work and he only did the writing, and lived like a gentleman in what had then become a small village in Quebec, near the province line. He had a fine house, carriages and servants; held several offices of trust, and had even rare and costly bound books in his library. Indeed, he seemed to be a person of culture in every way, and no one for a moment suspected him of any complicity in such a nefarious business as counterfeiting.

To show how clever he was as a penman, I will tell this anecdote by way of illustration. Some twenty thousand dollars’ worth of promissory notes had been sued in some court in the State of Vermont. The signature on these notes was disputed by the reputed maker, and a defence set up that they were forgeries. This important case was thoroughly defended by the ablest counsel of the day, and yet the case seemed likely to go against the maker of the notes. Happening to get a hint, this attorney for the defence quietly asked all the attorneys in the court to write their names on a half-sheet of foolscap, which he produced, torn carelessly from the other half-sheet.

Each one wrote his name. Then this attorney for the defence brought the signatures to this person who did the bank-note signing in Quebec. On the other half-sheet of foolscap this more than expert penman reproduced in exact fac-simile the attorneys’ names. Back into court he came with the two half-sheets of foolscap, one containing the genuine signatures and the other the forged ones, but both sheets alike in every respect, even as to jagged edges, where torn asunder, and every other particular.

Each signing attorney was then put in the witness box and asked to swear to his signature. Not one of them could do it. This fact threw doubts in the minds of the jury as to the genuineness of the signature of the notes, and the defendant got a verdict of “not guilty.”

As the country continued to be flooded with these notes, the Government finally began tracing their issue to the fountain head, and suddenly and without warning made a descent upon this respectable citizen’s fine house. Not a scrap could be found to incriminate him, and the searchers were about to leave with apologies, when, happening to look in the attic, they found a single unused die, which one of the gang had thoughtlessly left there.

The finding of this die of course caused his arrest, and he and two others were put on trial for their lives. Forgery in that day in Quebec merited the death penalty of the law. They had moved to Canada, however, for protection, and even in this instance Canada did not fail to protect them still. They had forged only notes of the state banks of the United States, and it seems that our law could not fairly get hold of them for forging the notes of a foreign country, and they got off scot-free. But the prosecution broke them up and they fled, having lost their pseudo-respectability.

It is asserted that this expert penman and cultivated man afterwards migrated to the United States, became an inmate of nearly all the penitentiaries the United States then possessed, and finally died in one of them. So, in this instance, as ever, the way of the transgressor was hard, although seemingly so fair for so long a time.

“Can you tell me where I can buy shingles?” for many years after the breaking up of the gang was one of the formulas which strangers used when coming into the former counterfeiters’ locality to buy counterfeit money. A man of sixty-five now tells that when a lad he once in the spring packed his bundle in his handkerchief, swung it over his shoulder on a stick, and sallied out looking for work. A stylish team passed him, driven by two men, whom he asked for a ride. And they gave him a ride, and asked him while on the way “where they could buy some shingles?” Not knowing, he could not tell them, but his curiosity was aroused to know what men, dressed as they were, and with so fine a team and so light a rig, should want with shingles. Finally, after repeated inquiries, some one on the way told them to turn off the road, and back in the woods they would find “shingles.” It is asserted that for some years after the close of the American War of 1812 this counterfeit money had, among those who dealt in it, a certain market value. Sometimes the dollar was worth as much as forty cents, and at other times it had a greater value. Other catch words were used and known among those who dealt in this commodity besides “shingles,” but this term seems to have been most used and most generally known.

A long time it took to rid that part of Quebec of the remaining stamps and dies, and to stamp out the counterfeiting entirely. But as the country became more settled up and the roads improved it was gradually stopped. So far as I can ascertain, this narrative contains an account of the most systematized and successful series of forgeries our country at that time had.

Some of these clever New England forgers knew when to stop. One of them, it is said, moved away to New Jersey and bought a fine farm there from the proceeds of his forgeries in Canada, and lived the life of a country gentleman until his death.

The strangest part of this tale is yet to follow. I got it from the lips of a resident in the West, a close observer and likely to know.

In the early settlements of the Western States bordering on the Mississippi River, each state issued bills which were almost valueless in any other state. All sorts of forgeries were committed on these state bank bills. This money came to be known as “stump tail money,” and amidst the general confusion of currencies and hasty settlements the forgers were enabled to reap rich harvests. The forgers began to be caught and driven still further west to the Missouri River, as the States became better settled and things settled down generally. Nearly all of those forgers who were caught acknowledged that they were descendants of the gang of forgers whom I have been speaking of on the province line in Quebec. And more, they said in their confessions, that those who got away were likewise of the same descent. From this it would appear that in the guild of forgers the faculties are transmitted to succeeding generations, like those of caste in India.

I have said that in the early days of the century the settlers in Ontario did not entertain very correct ideas as to the prospective value of lands. The following anecdote of that time will illustrate this: Levi Annis, descended from Charles Annis, already alluded to, when about eighteen years of age had made a little money on his own account by trapping. He had saved enough money to buy himself a couple of bull calves six months old, and calculated to secure them. Just before he got to buying them, it came to his knowledge that for the same sum which he would pay for the calves he could buy outright 100 acres of land. For some days he was in doubt whether to buy the calves or the hundred acres. He asked his friends, and they reasoned that there was lots of land, and land he could buy any time, but calves were scarce and he had better buy them when he could. Consequently he bought the calves and let the land alone. To show how lightly land was valued in those days I make the comparison. But this is not at all in relation to the bargain. Had he bought the 100 acres of land, which he thought of doing, even before his death he would have seen a part of the town of Oshawa built upon it. To-day there is upon this land a large manufactory and numerous dwellings, and its value at this time is almost beyond estimating. Had he bought the land and simply kept it, and literally done nothing else, it would have made a rich man of him. But he chose the calves, and it is evident in the light of the subsequent events that his choice was a poor one.

An Indian tale of 1800 comes to my mind which my forefathers have told to me. In the early days the settlers had to devise plans to keep their sheep from the wolves. As their flocks increased their next great difficulty was to keep their sheep from the Indians’ dogs. The first settlements were, of course, along the shores of the great lakes, Ontario and Erie. Twice a year, spring and fall, the Indians would come out from the woods to fish in those lakes and marshes, and at the outlets of the streams. So numerous were the Indians at that time that they far outnumbered the whites, and when they came for the semi-annual fish they would form a regular village, as they congregated in their tents beside the shore of some marsh or bay upon the great lakes.

The settlers’ policy was one pre-eminently of conciliation to the Indians. But they would at every visit be accompanied by a lot of half-starved, ill-favored curs, which would worry the settlers’ sheep. At one visit they had a particularly large gaunt brute of a dog, which badly worried a sheep of my forefather. He remonstrated with the chief, and desired him to keep the dog at the camp, which he promised to do. Nightly he penned his sheep as usual, to keep off the wolves, but during the day this dog continued to worry them when out of sight among the log and brush on the partially cleared fields, and finally killed one. My people resolved to suffer it no longer, and at great risk of their lives and property shot the Indian dog--dead as they supposed. Then they took the dog that the Indians might not find him, and know that they had shot him, and put him in a hollow pine stub, the top of which stood some ten feet from the ground, and which was hollow to the bottom. Bury the dog they dared not, because the sharp-eyed Indian would discover the newly-turned earth and fish it out, and they knew they could not otherwise hide him successfully. That evening about forty Indians came looking for the animal, and searched every place, probable and improbable, indoors and out, and my people dared not refuse them admittance. Without a doubt my forefather will be pardoned for “telling a white one” when he averred that he had not got the dog. At this juncture it became by far too serious to jest or prevaricate, for their lives literally depended upon the Indians’ successful search for that canine. Search as they would, however, they did not find it, and darkness gratefully set in and put an end to their investigation for that day. But little sleep the settlers were able to take that night through dead fear that the Indians might possibly find the cur. Next morning, just at the first peep of day, my forefather was up and out to the stump, when to his intense astonishment and disgust the dog was barking and scratching within the stub to get out. He had not been effectually killed, and had come back again to life. Now here was a dilemma, and what was to be done? To get up on the stub and fire at the dog again was more than he dared, for it would arouse the Indians only half a mile away.

An expedient he soon hit upon, however, and he resolved that day to go to logging that he might burn the stub without arousing the keen suspicion of the Indians. Yoking his oxen, a pile of logs was soon gathered about the stub and set on fire. The dog’s cries grew fainter and to him beautifully less, and finally ceased. But he did not dare to stop the logging for the day, and worked at it faithfully all day, whether he wished to or not, that no suspicion might rest upon him for the burning of the pine stub. It is needless to add that the Indians did not get the dog, and that they never found out what became of him. At this time this may seem a simple story to tell, but to the participants it was a life-and-death matter, and I have heard my forefathers say that the old man would have gladly given all his sheep, dearly as he prized them, could he have recalled that shot, when he heard the dog howling the next morning in the stub.