The country store of the earliest times was a more emphatic collection
of multitudinous varieties of articles, if possible, than the later
place of local public traffic. Then, as now, the local store was the
principal resort of the great commonalty. Men of special vocations
sometimes took a stock of products to the lower country and bartered for
goods to bring back and distribute among their neighbors, and the
itinerant merchant, or pedlar, reaped a much better harvest than now;
but the country store was a popular necessity and well patronized. At
first there was less trading in domestic luxuries; the goods in store
represented the common necessities. Since the popular idea of necessity
does not fully exclude the illusory principle, we have to admit rum,
gin, brandy, etc., into the former list of domestic staples. Cash and
barter were entertained by every tradesman, to whom the populace largely
looked for advantageous exchanges of substance. The progress of the
settlement was attended by the extension, and to some extent by the
classification, of trade till the time when Hopkinton assumed the
commercial importance described in a previous article.
The currency employed in the transaction of business was at first
nominally English, though Spanish milled dollars were in circulation.
One of the inconveniences of the early settlers of New England was a
scarcity of money. The different provincial governments sought to
relieve the public financial burdens by the issue of Bills of Credit, a
currency mentioned in the records of this town as “old tenor.” Such a
circulating medium in such a time could only depreciate in value, but,
following a custom obtaining in the old country, the purchasing value of
these bills could from time to time be fixed by the local legislatures.
About the year 1750, it was established throughout the provinces that £1
in the currency of the Bills of Credit should be equivalent to two
shillings and eight pence lawful money, and that six shillings should be
equal to one dollar.
The preliminary events of the Revolution involved the establishment of a
system of Continental currency. At the time of the first issue of a
paper circulating medium, in 1775, the Continental notes were nearly at
par with gold, but they soon fell to comparative nothingness in value.
The effect of this collapse in monetary matters was amply illustrated in
the public transactions of the town of Hopkinton. At a town meeting held
in 1781, it was voted that the price of a day’s work on the highway, by
a man, should be $30; the price of a day’s work by a yoke of oxen, $30;
the price of a plow and cart, $10 each. The salary of the Rev. Elijah
Fletcher, second minister of the town, was also voted to be $4000 for
the year, but the reverend pastor preferred to accept £70 in gold
equivalents, and declined the larger nominal sum. The success of the
American cause, and the permanent establishment of the public credit,
gave a correspondingly improved aspect to local affairs, and in later
times this town has experienced fluctuations in prices in common with
the general country.
During the period of Hopkinton’s greater importance as a commercial
station, a bank was maintained here for a few years. The institution was
known as the Franklin Bank, and was incorporated in 1833. The grantees
were Horace Chase, Nathaniel Gilman, Isaac Long, Jr., William Little,
Joseph Stanwood, Matthew Harvey, Andrew Leach, Moses Gould, Ebenezer
Dustin, Timothy Chandler, Stephen Darling, and James Huse. The
operations of this bank seem to have been exceedingly bungling during
the short term of its existence, and it finally settled with its
creditors at ninety cents on a dollar. The Franklin Bank occupied the
building now used by the Hopkinton Public Library.
The standard of quantities to be recognized in commercial transactions
has, from remote times, been a subject of legal regulation. The weights
and measures first used in this town were the standards of older
communities. In a record made in the year 1804, the town of Hopkinton
declared the local standard to be as follows:
WEIGHTS
OF IRON.
1 56 lbs.
1 28 lbs.
1 24 lbs.
1 7 lbs.
WEIGHTS
OF BRASS.
1 4 lbs.
1 2 lbs.
1 1 lb.
1 ½ lb.
1 2 oz.
1 1 oz.
1 ½ oz.
1 ¼ oz.
For the use of the above weights the town recognized “two small scale
beams with brass dishes,” and also “one large scale beam with boards,
and strung with iron wires.” The _wooden dry measures_ were specific as
1 half-bushel, 1 peck, 1 half-peck, 1 two-quart, and 1 quart; while the
_copper liquid measures_ were started to be 1 gallon, 1 two-quart, 1
quart, 1 pint, 1 half-pint, and 1 gill.
By legal requirement, the standard of weights and measures is regulated
by a town sealer to this day, such officer being chosen annually at the
town-meeting in March, but the modern improvements and facilities for
determining quantities have made a practically dead letter of the
present law requiring his selection.
For many years a public hay-scales occupied a site in the rear of the
Congregational meeting-house. It was simply an immense scale beam and
platform, the whole apparatus being covered with a roof. It long ago
passed away to give place to the modern hay-scales.