The study of European money and medals issued for prisoners of war in
1914-1918, aroused—little wonder—the curiosity as to whether similar
items came into existence in this country too. No war prisoners money or
medal originating in the last war is known to the author. In his
collection, however, five related items are found, four small tokens and
one large medal, which are deserving the historian’s and medallist’s
attention. All of them picture war prisons of ill fame. Four pertain to
the Revolutionary War, the fifth to the Civil War. Thus it is pertinent
to consider them all in this connection.
[Illustration: No. 3A
The Old Provoost, New York]
Nos. 3 A, 3 B, 4 and 5 are copper tokens, each 31 millimeters in
diameter. They are not “historical” items in that they have come down to
us as immediate witnesses from the period of the Revolutionary War. They
are rather medallic creations of an outspoken commercial character, but
nevertheless “historical” tokens. Nos. 3 A and 3 B are identical with
No. 1 of a series of fourteen “Historical Tokens” issued by August B.
Sage, a well-known New York coin dealer, in 1859. No. 4 in the present
numbering is identical with No. 2, and No. 5 with No. 5 of the same
series. On the first page of his _Catalogue of Coins, Medals and
Tokens_, No. 1, of February 1859, Mr. Sage announced that “this series
will consist of about 25 tokens, each one giving a correct
representation of some public building around which there is anything of
an historical interest.” No more than fourteen tokens were actually
issued of this series. All of them were advertised in Mr. Sage’s later
catalogue of June 1859. They were executed in copper plain edge and in
copper and brass with reeded edges. In 1859, the set was offered for
sale for $4.00. Mules in copper, brass, and tin are known. Of No. 1 and
No. 6 two dies were made: in both cases the original die showed some
mistakes in picture or legend which were corrected in the second die. In
Chapman’s catalogue of the Bushnell collection a specimen of No. 1 in
silver is listed as No. 462. It was described as of “weak impression,
but very rare.”
No. 3 A shows on its obverse a three-story building. On top a
fourth-story attic is added with four dormer windows. Above the roof
rises an octagon-shaped tower surrounded by a balustrade and surmounted
by a cupola ending in a cross. On the front side of the building at the
level of the main floor an empty space is visible. It was probably
designated in the draft for a gate or entrance door which is, however,
missing. The building is surrounded by a fence. In the lowest part of
the obverse, a large asterisk is placed between two smaller ones. The
top space contains the inscription: THE OLD PROVOOST, N. Y. The reverse
has the following legend arranged in five lines A/ BRITISH/ BRISON/
DURING THE/ REVOLUTION. The third word reads _B_rison, and not Prison.
This inscription is placed within the chain of shackles in a wreath-like
arrangement. The endings converge but do not meet, in the lower part of
the obverse. Between the open ends one reads: NO. 1, and underneath in
smaller letters parallel to the rim: AUG. B. SAGE’S HISTORICAL TOKENS.
[Illustration: No. 3B
The Old Provoost, New York
(Revised Edition)]
No. 3 B, of the same type and make looking almost identical with, but
differing in details from No. 3 A, must be considered as a “revised
edition” of the latter. The obverse is identical with that of No. 3 A
with only one deviation: No. 3 B has an entrance door instead of the
empty space in the front wall of the building. The reverse shows more
divergencies. The wording and arrangement of the main inscription are
identical with that of No. 3 A. But the mistake in the word PRISON is
here corrected, the B having been replaced by a P. In 3 B the
surrounding open chain occupies only the upper half of the margin, while
the title of the token series takes its place in the corresponding space
in the lower half: “AUG. B. SAGE’S HISTORICAL TOKENS.” The half-circles
of the chain in the upper part and of the series title in the lower part
thus form a kind of wreath surrounding the main inscription of five
lines. The numeral, No. 1, appears here in the lower part and is
separated from the last line of the inscription, REVOLUTION, by a small
asterisk between two brief exergual lines. Asterisk and lines are
missing in No. 3 A.
Both types of the token, 3 A as well as 3 B, have on the obverse below
the left corner of the fence, the initial L, representing the name of
the engraver, George H. Lovett, who is listed in the New York City
Directory of 1859 as die-sinker at 131 Fulton Street. He executed all
the Sage tokens and several very pretty Washington medals.
The medallic picture of the “Old Provoost” is undoubtedly based on
Alexander J. Davis’s (1803-1892) drawing that was engraved by Alexander
Anderson (1775-1870) and reproduced in _The New York Mirror_ of
September 10, 1831, in John Pintard’s article, “The Old Jail.”
The site of this “modern bastille” was City Hall Park. It was built as
the second jail, in succession, in the City of New York in 1757 and
completed in 1759. In the revolutionary period it was memorable during
the occupation of the City by the British forces, from 1776 to 1783, as
a British military prison, known as “Provost” and later as “Martyr’s
Prison”, still later as “Debtor’s Prison”. In 1830 it was reconstructed
and fitted to receive public records, henceforth known as “Register’s
Office” or “Hall of Records”. It was finally demolished in 1903 to make
way for the Subway. Coins, buttons, and human bones were found in the
excavation. A tablet, erected in 1907, on a granite monument in the Park
still marks the site of the “Old Provost.”
This British military prison, under the superintendence of the ill-famed
Captain Cunningham, Provost-Marshall—from whom it took its name—and his
deputy, Sergeant Keefe, was the scene of great brutalities to American,
or, in the language of the times, “rebel” prisoners during the
Revolution. The Provost was destined, as John Pintard, the meritorious
New York historian, tells us, for the more notorious rebels, civil,
naval, and military. An admission into this prison was enough to appall
the stoutest heart. On the second floor, called derisively “Congress
Hall,” prisoners of note were confined, citizens of distinction and many
American officers, among them the famous Colonel Ethan Allen and Judge
Fell, of Bergen county, New Jersey. Could these dumb walls speak, John
Pintard exclaims, what scenes of anguish, what tales of agonizing woe,
might they disclose. In his aforementioned article he gave a vivid
account of the “Old Jail’s” history well known to him from the personal
reminiscences of many a distinguished prisoner still living in his day.
For naval “rebels” a similar function as that of the “Old Provost” for
civil and military “rebels” was fulfilled by “prison-ships.” On board of
such vessels seamen were subjected to every possible hardship, to compel
them to enter into the British service. As is well known, prison-ships
were old vessels-of-war which had been condemned as unseaworthy, and
unfit for store or hospital ships, and converted to this, the last use
to which they could be applied. One of them has gained medallic
interest, the “_Old Jersey Prison Ship_,” which was included as No. 5 in
A. B. Sage’s series of “Historical Tokens.” It is No. 4 in the present
essay.
[Illustration: No. 4
The Old Jersey Prison Ship]
On the obverse the center of the medallic space is occupied by a
representation of the _Jersey_ as it is found on contemporary
engravings. In the upper space one reads: THE OLD JERSEY. Underneath the
ship an anchor is pictured between two skulls and bones. The engraver’s
initial L is missing on this token. The reverse shows the same
arrangement as found in all Sage’s prison tokens. The open shackles in
half-circle in the upper space together with the half-circular
designation AUG. B. SAGE’S HISTORICAL TOKENS surround the following
legend: A/ BRITISH/ PRISON/ DURING THE/ REVOLUTION. The last word stands
between two ornamental lines, the lower consisting of three big stars
flanked on each side by a group of three small stars. Underneath one
reads: No. 5.
The prison-ship _Jersey_ built in 1736 was a fourth-rate ship of the
line, mounting sixty guns, and carrying a crew of four hundred men. She
was first used as one of the Channel fleet, later sent repeatedly to the
Mediterranean Sea, to Spain, the West Indies, Newfoundland, and was
active in several naval engagements. Already in 1747 the _Jersey_ was
laid up as evidently unfit for active service. On the renewal of
hostilities with France, in 1756, she was refitted for service and again
operated in the Mediterranean. She continued in active service until
1763 when she returned to England and was laid up once more. But in 1766
the _Jersey_ was again commissioned and sailed for America in 1769. At
that time, the active duty of that ship appears to have been brought to
a close, since she remained out of commission from 1769 to 1776. In this
year the _Jersey_ was ordered, without armament, to New York as a
hospital-ship. In the latter part of the year 1781 she was fitted as a
prison-ship and was used for that purpose during the remainder of the
Revolutionary War. “She remained until the termination of the British
authority in New York, when she was abandoned to the fate to which she
was justly entitled, and was subsequently overwhelmed in the mud of the
Wale bogt, where she remains to this day.” An abundant literature of
memoirs, letters, and lists of the prisoners tells the story of this
prison-ship and its inmates by whose blood and sufferings the
independence of the United States and the civil and religious privileges
all of us can now enjoy, were achieved and purchased.
[Illustration: No. 5
City Hall, Wall Street, New York]
Two more of Sage’s tokens have undertaken to memorialize other Civil War
prisons. In design and execution they are similar to the tokens
described here. No. 2 of Sage’s “Historical Token” series pictures on
its obverse a large building and has the following inscription: CITY
HALL, WALL ST. N. Y. ERECTED IN 1700/ DEMOLISHED/ 1812. The obverse is
very similar to that of No. 3 A, the uncorrected No. 1 of Sage’s
historical series, two skull and bones emblems having been added. A
specimen is in the author’s collection. I. N. Phelps Stokes’
_Iconography of Manhattan Island: 1498-1909_ (Vol. VI, 1928. p. 539, s.
v. City Hall) does not give, however, any evidence that this building
was used as a British prison during the Revolution. It is different in
the case of _Livingston’s Sugar-House_. which was located on the South
side of Liberty Street, New York City, adjoining the Dutch Church
graveyard east of Nassau Street. This building was chosen by Mr. Sage as
the subject of another token, No. 2 in his series “Odds and Ends,”
executed in the very same manner as all the other tokens. Its obverse
bears the inscription: OLD SUGAR HOUSE LIBERTY ST., N. Y. FOUNDED 1689/
DEMOLISHED 1840.